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In fairness to new struggling quitters looking in, who may be falsely led to believe that early withdrawal type symptoms can last for two months. They don't. Please note that this is this member's first post EVER to Freedom. Now, don't get us wrong. We have no problem with members who join and read here with us and choose not to post because they feel secure or strong in their quit.

But it is highly unusual for our members to be teaching many of the lessons shared here so late in a person's quit (Nicotine Addiction 101 & fixating). But being the caring hearts they are they have no choice. How do they know that this member has not taken the time to master the basics? After years of working with new quitters they see it in comments like this:

"Since quit, I have not cheated once."

Kind of a moot comment to make at a forum where no one cheats because it is a basic premise that there is no such word as cheating when it comes to addiction. And they also read this:

"Here's another justification, I feel that if I were to go buy a pack and then smoke in moderation (2 or 3 a day), then now I control my addiction, which in turn would make me feel like I have control over my conscious activities and decisions, which ultimately would make me feel a lot better about myself in general. If I could just smoke the "good ones" life would be wonderful."

Justifications? Aside from the numerous lessons cited, how many more imagelessons do we have here at Freedom in which the theme is that nicotine addicts cannot smoke nicotine in moderation? This person has not accepted the concept of addiction, that they, like us, are a true drug addict in every sense. Will the valuable lessons shared by caring members so late in this quit convince this member otherwise? We certainly hope so but their track record of learning and growing in their dependency understanding is not encouraging.

Knowledge and power yet our ability to support those who insist on quitting in darkeness is not good. We're pulling for you bigtime but unless your objective is to become a statistic you're going to have to do some pulling too. This link is to Joel's free book. We strongly encourage a one time cover to cover read. He's devoted his entire life, full time, to working with people like us and it would be a shame for you not to have the benefit of what he's learned.

Still just one rule ... no nicotine today, Never Take Another Puff!

John (Gold x7)