photoWelcome Mareq!  What a fascinating first post.  Yes, Bryan should still be with us and Bryan Jr. should have a dad!

As for your transition from chipper or social smoker to regular daily smoker, a host of factors likely go into how much each of us could smoke before fully saturating our brain's a4b2 type acetylcholine receptors,  including how developed our brain was or the age when we first started smoking, our genetics, the brand we smoked and its nicotine content, how frequently we smoked and how we smoked each cigarette.  But once we fully saturate those receptors and keep the nicotine coming, the brain actually begins growing or activiting millions of new a4b2 type nicotinic receptors (upregulation).  Once that occurs the brain dopamine pathways actually develop a need for more nicotine in order to maintain our new sense of nicotine normal. 

imageGlad to hear that after a decade of bondage that you've decided to again give the real "you" a try!  Going the distance and arriving here on Easy Street with us would reveal to you a calm a quiet mind where dependency's chatter at last takes a break.  It's nice never having to quit again and amazing experiencing life inside a healing body that's at last free to breathe and stay, and a mind that's free and can at last relax.  We do hope you're able to let go of all cessation fears as doing so will allow you to savor the healing and beauty now gradually unfolding before you.  This can be our greatest personal awakening ever. 

Congratulations Mareq on your first full week of freedom and healing!  There was always only one guiding principle in coming home ... no nicotine just one hour, challenge and day at a time!  Yes you can, yes you have, yes you are!   Be proud of how far you've come as there's no guarantee that any of us could ever come this far again.

Breathe deep, hug hard, live long!

John (Gold x11)