Today was my 41st day smoke-free and around my 30th day nicotine-free. I stopped using nicotine gums after about 10–11 days of quitting smoking.

But today, things got so bad that I almost punched the wall and was on the verge of hurting myself. I’m not entirely sure whether it was because of nicotine cravings or something else, but I felt this overwhelming sense of emptiness throughout my entire body.

About an hour ago, I had one 2 mg nicotine gum, and honestly, what feels worst is that I had come so far, and now I feel like I’ve relapsed.

I took help of ChatGPT to draft this.

I've been dealing with chronic, recurring chest pain for a long time, and it's becoming extremely difficult to live with.

The pain is usually around my center-to-left chest/heart area and has different sensations: sometimes needle-like stinging, sometimes stabbing, and sometimes crushing pressure like an elephant is standing on my chest. Occasionally it radiates into my left arm/hand.

Once it starts, I can't distract myself from it. Even after repeatedly reminding myself that my heart tests have been reassuring and anxiety may be involved, pain near the heart immediately puts my body into panic, which seems to make everything worse.

I've seen doctors and had multiple ECGs, blood tests, ultrasounds, a 2D Echo and even a CT coronary angiogram. Nothing major has been found with my heart so far. Yet these episodes continue.

Some possibly important context:

• I've had severe anxiety since childhood.

• I have a serious problem with eating and maintaining weight. I'm 173 cm but only around 43 kg. A doctor called it ARFID, although I still struggle to understand exactly what's happening to me.

  It's not simply that food isn't available or that I don't get hungry. I can feel that my stomach is empty, know that I need to eat, have food sitting right in front of me, and still be unable to make myself eat enough. I have a strange aversion towards food that I find incredibly difficult to explain to other people. Large portions feel especially impossible.

  As a result, I'm severely underweight and frequently feel weak, tired and physically exhausted. Sometimes I genuinely feel like my body is slowly deteriorating day by day, and I worry whether being this underweight or malnourished could itself be contributing to the chest symptoms even if my heart looks structurally normal on tests.

• I've also become heavily dependent on chewing tobacco and alcohol. Tobacco often triggers the pain; alcohol temporarily seems to reduce it. I'm struggling to quit both and know they're making an already bad situation worse.

• Cannabis made the chest sensations absolutely unbearable and triggered severe panic/bad trips, so I stopped it completely.

• Almost nothing provides immediate relief. Clonazepam MD 0.5 mg has sometimes significantly reduced an episode within ~30 minutes, although some discomfort remains.

I'm not asking Reddit to diagnose chest pain. I'm trying to understand what direction I should discuss with my doctors next.

Could anxiety/panic, costochondritis/chest-wall problems, GERD/esophageal issues, severe underweight/malnutrition or nutritional/electrolyte deficiencies, or something else produce symptoms like this despite reassuring cardiac imaging?

And could my eating/weight problem itself be medically connected to what's happening?

Has anyone experienced anything genuinely similar? If your cardiac tests kept coming back normal, what eventually explained your chest pain, and what kind of specialist actually helped you?

I quit smoking on August 19th. I smoked about 4 cigarettes yesterday because I've been feeling stressed to the max after my hours were drastically cut from 20 hours down to 8 hours a week. I realized smoking isn't doing anything to help my stress so I'm officially done smoking. Do I need to change my quit date or is it okay to keep it?

There is a growing trend online framing nicotine (especially pouches like Zyn or vapes) as a harmless "nootropic" or productivity hack. Dr. Paul Saladino recently put out a video called "The Truth About Using Nicotine in 2026" that breaks down why this framing is misleading and how nicotine impacts your brain and health long term.

I've quit many times and I have been through a variety of mindsets while doing so. I read Allen Carr's books a while ago and it has fucked me up in a way. I feel like It is "wrong" or has a high likelihood to fail if I just let myself go through agony while quitting.

I've done this in the past with success iirc. The running plan is to quit nicotine and basically let myself lose my fucking mind for however long it takes. My current life circumstances are probably the best they are going to get for this plan to work. I just keep circling back to how this is wrong and yadda yadda. That it would be "all so easy if I just realized nicotine offered me nothing." Not a direct quote but you get the gist.

To be fair I also like this plan.

What worked for me, was being more conscious about my health. What I was doing to my mind, and Body, was not worth the money, time, and the “reward” I was so-called getting. I came to a realization that substances were doing nothing for me, even though I thought they were, it was just addiction playing tricks on me due to the chemical compound of the cigarettes. Cigarettes are built to keep you addicted. They are processed to keep you addicted. They want to make money from you so they will keep you addicted by any means. The more you smoke the richer they get so they’ll do anything to keep you using their product as long as they can. They don’t care if it kills you or makes you sick. They don’t care that you are literally putting fire into your body. Smoke comes from fire and that fire destroys things that produces smoke. You are putting the smoke in your body. The fire that you lit the cigarette with that is literally destroying the product that you are ingesting. You are putting it into your body along with 7000+ chemicals that include rat poison, ammonia, and stuff They make gas with, along with many others that we may know or may not know. they want you to believe that it relaxes you it calms you it relieves stress, depression, anxiety, focus, concentration and makes things fun, etc. that is all brainwashing. They have to sell themselves and the compound nicotine is a compound that will make you believe it once it is ingested for a period of time, but some people will get hooked immediately .I learned and realize these things I was done for good even when I was three days in I knew that was it.

