Nicotine

For those that read my “drinking” blog, know that smoking goes hand in hand with drinking. Same with drinking, nearly everyone I knew smoked. I started smoking around the same age as I started experimenting with alcohol(13). We would ride our skateboards around town and pick up (snipes) what was left of peoples cigarettes off the ground, we had our hotspots too. We knew the post office bucket outside was the mother load, maybe because they made decent money they could afford to leave 1/3 of each cigarette? Most people in town were poor so they would smoke them down to the butt, but if there was one drag on them snipes they were going in our pockets. I laid rock with my grandpa in the summer at age 15 and I was rich for a kid! I made $175 a week which was way more than I needed, we woke up at 3am every morning and went to work until about 1pm because it was too hot for concrete. I made enough money then that I could buy a carton of cigarettes a week, now I was smoking regularly and I didn’t have to hide it as much. Lunch break I would have a beer and a cigarette with my grandpa and uncle, not the best practice but its a memory I cherish now that my grandpa is gone. I tried to quit multiple times in the 15 or so years I smoked but I always circled back, I would try dipping to stop but I couldn’t drink with a dip so I would smoke when I drank and I drank all the time. Once vaping became mainstream I got a vape and thought that would finally solve my problem but it turned one habit into another. I was able to stop smoking finally but I was probably more addicted to the vape, I was vaping probably every 4th breathe all day long! As soon as I woke up I would grab it and start, before I went to bed I hit it, and everything in between. It was more available than smokes, more accepted, faster, cheaper and I was completely hooked. I tried quitting the vape and would even throw it away but would end up getting another, I didn’t know how to act without it. One day I decided I was done and I was going to do whatever it takes, I threw it out the window and stopped at the store. I loaded up on the big bags of sunflower seeds, gum, tick-tacks, toothpicks…etc. I ate sunflower seeds all day long, not a second went by that I didn’t have seeds in my mouth. When my mouth was raw from seeds I would switch jaws. If I took a break from seeds I would be chewing gum and tick-tacks, I would break a toothpick in half and twirl it around in my mouth. The first few days was pretty rough but it was getting easier, somewhere in that first week I realized that the seeds had a ridiculous amount of sodium and I am not sure if that helped or hurt as far as quitting but I made sure after I knew about the sodium, I started buying the low sodium seeds. I am pretty sure I did it again, traded a habit for a habit. I was now addicted to the seeds, after 2 weeks of chewing seeds my craving for a cigarette was nearly non-existent but now I was eating seeds like a wild man. The seeds were not that bad to break from, I started slow and just left them on purpose here and there. It helped me to have a drink in my hand because I think a lot of my addictions have been hand to mouth and it took me awhile to get used to my hands not being busy either fidgeting with something, holding a smoke, bringing it to my mouth…etc. Now I do not have any habits, no smoking, dipping, vaping, gum, seeds, nothing! Finally free! Been over 2 years and I will never go back. I am slowly shifting the path of my bloodline, my children will not grow up thinking smoking was normal. I am not saying they will not smoke, but it will not be because thats all they knew! I will lead by example and I am out to change everything I grew up seeing and doing! Thank you for your time and interest in my journey! Please stay tuned as there is much more coming!