You have discovered the downside of trying to "wean" yourself from cigarettes. What happens is that the remaining few smokes become doubly important because of their scarcity. If you had weaned yourself to only one or two a day, it probably isn't so much the nicotine that you're missing but rather the habit of lighting up, the important place that smoking had in your life. It is likely that almost every event in your life had smoking connected in some way. As soon as you finished a cigarette, you planned for the next one... and the next. When you quit, that structure is gone and you need to replace it with a new structure or way of living and coping. And that's what's so hard. The nicotine can be out of your body in a few days but it takes much longer to get out of the habit of smoking.

The average quitter tries several times before finally succeeding. Good luck on your next try. Don't give up. Formulate a plan for what you will do and how you will substitute for smoking on your next quit now that you know that getting through the first day or two is going to be tough, plan for it. Don't think of it as giving up something; rather think of it as giving yourself a gift, an adventure.