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My stim is smoking. Help

ammogan

ammogan

New Member
Hi all! So I've realized smoking is me stimming. I am 40 and have been smoking more than a pack a day for over 20yrs. I have never been able to quit, I do not want to- I want to want to. It is so ingrained and calms me. Im having a panic attack- sit down and chain smoke, I feel better. Ate to much- I chain smoke and feel better. It takes me hours to fall asleep, I'll nearly be asleep when I think about smoking one more before bed and cannot shush that thought until I do- several times. It's not even for just the nicotine, I'll continue to smoke even if it hurts my throat and I can actually feel like there's too much nicotine in me. I tried chantix, it really messed with my head but made the throat hit feel like I was swallowing glass so that's made me stop. But I started again when I couldn't stop eating gummy bears, fidgeting and going crazy. Gums make me super nauseous and the fidgeting, irritability returns. Same goes for patches. Vaping hurts my throat really bad, but helps with all the other aspects. I always go back to cigarettes, they are my comfort zone. They give me and excuse to go be by myself, give me something to focus on. I need to hand to mouth motion. I'm rambling now sorry. Anyone have any other stimming solution so I can kick this one? Thanx
 
You need to stop as soon as possible. Emphysema is a horrible slow death and is likely with long term smoking for decades.

So nicotine gum is out, nicotine patch is out. I don't have an answer for you but as a reader, the way you've explained your situation seems to leave no room for alternatives and instead it seems our only answer is...keep smoking cigarettes??? I would never advocate that.

Hopefully at some point instead of just wanting to want to stop, you'll actually want to stop and take measures to do so. One positive thing to think about: Former smokers are some of the most militant anti-smokers there are. I can attest to that myself as a former cigarette smoker. The smell of cigarette smoke in the air and the rank smell of it on a person and their clothes is to me one of THE most disgusting smells out there.

Hopefully you won't be one of those people that can't quit no matter what. There are people that continue to smoke while on flammable oxygen (from smoking damage) and even smoke through their tracheotomy holes because they can't stop.
 
You could try therapy, or hypnosis, or join a group for addictions? At the end of the day though - you need to want to do it. Other people can try and scare you with health risks etc, but again - if you don't want to quit, then you won't. Any attempt has to be genuine, but from within. You have to want to otherwise it won't materialise.

But, as Gabor Maté says - ask not why the addiction, but why the pain. If it's a compulsive need to smoke, to ease tension and anxiety and friction, then you need to work out where this unease and discomfort is coming from and address that first.

Ed
 
I have heard hypnosis may work.

Hand to mouth motion, l have heard that before. It's kind of a oral fixation.
https://www.healthline.com/health/oral-fixation
Just a idea to read about this, see if it makes any sense to you. My parents gave up smoking, they had a lot of hard candy around, I guess to replace the hand motion to the mouth. Eventually they quit.
 
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I can't give you a specific stim, since we all have our own preferences. I would just say be prepared for things to feel worse before they feel better, once you quit. The temptation to start again will be huge, but once you get through the initial h*** you will probably find life is much better. Our addictions give a big initial reward, but will never really fulfill. These are all distractions from real life, and ourselves. Real life takes more work, but is much better.

Good luck and I'm sorry you're experiencing this. It is brutal. But, you can overcome it. You have too much value not to.
 
Definately relate. Smoking has been my main way of coping with the stress/anxiety of life. Smoked since age 18. I have tried quitting but was always miserable. Eventually I switched to E-cigerettes which doesn't have a lot of historical data yet to establish health issues. But I am happy with it and feel it is an improvement overall so far. If you use top quality stuff it is not much cheaper though.
 
I know this may be a controversial point of view but I think there is a distinction to be made between self medicating and addiction.

Coincidentally, a couple of days ago the thought crossed my mind that smoking could be a stim for me. I considered it for a bit and then didn't consider it beyond the "perhaps" stage.

I've quit smoking a good few times. I switched to vaping and stayed smoke free for over a year. But here's the thing. It was one of the worst years for my mental health and physical health.

I found out I do have a heart condition and hypertension. The first "go to" for the doctors was smoking. But at the time I had firmly quit. But the result was increased and quite horrendous anxiety. My heart was beating like a jack hammer every night after taking my usual meds. It was pretty show stoppingly horrible.

Also I'm pretty sure that I react to the PG in the vape liquid. I tried to find a version that had low PG levels. But they are few and far between. I bought some and I think the claims of low PG were false. I felt constantly sick.

So I relented and started smoking again. Fairly soon the anxiety was under control again and most ironically of all, my blood pressure and stats were much better.

Of course it's true that smoking is bad for you. I absolutely agree. But so too are the physiological effects of untreated anxiety.

So for me it's an imperfect solution to a serious problem. I hate it to be totally honest. Doctors don't want to help me but seem happy enough to prescribe meds to my girlfriend for the same issues. Arguably my anxiety attacks are worse than hers. But my treatment amounts to "bugger off".

The reason why I'm saying this is that the anxiety that you may have or whatever is going on will need to be addressed properly.