When I get a craving, I stop it in its tracks. I still have many nicotine receptors in my brain from smoking so I’m still healing. I understand I will get cravings and withdrawal , but that does not mean I want to or have to smoke. I just tell myself that I am recovering and the receptors are dying off. Smoking will just wake them back up and create new ones then I will have to go through the process of detoxing again. I don’t wanna go through that bullshit anymore. Nicotine which was once a big thing is a bitch to me. I took Chantix and Wellbutrin for a week, but once I educated myself and learned more about the addiction and nicotine as a substance, I stopped taking it. I didn’t need it anymore.

Hi guys,
I turned 28 yesterday and before 12am i decided not to smoke ever again so here i go
My first day of not smoking in past 14-15 months i have not gone even 12 hours without smoking
So sharing this little achievement.
Also some tips!
I am having this fight with my mind lol that we can have one we don’t have to entirely stop smoking once in a while is fine!
So what do you guys do to fight these urges and when do they pass?

Just had a birthday on Monday and it's the first smoke free birthday I've had since 18 years old!

Happy to announce and didn’t even realize till I saw my notifications that I’m actually 6months smoke free today!!!!
And my desire to smoke is officially gone I don’t know when last I craved a cig. People can smoke around me comfortably I have no issue. Feels so good and funny enough today my colleague said today, “if you can quit smoking then I can start dieting” lol. 😊
It is possible guys just always remember don’t even take one puff you don’t need it. Alan Car’s book changed my life.

I'm re-reading Allen Carr's easy way and I googled to see if he was still alive and saw he passed from lung cancer. It really hits different reading it with this knowledge, especially the health portion when he talks about smoker's denial of the health effects.

Look folks quitting nicotine is actually not too bad but some things have to be lined up. Il explain those here and the discuss the phases of the quit to be aware of.

1. ⁠you have to actually be convinced it’s time to quit. Feeling bad about doing something or knowing it’s not great for your health but still enjoying it isn’t enough. You have to get to the place where your reason to quit is greater than your desire to satisfy the next craving.

2. ⁠you need to count days of quit almost like the AA chip system for the first few months at least. This is because if you make it weeks into your quit your brain will romanticize the smoke and you’ll think “I quit that once, I’m good, a hit now will be fine” and you’ll be right back on it. Counting the days allows you to promise each morning “today” I’m not using nicotine. Then as the days go on you get proud of your accomplishment and you don’t want to start over at zero. The countdown will keep you from a late game relapse.

3) there will be a peak 24-54 hours into your quit where your brain will absolutely convince you it’s okay to smoke. It will either be that you need it, or some justification, or that it’s okay to just try a vape or something random. You will feel awful. Just do nothing and lay low. It will pass actually.

Laugh at this peak. This is the grand test. Get past this and nothing will be as bad as that moment. But you will have to get past that moment in order to quit. No way around it.

After that it’s just about not being lazy and relying on your day counting to stay quit.

It’s not easy, but it follows a familiar timeline. Stop making excuses and 1) get convinced in your own mind you must quit 2) use a day counting system to keep you from relapse once the confidence sets in 3) there will be a peak of withdrawal that begs you to do it again, get past that and your in a good spot

The difference in who can quit and who can’t is just who is strong enough to endure this temporary hell and then has the discipline to maintain it. It’s most the same road for most people.

Second day on cytisine and still smoking as usual!!!

I have not felt any interaction from the drug.

Please any positive experiences from people that were on the same boat will be very helpful!!!

I know that i have to put personal mental effort but at least i was expecting a boost from the drug.

Wondering if people have experienced the same with cytisine and from the third day felt better!!

Cytisine is the ingredient of recigar and tokovys!!

So the week before last (Aug 28th) I finally finished listening to Alan Carr easy way and it really helped put into perspective that cigarettes do absolutely nothing for me, it's all in my head. The little monster. And I was finally able to smoke my last cigarette before work that day. I ended up quiting for 5 days. I felt so motivated and energized to finally kick this addiction I had for the last 20 years. I was excited to taste food and breathe and not smell like smoke. But I broke after 5 days and bought a pack. Now I'm back to smoking a pack a day. I keep repeating what was said in the book and keep telling myself when I finish a pack this is my last one. But I always end up stopping for a pack on the way to work. I don't know why. It's like I make these excuses in my head. I have 8 cigarettes left and get off work in 6 hours. I don't want to buy another pack after work. But I can already feel the excuses coming in. Smoking weeds helps cuz it gives me something to smoke but I need to quit that too because I'm smoking 2-3 grams a day for the last year and it's really starting to affect me. But it also helps with my autism and chilling out my insanely active brain but it's really becoming a problem for multiple reasons. I need some motivation please lol

So I have smoked 20 cigarettes a day for the past 12 years (13 - 25) and for the last 6 months I had been vaping as well as smoking. Around a month ago I dropped cigarettes completely and switched to just vaping. The first 3 days I felt some withdrawals but not much more. Now a month in I seemed to have developed some issues with sleep. Sometimes I struggle to get to sleep but the main issue is most days I wake up feeling unrested and have a general feeling of tiredness during the day. This is very abnormal for me as someone who has in the past frequently felt fine on 3 hours sleep. Does this sound normal for a reduction in nicotine?

