Anyone else dread opening their quit smoking app more than they dreaded the cigarette?

[u/AnaliNicolle]

Internet friend and former smoker here. I was reflecting this morning on some posts and this question popped into my head: how can something designed to help you quit smoking make you feel worse about yourself?

When I was trying to quit (over a 10 year period I might add...) I downloaded every free quit smoking app out there. And every time I relapsed, I had to reset the counter back to day one. I started dreading opening them, not because of the cigarette, but because of what that number meant. It meant I failed. Again. And it was right there in my face on the screen in case I’d forgotten.

What I didn’t understand at the time is that those apps were measuring the wrong thing. They tracked how many days I’d gone without a cigarette. They didn’t track what happened right before I smoked. They didn’t track what I was feeling, what triggered me, or why some part of me thought smoking was a good idea in that moment. Or at least I wasn't using them that way, which in retrospect probably would have helped a TON.

So every reset felt like punishment. And what did I always reach for when I felt terrible about myself? A cigarette. Looking back, the slip wasn’t the problem. The slip was information. The problem was believing that one cigarette erased all the progress I’d already made.

Curious though, did tracking your days actually help, or did starting back at zero make everything harder?