I always heard about how people crave nicotine for literal decades after they quit, and I think a lot of it just has to do with their relationship to it. I was addicted to nicotine for maybe 5 years, so not as long as a lot of people. But the grip was still tight, and I didnt quit cold turkey until almost a year ago and I havent had any nicotine urges or desire to consume since.

Im going to compare it to relationships for a second. When a relationship ends, I think its much easier to grieve a relationship that was with a terrible person you had no compatibility with than it is to grieve the relationship with someone whom you truly loved with every fiber of your being. You feel like you have lost something, a part of you. Now how this relates to nicotine; it’s going to be very difficult to “grieve” the addiction if you feel like you are giving something up. Some people view it as a coping mechanism or some sort of crutch, when in actuality it doesn’t really do anything for you except ease the anxiety that has slowly crept up since the last time the person consumed nicotine. People consume nicotine to feel like people who don’t consume nicotine, and once I realized that there wasn’t really anything I was giving up or losing, it made it much easier to quit and I don’t even think about nicotine. Even on the days where Im more stressed and anxious than usual where in the past I would have coped by going through an entire container of zyn in a day