How I gave up nicotine

I was eighteen years old and of course, I was a young and naive young man who was always curious about trying different things and experiences. A friend and I got all curious about trying cigars and Swisher’s (flavored cigarettes). First it started off with smoking one each week whenever I would go on a walk by the Spokane river. I would even run with a cigarette in my mouth, thinking I’m a super soldier in my mind. During college it evolved to a point where I would type a paragraph and then go walk to the park and smoke at least a few cigarettes just to feel some type of satisfaction (reward system, more like foolish system). From there I smoked even more once I joined a trade where I worked every week 60-80 hours and having negative people constantly around me. Nicotine had become my safe haven, my sanctuary, and my relief. I believed in a huge lie that I incorporated as my relief for all of the problems and inconsistencies around me. Shortly after two years, I began to vape and chew, hoping this would help me quit sooner. But no, I believe it actually made me engage more in the habit. People would sometime ask me if I ever planned on quitting. In all reality, I had no plan to quit. I was under the delusion that there was nothing wrong with my habits. What I didn’t understand was that addiction was and is the thief of time. With an addiction of an individual, their mind can lose potentially productive thoughts that can be beneficial for the future. Constantly thinking about wanting a cigarette or anything addictive for that matter, will substitute for your productive thoughts. You may not notice this at first, when you continue a trend each time repetively and adding additional cycles to the course, you’ll waste your time and unfortunately will always wonder what you could’ve discovered within yourself. Back to my story, it was literally a couple of days after New years and I had a realization that I was contributing to an addiction that served no purpose for me. I wasn’t a stupid person inside. I didn’t want to be a slave to an addiction to nicotine. I was so much better than this. I could have my mind back again. I began asking myself, ” how do I stay away from certain things or certain people?” Hmm- I thought for a few minutes. As I pondered and pondered, I came to the conclusion that for anything I didn’t want to be near I associated it as something filthy and unappetizing. In my situation, I threw all of my vape and nicotine products into a dirty trash can on purpose. This way if I had the urge to buy nicotine, the nasty association would make me see it as consuming food from the trash can. In a way, this was a mind hack. A mind won’t always work by telling yourself to quit. Your mind has already figured out how to by pass your reasoning for not smoking, or vaping. In this case, you have to switch out the formula and mistake your addiction for something super gross and unappealing/unappetizing. It was a little difficult for a couple of weeks, but I kept telling myself, “you don’t want trash to eat from the dumpster”. It worked. My mind tried to trick me in my dreams, but I kept thinking of trash. Been around people that vape and I have no desire whatsoever to get back into it. I have now been over 8 months nicotine free and I feel no regret. If you’re wanting to quit then please quit based on your convictions. Your mind must process this. If it’s too difficult then what I would suggest is to trick your mind like I did to myself.

If you have any questions concerning this topic then please comment or email me. Wish you all the best, I’m off to bed