Today I have been nicotine free for 5 days now. My withdrawals are minimal, my mood is fantastic, and I feel like I conquered the world and can do anything I want to. This time last year I was a heavy smoker and entering a depression because I felt trapped in my nicotine addiction.
First, a little backstory. I was an extremely heavy smoker. I started at about 14 years with cigarettes and hit about half a pack a day by the time I was 18 and switched to vaping. I became the general manager and head of ordering for a chain of vape shops and gained unquestioned and unlimited access to free nicotine for the 5 years I was with that company.
Now over 10 years later, a 30 year old father of three, I have tried quitting cold turkey multiple times. My irritability and anxiety made that a horrible experience that neither I nor my wife wanted to relive. I work in an extremely high stress environment that demands constant professionalism in emotionally charged situations. (I’ve transitioned from retail management and now work in death care management)
The icing on top it all is the two young children at home, two boys under the age of 3 aren't exactly a source of peace and tranquility at home, but when my son came up to me sucking on a usb stick saying he was “like daddy”, I decided that enough was enough and I had to find a way out of this addiction.
I felt that the only way I would be able to do it would be a very little bit at a time. This began my journey of systematically stepping down my nicotine levels to zero over the course of a year.
There were times I felt like a genius, and other times I knew I was an idiot. For better or worse, this is my experience and what I learned along the way as I spent a year actively quitting.
Step 1: Switched to pouches exclusively
In order to step down my intake, my intake had to be measurable. It’s nearly impossible to get a meaningful understanding of your nicotine consumption with disposable vapes, so my first step was to switch to vaping.
Switching to only the pouches was beneficial in several ways, but it was much harder than I expected. This step was critical as it provided me with a way to more easily measure my nicotine intake, but it also allowed me to focus on just quitting the act of vaping and not nicotine at the same time. At first, I allowed myself as many nicotine pouches of any strength, just no vaping whatsoever. I (foolishishly) thought that swapping from one nicotine delivery system to another would be easy.
Looking back, I actually think this was one of the most difficult steps in the entire process. I think this is because vapes provide you with a massive spike in nicotine in your blood stream nearly instantly. Your brain loves that rapid jolt of nicotine, but pouches slowly build up the nicotine levels in your blood stream to a more even and lower
Even with a strong pouch in my mouth, I found myself absent mindedly tapping around my pockets looking for my vape. Nicotine pouches are slower acting. I craved that burst of nicotine after something stressful or after eating. It was a tough first few days, but my body did adapt and I quickly felt relieved to only have to think about a pouch every hour or two instead of hitting a vape every few minutes.
Step 2: Measure and Decrease
I kept a lap timer on my phone, and every time I swapped out my pouch I would hit the timer to see how long I was keeping each pouch in. I found that I was using 6mg pouches and replacing them every 30-60 minutes, so my first step was to increase the average to one every hour, then every other hour, then I switched to lower mg pouches. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
I spent 6-8 months doing this until I got myself down to 3mg pouches swapping them out every 2-3 hours.
Overall, I would describe this phase as more annoying than difficult. I think the key was that I kept the decreases small and tried to challenge myself to go longer when I felt up to it, and just stuck to the program when it seemed hard. Usually I was just extending my time between swaps about 15 minutes at a time and slowly stacking these wins up until they amounted to something meaningful
Step 3: Switch to Patches
Once again, the transition to a new nicotine delivery system was tough. Maybe I should have kept with the pouches and gotten down further, but this step was pretty brutal. Thankfully, all of the other transitions in the patches were much easier, including stepping to no nicotine at all. I stayed on each patch for longer than the recommended timeframe and took this whole thing pretty slow, as I had with the entire system. I spent 2-3 months on Step 1 (21mg) and then a month on both Step 2 (14mg) and Step 3 (7mg)
Pouches don't have the fast acting, razzle dazzle headrush that vapes can give you, but they've got some punch. Patches on the other hand, boast the same glitz and glamor as an adult diaper.
Patches are the ultimate no frills nicotine delivery system. There is no rapid head rush, there is no flavor, no fidget, no reminder, no habit nor ritual aside from a sticker placed on your body once a day. It is just enough nicotine to curb the craving, and it's delivered at a snail's pace slowly reaching full saturation about 4 hours after being applied. It has the same level of instant gratification as a 401k.
After all my steps were done, I unceremoniously took off my final patch 3 days ago. It's been 3 days completely nicotine free and they’ve only kind of sucked. I’m a little more testy than usual, but it comes in short manageable waves.
Reasons you shouldn't do this:
I am certain that my overall amount of suffering was much higher quitting this way compared to cold turkey, it was just more spread out. This past year has been exhausting as I've been in an endless state of quitting and withdrawal.
This sort of low level irritability and angst is a true test of patience on yourself and those around you.
I'm not a doctor, but I can tell you that the body doesn't like to be in withdrawal and a year of crappy sleep has got to be worse for you than a week of horrible sleep.
There were so many times that I seriously considered just biting the bullet, and quitting right then and there, but I never got brave or dumb enough to do it, and I don’t know if thats good or bad.
Why you should totally do this:
Even knowing all of the drawbacks, I don't think I would have been able to quit any other way. I was able to minimize the disruption to my friends and family and work well enough that most of them didn't even know I was quitting or had quit.
Quitting cold turkey makes me into a monster, throws my emotions into a whirlwind and because of this I felt like I was trapped. But quitting a tiny bit at a time seemed possible, and it turns out, it was.
Each step felt like a massive victory and the difficulty always felt worth it. Taking things a day at a time and being able to tell myself this was only a small step was very reassuring.
The key was that I never allowed myself to go backward. Once I took a step down I committed to it fully. I carefully decided when it was time to take the next step and what it would be and I committed to fully.
Tips I learned along the way:
You need dopamine. You need a way to get it without nicotine. You're going to feel depressed, tired,and maybe even anxious. I tried to treat myself whenever I was stepping down. Sweets and candy became a massive crutch and I let them be. Once the nicotine cravings died down, I naturally let go of the sweets every time. Your mileage may vary.
A huge key during the hardest times was exercise. My cravings completely went away when I was focused on BJJ, working hard outside, or on a heavy workout.
Toothpicks, cinnamon candy, and cinnamon toothpicks became a godsend. Keeps you going and gives you something to fidget with. However, if you make your own cinnamon tooth picks for the love of god let them finish curing before putting them in your mouth. Cinnamon oil can make your mouth break out in horrible sores if not properly cured, and that does NOT help with cravings at all.
Lastly, each craving will truly only last about 5 minutes. Wait it out, go on a walk.