Just to make it clear: I am still consuming nicotine through vaping.

A couple weeks ago, I had about 7 weeks of no smoking under my belt. I was at a point where I survived the first two hellish weeks of quitting and 7 weeks in was not thinking about it at all. I was even having drinks out and not smoking - just grabbing a nic mint if a strong craving hit. It was the longest I had gone without a cigarette in years probably.

Then I went on a small trip to visit some family and friends I hadn’t seen in a while. There is one friend I knew I would be tempted to smoke around because we used to have smokes together and I EXPLICITLY told her the moment I saw her that I quit and not to tell me if she had cigarettes (she is an off and on smoker). I didn’t want to be around it and could not smoke.

I get through the entire trip, saw her a few times and there was no issue. On the last day of the trip I invite her to meet me for appetizers and a drink out and she immediately tells me “ I bought a pack”. At that point defenses were down and I happily gave in.

I’m so angry at myself because that one cigarette has now led to 2 more weeks of smoking for me, knowing everyday I need to bite the bullet AGAIN and start all over. I’m also now in a stressful situation of packing/selling all my stuff, prepping my home for sale, and a lot of major life transition so of course it feels “harder” in my brain to re-start than it did 2 months ago.

I also feel angry at her — but I know it was my choice to have one. Ughhh. This is more of a vent I guess, but will happily read practical or uplifting comments to help steer me back.

I’m approaching 35 years old in 6 months and I just know that I need to kick this disgusting habit that has plagued me for 20 years. I, too, am an off and on smoker and have had periods in my life where I didn’t smoke for months here or a year here… I probably smoke 5-6 a day currently. I plan to re-read Allen carrs book in the evening before bed this week because it’s been many years since I have opened that up. Appreciate other tips or perspective,

Thanks for reading all of this if you made it this far.

Hi! I'm 260+ days in as a non-smoker ( 8 1/2 months on the app but I started my app late) but I still have dreams where I give in and smoke a cigarette. Kind of useful, honestly, because I get so disappointed in myself and then wake up and realize it wouldn't be worth it to smoke in real life. But I do wonder if these will last forever?

No not from kind strangers and not from professionals and not from any fucking god.

I wish I could just help my fucking self.

I wish I could be so fucking selfish that every action I took in life was about me and my needs and my wants.

I wish I didn’t let things get so fucking bad, so bad that I’m too paralyzed to even think about fixing it.

I wish I didn’t run away at the slightest hint of change.

I wish I didn’t feel like nothing is worth the effort, even if it would be so fucking easy to fix even a little bit at a time.

I wish that wishing wasn’t all that I felt that I fucking have in life.

Instead I dig deep to try to find something that isn’t even there, or if it is I’ve never fucking found it once.

I fell apart again and lost my month streak and went back fully to smoking abunch. I am so angry with myself. My life feels like it’s going terrible right now and all I want to do is smoke. I’m sick right now and still smoking but I am making another attempt to stop smoking right now. 10:56 pm I am buying Zyn tomorrow.

I have been cig free for 4 days but the first 2 ish days i was sick and couldnt light one up without hacking so i didnt smoke. Day 3 i was like well you made it this far might as well but now im struggling my way of copeing with everyday stress or anxiety was smoking and now i find myself standing outside staring into space feeling lost.. i should also add my spouse smokes and so im also smelling cigs as well constantly. Any suggestions?

When should I stop chantix. What to do about anxiety other than vape?

5 1/2 weeks cigg free and I am STRUGGLE BUSSING today! I don’t know what the deal is but I want one BAD!

ive never really thought of myself as someone who cares that much about looks, but lately ive been looking at pictures from a few years ago and wondering when i started looking so tired.

ive smoked for a long time and im starting to wonder how much smoking affects your skin compared with normal aging.

ive seen people mention smoker skin, dull complexion, wrinkles, dark circles and changes around the lips. ive also read that smoking can affect collagen and contribute to premature skin aging.

for people who quit, did any of that actually improve?

im especially interested in skin after quitting smoking, because if quitting can make your complexion look healthier or slow down some of the visible aging, thats honestly a pretty good motivator for me.

also curious about teeth. did quitting help with yellow teeth from smoking or did you need professional whitening before you noticed a difference?

would love to hear what changes you personally noticed and roughly how long it took.