A single craving lasts three to five minutes if you do not feed it. They come thickest on day two and three, thin out over two to four weeks, and the ones tied to a cue, coffee, the car, the end of a meal, can still visit months later. Nothing about it is dangerous. All of it is loud.
It rises fast, sits at the top for a minute or two, and falls, whether or not you do anything. People who smoke to end it are not ending it; they are timing the fall to the cigarette and learning the wrong lesson. Ride three of them out on purpose and the shape becomes obvious.
Day one: the body notices within hours. Days two and three: the peak, with the most cravings, the worst temper, the headache and the broken sleep. Weeks two to four: the waves get further apart before they get smaller. Months: a cue can still fire one, and it is the same five minutes it always was.
Change the breath first: a long exhale, twice as long as the inhale, is the one breath that talks to the nervous system directly. Cold water on the face. Move for the length of the wave. Give the hands something. Marrow’s craving room runs a wave with you, and its body tools are each about a minute long for exactly this.
Nicotine replacement (patch plus gum or lozenge) and varenicline each roughly double the chance a quit attempt holds, and they are the best-evidenced things in this whole field. Using them is not cheating. Vaping is nicotine too; the cravings do not know the difference.
Marrow’s craving room and seventeen one-minute body tools are built for a wave this size.
If you are thinking of ending your life, or you are not safe where you are, stop reading and reach a person instead. These lines are free, confidential, and answered at any hour.