It really is quite nice when you’re first starting out. You don’t feel the withdrawals as bad, a nice relaxing smoke at sundown…
And then you go through the whole addiction, quit, song and dance and realize you could have had the same benefits with no downside by just meditating or taking a break outside without smoking.
Thank god my brain chemistry makes it near-impossible to form addictions, it almost makes up for ruining my life!
It feels so much nicer when you start out. I went from smoking nothing to vapes, which was always fun because it’d hit me like a freight train. Gravity felt like it got 2x heavier and my brain/body felt instant relief.
Now I feel nothing, yet I keep chasing that high because the brain chemicals tell me I must.
I’m going on 10 years vaping, started in high school when it was just 1.5% jak and blu pens at gas stations but the first hits were still comparable to the first time an edible kicked in.
Since I’ve smoked maybe 5 packs worth of cigarettes through college but it was more of a nice beer accessory. After a decade of 5% nicotine vapes they don’t really give a buzz.
Kicking it for a prolonged amount of time is a pain in the ass. Physicals say lungs sounds fit as a fiddle so I just keep to reputable juice brands and replace cartridges often.
The anxiety over losing the ritual is extremely real. Then a few months later you will be sitting there, content after a meal, not needing to sneak off for a smoke and it will hit you like a ton of bricks… “wow, what other huge but stupid cognitive biases do I have which are holding me back and making me miserable?”
Quitting cigarettes is about as close to a state of enlightenment as I’ve ever gotten. Being absolutely disgusted with something you were happy doing a few months ago is a really powerful ego transcendence event.
That’s why I think people are so adamant about hallucinogens. I think most people that experiment with them are most interested in the ego disillusionment aspect of it.
That’s why I’m interested in trying them sometime.
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