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How long does it take?

Discussion in 'Tobacco / Nicotine' started by Joethefirst, Mar 13, 2016.

  1. Joethefirst

    Joethefirst Community Champion

    How long does it take for the physical addiction to go away? I have heard different amounts of time, from 1 day too a month.
  2. remnant

    remnant Community Champion

    Well, it depends on how long you have smoked and how many sticks you were consuming as well as your resolve and willpower. Many people are simply unable to quit and end up looking for justifications. Others have to gradually reduce the number of sticks and use anti-smoking aids like e-cigars for months before succeeding. Still others quit and relapse spasmodically before finally making it. The last category is interesting because they just quit and that is it.
  3. Vinaya

    Vinaya Community Champion

    There are numbers of factors involved regarding how fast we can quit addiction. For instance,
    the amount of nicotine your body has been getting, in others words, how many cigarette you take in a day
    How long have you need taking cigarette
    How much damaged has been caused in your body.
  4. akiram13

    akiram13 Community Champion

    I never heard someone getting over an addiction in one day. But it is different for everyone. We cannot expect that we can recover at the same pace as others it really is based on someones inner strength and will to be able to quit.
  5. Tsky45

    Tsky45 Community Champion

    It might be different with every person. How long you've been smoking might make a difference also. I think you just have to give it time and stay consistent. Some people try to ween themselves off of smoking if it gets too bad.
  6. JoshPosh

    JoshPosh Community Champion

    There is no exact number. A person who has been smoking for a year is going to be different for a person that has been on it for 20 years. There is no exact time frame or science to predict it. The human body can heal itself. But we need to look at a persons environment, eating habits, and state of mind. Those factors play a big part in the recovery process.
  7. blenly

    blenly Member

    As everyone else has mentioned - we are all different but I can tell you my (very recent) experience with getting off cigarettes.
    I found that I still had some form of craving up until about the 2 week mark. A lot of these cravings came from when I normally would have a cigarette. For example getting a coffee I would feel an urge for a cigarette, leaving work, waiting on buses and basically everything part of my previous routine where I would fit in a cigarette.

    I had headaches to begin with but they only lasted about 3/4 days and my restlessness maybe lasted about a week.
  8. Joethefirst

    Joethefirst Community Champion

    Thank you all for your responses.
    @blenly the way I see it, is the coffee was a psychological trigger. I think you had already gone past the physical addiction.
  9. yaitsjonny

    yaitsjonny Member

    Many factors come into play here, such as how long you have been smoking and how many cigarettes you smoke a day. Based on your own physical and mental willpower, it could take as little as two weeks to break your addiction to tobacco. Perhaps finding something else to fill that "gap" could be extremely beneficial to breaking your addiction.
  10. Joethefirst

    Joethefirst Community Champion

    Keeping yourself busy is always the key to breaking any addiction. It doesn't matter how big or how small it is.
  11. Tremmie

    Tremmie Community Champion

    I think it varies from person to person, but I've heard about tricks that help to get rid of the Nicotine in your system really quick. Fighting the cravings is a different thing though... It might be hard the first 21 days, because that is how long it takes for an habit to be created or broken.
  12. darkrebelchild

    darkrebelchild Community Champion

    How long depends also on the mind. When your mind accepts the fact that you want to quit the addiction, it is easier to want to get involved with other things and become clean. Every action we make is first expressed in the mind before physically occurring.
  13. Momma9

    Momma9 Community Champion

    I quit 26 years ago and still crave it from time to time! It is not as intense as when I first stopped, but often I think how nice it would be to have a smoke. Then I remind myself how bad I hated smoking and all the people that are sick or have died from smoking that I know and how expensive cigs are now and then I am OK!
  14. Dilof

    Dilof Member

    Well I can't really say completely since I still smoke an E-cig, but it took me around a week after smoking quite a bit for the urges to go down significantly. In the end though I started smoking an e-cig so the change was pretty much for nothing since I'm still addicted to nicotine.
  15. Damien Lee

    Damien Lee Community Champion

    There isn't an exact figure, and I think the time frames you've put forward are way too short. I only know of one person who stopped smoking immediately after an acupuncture session. But I've also heard of others trying acupuncture with no affect at all. Recovery time frames vary from person to person.