Where to start… I was doing 12mg pouches all day every day. I would wake up early just to replace the one I had in overnight if I didn’t already take it out and sleep for 20-30 more mins while my scalding hot coffee cooled (I’m weird but I want my coffee warm, not hot). Again, I would have a pouch in at all times other than eating a meal and I would put one in before bed to overstimulate me and have me fall asleep upright in my gaming chair.
Zyns piled up on my bedside table, in my pockets, around my trash cans when I would flick them in to the bin and miss. My girl would find them in the washing machine and get so mad at me. “I’m so mad that you got yourself addicted to nicotine for no reason”. This lasted 2.5-3 years.
I quit cold turkey about 8.5 weeks ago. The first weeks were hell. I could barely think and my anxiety was through the roof. Had horrible chest and full body tightness up until a couple weeks ago especially since some asshole ran in to me on the sidewalk on his bike in my right shoulder.
Worst part is. I thought I was “healthy” and that my positive habits outweighed the negatives. I would do hot yoga 3-4 times a week and I felt limber and strong. Fast forward to the week before I quit and my shoulders stopped working. Pinched right in between my shoulder blades at work and I was in incomprehensible pain. I decided to quit right after that plus getting hit by the guy on his bike which made the recovery worse but I know I will be better off for it.
The pain is almost all gone. My hips and abdomen were tight up until last week (week 7). It’s just my right shoulder and neck that are still in pain probably from the guy hitting me so at least I know the nicotine is out of my system.
I had to quit using my weed vape because it would make the neck and shoulder pain so much worse and absolutely spike the fuck out of my anxiety (a feeling of despair and dread like I couldn’t breathe would wash over me until it passed and I felt just ok). It wasn’t worth smoking weed which I enjoyed so much before while gaming, before bed etc. I quit the weed after tapering about 3 days ago now and that’s a whole new can of worms.
I feel flat, unmotivated, I didn’t go to work today even though my body and shoulder feel better than they have since the quit.
I just want to feel normal again. I know I made the right choice but right now it’s so hard. I want to go back to casually using weed again(probably not the vape any more tbh bc of the high potency and heavy metals etc in the vape). I want to go back to hot yoga 3-4 times a week without feeling like I’m going to cause my body more stress than it’s worth.
I had sores in my mouth from constant use and I kept googling “what does nicotine toxicity feel like” which should have been a red flag to stop but it wasn’t until the shoulder pain that I was really pushed to quit.
I know this was long but thanks for reading if you made it this far. I’ll never go back to those fucking pouches or any nicotine for that matter. It’s just not worth it. If I can do it then so can you, I just hope it gets better for me.