A little piece of advice to all of you who struggle with instant gratification:

Give reading for fun a try.

I picked up reading more as I was quitting and it helped my attention span a lot. Reading forces you to pay constant attention and is much more of a slow gratification activity than most of us are probably used to.

Ive noticed that as Ive gotten better at reading, Im capable of paying more attention for longer periods of time to all my day-to-day activities. This includes telling myself "No" to nicotine cravings.

If youre like me and havent read for fun since Middle School, you might struggle getting back in to it. I would recommend starting with something youve already read that you really liked. It can be a childhood book. Just some easy read that you know will be entertaining will help you to start re-wiring your brain.

Or you can start by reading something youve always wanted to read but never got around to.

For me, Im a huge LOTR fan and have seen the trilogy a million times but never read the books. I picked up the books during my quitting journey and theyve been a huge savior so far. They are a harder read than I was ready for at first, but they've definitely helped with restarting my brain and Ive noticed Im capable for reading for longer and longer periods of time now

TLDR; reading has been a big help for me in my quitting journey