When fear and anxiety get traded for confidence, self-esteem, freedom and healing!

WARNING: Expect to encounter ads, apps and webpages that will encourage, tease and entice you into giving e-cigs or replacement nicotine a try. If you've stopped using nicotine for 72 hours then your blood and body are now 100% nicotine-free. For you, withdrawal has peaked and is beginning to gradually subside. For you, the hardest part is over. The only way to guarantee that your cycle of physical withdrawal is a never ending story is to introduce nicotine back into your bloodstream. It's called the "Law of Addiction."

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The first week of recovery may be the most intense period of healing that your brain, emotions, mind and thinking have ever known. The consequences of skipping another once mandatory nicotine feeding can be both frightening and exciting. By shedding as much needless fear as possible, you allow yourself to better notice and appreciate the gradual beauty unfolding before you - the beauty of the long lost inner "you."

Every withdrawal symptom, crave episode, emotion or moment of conscious use fixation can either be seen as utterly horrible, or a true sign of healing and rock solid evidence of just how dependency infected your life had become.

You can try to hide from your nicotine use cues or come to realize that rarely if ever will any crave episode last longer than three minutes (look at a clock as cessation time distortion is very real and without perspective the minutes can feel like hours), and at the end of each you are rewarded with the breaking of another use cue and return of another slice of life. Yes, each challenge overcome teaches your conscious and subconscious mind that another aspect of life is entirely do-able without feeding upon nicotine.

Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of that next challenge, you are coming home to a rich inner calm that an endless roller-coaster ride of nicotine use highs and lows has made long forgotten.

Although your dependency may have you totally convinced otherwise, you are leaving absolutely nothing behind. Except for nicotine, the roughly 200 neuro-chemicals it controlled already belonged to you. Recovery is about discovering that nicotine addiction is about living a lie, that every activity done while using can be done as well or better without it. Even the love in our heart, we get to bring it with us!

Every symptom, feeling, crave, and use thought reflects a moment and degree of healing on a physical, emotional, subconscious or conscious level.

Physical healing is primarily a product of time. Within 72 hours we move beyond peak withdrawal and reside inside a nicotine-free body and mind. Within 2-3 weeks our brain will have physically re-adjusted to functioning without nicotine, as neuron receptor re-sensitization will be complete.

Emotional recovery reflects phases of feelings experienced during an expectations journey that transports us from disbelief to acceptance, as we end a long and intense chemical relationship.

Subconscious trigger extinguishment is a product of meeting, greeting and defeating our own conditioning. Most trigger links will be broken by a single encounter during which we intentionally say "no" to our subconscious mind and deprive it of what it expects - a new supply of nicotine.

With the exception of taking tremendous care with alcohol (which is involved in nearly 50% of relapses), there is no reason to delay reclaiming as many of the times, activities, people, locations and emotions as possible that you trained your mind to expect more nicotine. The choice is ours, we can dread our healing or embrace and accelerate it.

Although time, fading memories and new nicotine-free memories will gradually overcome our years of conscious denial rationalizations , and the endless stream of daily lies we fed ourselves in order to justify that next nicotine fix, honesty can accelerate putting conscious thoughts of "wanting" behind us.

For example, we likely sold ourselves on the falsehoods that smoking is a stress-buster, that we liked or loved smoking, or that we can quit and then use "just one" or "just once" here and there.

And how can smokers claim to smoke for flavor or taste when there are zero taste buds inside our lungs, the place we deeply sucked and briefly held each puff?

Right now, it may be hard to imagine life without nicotine but so long as no nicotine makes its way into your bloodstream you won't have to rely on imagination. You now have a front row seat as the unimaginable unfolds before you.

This can be a time of dread, agony, anguish, anger and fear, or we can dump needless anxieties in favor of the excitement about coming home, and this temporary journey of re-adjustment that leads to entire days where we never once think about wanting to use.

Although it may sound strange, stive to get as comfortable as possible being temporarily uncomfortable. Just one hour and challenge at a time, before you know it, significant challenges (if any) will be over.

But let us never forget that no matter how long we are free or how comfortable we become that our chemical dependency is permanent, that our brain remains grooved and wired for nicotine. While we will have successfully arrested our dependency, the key to trading places with it is just one powerful puff, vape, dip or chew of nicotine. Just one guiding principle that if followed guarantees success to all ... no nicotine just one day at a time, Never Take Another Puff, Vape, Dip or Chew!

Here are a few links to aid in transforming fear into excitement:

Daily Quitting Lesson Guide

Just one hour and challenge at a time, yes you can!

  Browse the "First 72 Hours" topics at Freedom

While a few withdrawal symptoms may be avoidable, many can be minimized through thought or action.

  Spend time each day in Joel's Library

Over 90 short articles on almost every recovery topic imaginable. Almost 500 YouTube video cessation lessons. Also, be sure to read Joel's free book "Never Take Another Puff!"

  Read John's free book Freedom from Nicotine - The Journey home

Or download individual PDF chapters providing a road-map home, packing tips, or explaining how nicotine enslaved us, recovery's only rule, the inherent conflict between quitting and recovery, debunking common use rationalizations, sharing common pitfalls, and the keys to navigating the first 72 hours, reviewing recovery's four layers (physical healing, extinguishing subconscious conditioning, navigating the emotional sense of loss, and overcoming conscious use fixation), and closing with homecoming and relapse prevention.

  Recognize "possible" withdrawal symptoms

If normal to feel what you're feeling then why be afraid? Recovery symptoms are undeniable proof of healing in progress.

  Recognize denial    Lies    And truth!

For years we allowed our addiction to control our thinking. Honesty can destroy lingering romantic chemical fixations.

  Abandon quitting forever in favor of freedom here and now!

Why measure victory in terms of quitting forever -- the biggest bite imaginable -- when you can celebrate full and complete victory "one day at a time!"

  Recognize stress and develope solid coping skills

Have at least 3 coping plans ready just in case, and promise yourself that you'll use all 3 if necessary.

  Visit Turkeyville our popular Facebook support group

Home to 13,000+ cold turkey quitters, what makes Turkeyville unique isn't just that it's exclusively for cold turkey quitters. It's that "nicotine" has no voice. Posting isn't permitted by active smokers or those who've relapsed. Sound cruel? No. It's the exact opposite. It keeps the entire group focused on a single entirely do-able topic, remaining 100% nicotine-free today!

  Explore WhyQuit's index of nicotine dependency recovery topics

An alphabetical list of links to hundreds of nicotine dependency recovery topics.

Have a quitting question? AskJoel!

Imagine your concern being addressed by a quitting coach with nearly 50 years of experience!