You must log in or register to comment.
Tobacco. 10,000%.
I smoked 3 packs a day for 25 years.
Then when vaping appeared on the scene, I switched to vaping - HEAVY vaping, loads of nicotine (you could buy 100 mg/ml nicotine base by the gallon for a few bucks back when it was still free). For 10 years.
Then finally I quit vaping. It’s been 5 years.
I’m finally free from tobacco. And it’s entirely thanks to vaping for me. I tried a million times and only vaping finally peeled me off tobacco (and then it took me 10 years to peel myself off vaping, but that was easier).
That’s what it took and how long it took me to get off tobacco. I curse the everlasting shit out of the day I took my first drag on a cigarette…
did vaping make it easier to taper off?
I never tapered off. I replaced hard smoking with hard vaping almost overnight - and when I mean hard vaping, I mean big mods with big drippers, tons of power, tons of clouds, tons of nicotine.
I calmed down a bit with the vaping over the years because I didn’t feel I needed as much. Then one mornng, I simply left the mod at home and stopped vaping cold turkey.
Vaping had two functions for me:
- Inject nicotine into my system in a safer way than tobacco
- Reassure me that no matter what happened, as long as I had a mod nearby, I never needed to touch a cigarette again. And my most pressing source of anxiety was to want to smoke again.
After 10 years of vaping, I really felt like tobacco was well and truly alien to me at that point, so the “crutch” aspect of vaping disappeared. As for the nicotine, I figured I could always smear some nicotine base VG onto my gums. So I quit vaping but I left home with a bottle of nic that morning, but ended up never needing it.
That’s my tobacco cessation story. Everybody’s is different 🙂
Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).
I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.
For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.
I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.
Born in 80, so a similar vintage to you; and yeah, we have connections and information now, but I feel like we should have stopped some time around 05, before smartphones really took hold.
I’m absolutely willing to accept that I’m wearing the highest grade rose tinted goggles, but not having to do everything online certainly felt better than whatever all this is. gestures broadly
I remember what it was like before I could stave off boredom at any time, but even then I don’t think the convenience outweighs the problems. Though in fairness it’s not really the phones, but the companies who make billions from us using them. But those companies had nowhere near the same amount of power, and I can’t help thinking that was a good thing.
I am confronting the fact that I have lost the ability to just be bored. I need to get that back.
Yep! Embracing boredom is likely the path back. Because it’s not a dead space. It’s a canvas.
Doom scrolling. The thing is though when I take time off work I don’t touch the internet at all for days on end. I work on my hobbies instead. It’s when I only have a day or two of free time (even less when you account for having to do chores) and not enough time to finish whatever I’m working on along with whatever I have to come back to next Monday weighing on my mind that I just turn to my phone instead. That’s only working 40 hours a week too. There are people in far worse situations than me.
I quit heroin and other heavy opioids just before fentanyl really hit the streets. Quit cold turkey after losing a few friends and realizing that I could get a bag cut with fent and die, and I couldn’t do that to my siblings; they’re a lot younger than me and really idolized me at the time.
When I was well enough to get to a store without shitting myself or throwing up bile everywhere, I went and bought a handle(1.75l) of the cheapest vodka I could. I continued that every day until 4 years ago.
I have cirrhosis, and my liver could shit the bed at any time, but I’m alive and I’m clean (for the most part) and sober. I work in recovery and am working to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor now.
I quit smoking about 6 months ago. I went to the store, didn’t have quite enough for a pack, and just haven’t bought another. Tobacco has been the hardest for me by far. Alcohol withdrawal almost killed me - I had to be hospitalized for near a month - but I was on high doses of benzodiazepines so I don’t remember much of it. The cravings for a cigarette are intense. They’ve gotten better zand they will continue to do so, but damn, it’s rough.
Ozzy Osbourne called it the hardest drug to quit and that man has done many drugs
Phone
Fiction. Written. Scifi almost exclusively.
When I can’t get the good stuff I use the bad stuff. But I’m always using.
Weed was easy. Don’t even think I was addicted. For me, I’ve been struggling for with sleeping pills lately. Might go back to the weed but just do oils before bed for sleep. I’m a shift worker in a high stress job so I need something at night to calm the nerves sometimes.
I’m luckily sensitive to most medications, and find good success with herbal stuff like valerian and passionflower, any of the GABA ones really. They don’t make me sleepy as much as they get rid of that little burning anxiety stress that keeps me awake.
It’s worth a shot for some people.
Tried that kinda stuff lol I’m unfortunately a horrible sleeper
Porn and weed.
I’ve no doubt there are people that can use it moderately, but my brain just keeps wanting more. I quit cigarettes with no issues. I went from drinking a 6-pack a night to barely drinking at all. But those two really are hard to escape. Every time I kick weed I always have a night where I’m relaxing and I go and get a preroll - then end up getting more and smoking for the next few days before I realize what I’m doing. Same thing with porn. I can smoke a hell of a lot of porn.
But seriously, it’s hard to quit. And I think that part of the reason is due to my inability to label either of those things as “real addictions” in my head. Neither of those things are demonstrably decreasing my quality of life, at least not the way cigarettes and alcohol did, so I’m having trouble contextualizing them as harmful. Porn is easier for me in that regard, since it definitely subconsciously affects my views on the human body, and noticing that more is helping me shake the habit.
For the record, I do think weed is a lot less harmful than booze. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to use it, and I’ve been using it the wrong way for so long that I don’t think I can use it the right way.
To quote one of the great philosophers of our times:
“Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn’t gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn’t gonna fund terrorism, but, well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored, and it’s when you’re bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren’t good at anything.”
Now, I don’t necessarily think all of that is true. Plenty of people are creative and innovative and also smoke pot, but it does make you content with doing nothing. Very relaxing in the moment, until you realize, after a few years of daily smoking, that all your friends have been learning new things and growing and you’ve been sitting on the couch watching TV the whole time. It’s totally fine to use every now and then, and by no means should be illegal, but we do need to start being realistic about how daily cannabis use quells that burning desire to be active and improve ourselves.
Old school rune scape
Nicotine. I was able to quit for about three months last year. Going to give it another try tomorrow now that I’ve run out of patches.
best wishes to you! you got this.
Thanks!
I have quit sugar, caffeine, nicotine, weed, and am trying to get my alcohol consumption under control.
Sugar was almost automatic. I just don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so consciously avoiding sugar was really easy. I can’t say I’ve noticed much of a difference since, although overly sugary things like Coke now taste disgusting, and I can immediately tell when something has been sweetened with sugar, even if it’s really subtle. It’s like a 6th sense. You’ll be surprised at the stupid shit people put sugar into. Pickles, mustard, tomato sauce… these things do not need sugar!
Caffeine had the most intense withdrawal effects. The caffeine headache is unlike any other headache I’ve ever had, and I’m a migraine sufferer. The brainfog was horrible too. Coming out the other side is great though. Plus having a coffee from that point on is a fucking glorious experience.
Nicotine took me years, and I wouldn’t have accomplished it without switching to vaping first. I’ve written about this before but that makes it sound easier than it was. There were many many many failed attempts before I put down the vape for good. This one has had the best benefits though. You don’t realise how good breathing is until you’re fully quit for a while.
Weed was really not my choice. I really really overdid it, and I now can’t touch the stuff. I’ve tried, and it’s always a terrible time. I just withdraw inwards and become an anxious, paranoid mess. What’s worse is it takes me days to recover as well. Doesn’t matter how little I have or how “no really this weed is super mellow dude” it is, I consistently have a bad time now. I miss this one the most. I used to really enjoy what it was like in the beginning.
Alcohol is my fucking kryptonite. I cannot get it under control. I think my only option at this point is really to go teetotal. it’s not really bad enough for me to what to be so drastic with it though. I’m not an angry drunk, I don’t spend more than I can afford on it, it’s not really negatively affecting my life… I just drink too much and too often, and I worry for my health.
You and I have extremely similar experiences. Nicotine for me was super easy, though—one day I had my morning cig and I felt like DOGSHIT. The next day I tried again and I just felt horrible, debilitated. Stopped smoking habitually that day, no cravings. I think I got lucky.
Caffeine now makes me feel like an anxious mess. This happened almost overnight.
I miss weed so much, but it ALSO makes me an anxious mess. I still try it occasionally but maybe one in four times it actually is fun. It’s been months since I’ve touched it.
Alcohol… I drink with my partner every evening. It makes everything more fun. We’re trying to cut down/stop, but is it ever damn difficult.
Social media. I’ll close the app and put my phone in my pocket, done with scrolling, then immediately take out my phone and open an app.
New things. I simply can’t stay with anything. Makes it basically impossible to have any decent job, because people want and expect you to be an expert at what you do.
Alcohol. I never drank until I got an IT internship and the boss was big into craft beers. I started drinking craft beer every night just to have something to bond with him through to try to turn the internship into a full-time job. I did get the job, but then struggled for years with alcohol dependence.
After my dad died I nearly drank myself to death and managed to quit for an entire year. Then I got cheated on, and home was no longer a safe space, so I hung out at the bar every day instead. It’s been 6 months and I’ve gone from ~75 beers / week to ~24. Just tapering myself off slowly. Wegovy helps - I can’t have more than a few drinks without feeling super bloated now.
Sitting down too much. It took four lumbagos in three years to finally get the point.
I don’t write as much anymore unfortunately, but the huge upside is that, after two decades of not being able to do so, I can finally squat again with heels planted without tipping over. A proper Slav squat. Practicing this almost daily for nearly a year has improved my foundational skateboarding skills significantly. And I simply feel more youthful too.