People like to use words like "crutch" for these things. Well it's my opinion that some times "crutches" are necessary. If I broke my leg and needed to walk, I would likely use something as a makeshift crutch until appropriate treatment and a proper crutch could be provided to me.

Appropriate treatment is key here.

Failing to fill the gap that smoking fills is a waste of time. So this could be done with medication, therapy or a combination of things.

Sometimes so called "bad habits" are preventing far worse problems from developing. But that shouldn't be taken as an endorsement for smoking. The point is, we do our best with the tools we are given.

I don't smoke for enjoyment anymore. I smoke when I'm struggling. And this is simply because I'm not given appropriate or effective treatment for the anxiety I experience. In the short term things are better but eventually they likely won't be.
 
Smoking is a tough one to give up. Nobody is sugarcoating this addiction. There are nicotine patches which do help some people give up nicotine, this plus hard candy maybe another option.
 
Outdated said:
I gave up so many times that in the end I had to give up giving up. :)


I've smoked all my life but the smell of vapes makes me feel ill. I recognise Toluene in the mixture, the only solvent that I could never stand the smell of.
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There is just something about vape liquid that makes me feel rather unwell. Like mild poisoning. There was once a time we had to repaint the factory floors where I worked with two part solvent based paint. The fumes were so strong I was ill for a good 3 days and driving home that day was surreal to say the least.

I think the liquids have things like ethyl acetate in them as a flavouring agent. This will make me cough like crazy. I can't eat pear drops and apparently they contain this chemical. It's also in spray paint these days. I've been spray painting a guitar headstock,band despite wearing two masks I've been coughing despite keeping my exposure down to around 30 seconds!

Whatever is going on with the vape liquids, they were definitely making me unwell. I suffer with anxiety and I've done a mountain of research into all kinds of mindfulness and herbal remedies. Non of which work for me. I even researched the subject while at university hoping I might find a way of beating the anxiety. This is where I learned that most of the studies on so called "mindfulness" techniques were far for scientific.

Some people have the sorts of brains that will respond well to mindfulness strategies. With myself (and this is a well known phenomenon not just for me) respond poorly to this sort of thing because of several factors, but mostly because you have to be quite suggestible for it to work.

As I say, I do my best with the tools I have. Until I have a new tool that works, the search will continue. Just wish the doctors might, y'know, be a bit more constructive.
 
MildredHubble said:
There is just something about vape liquid that makes me feel rather unwell. Like mild poisoning.
Click to expand...
That is exactly what Toluene does to me, it makes me feel ill. I always liked the smell of Ethyl Acetate though, to me that's a clean smell. It's also commonly known as Nail Polish Remover.
 
Aspychata said:
Smoking is a tough one to give up. Nobody is sugarcoating this addiction. There are nicotine patches which do help some people give up nicotine, this plus hard candy maybe another option.
Click to expand...
I tried nicotine patches, even the lowest dose made me horribly sick and gave me the most distressing nightmares.

I can only assume that due to my habit being quite small, I just absorb enough nicotine to modulate or attenuate the anxiety when it begins to peak.

I've got lots of theories, but they mostly boil down to, I don't smoke as often or as much as most smokers I've known. A few years ago you could by cigarettes in packs of 10 and that was more than enough for me. But now you can only buy in 20s. So I have rolling tobacco and the smallest quantity you can buy here lasts me around 10 days.

For me it's a case of, if I feel things going a bit pear shaped, I will smoke a small amount then not again for hours. A bit like taking pain killers for a headache.

I don't like this as a solution. Other people get treatment for their anxiety but I don't. I've talked about this before, but I suspect this is likely due to a dodgy and abusive psychiatrist I had the misfortune to cross paths with.

My view is that if someone is managing their anxiety with tobacco, surely it's better to prescribe them something less harmful. I know it can be done. My girlfriend got said treatment.
 
Outdated said:
That is exactly what Toluene does to me, it makes me feel ill. I always liked the smell of Ethyl Acetate though, to me that's a clean smell. It's also commonly known as Nail Polish Remover.
Click to expand...
The smell is pretty amazing! But it makes me cough like crazy! But it smells like old fashioned sweets to me!
 
From what l see the patches don't work for everyone, but there some people who do have success and quit smoking. So l am just trying to think of a solution to offer @ammogan .
 
MildredHubble said:
I tried nicotine patches, even the lowest dose made me horribly sick and gave me the most distressing nightmares.
Click to expand...
One of my bosses got me to lick the plastic covering off of one of his patches one day, my knees went weak and I almost hit the floor.

I also knew a scottish bloke that started using the nicotine gum, he ended up addicted to the gum and still smoking.

I'm quite a heavy smoker, I buy tobacco but smoke it in my little dope pipe. I've done this for many years. A little 25 gram pouch lasts me about 8 days that way. Instead of smoking a whole cigarette I just have a quick hit when I need it. People think I'm weird but I never cared about that, I smoke for my enjoyment, not theirs.
 
It's worth trying everything available. But I just get the impression from @ammogan in their post that this may not be a clear cut case of addiction and more like self medication. So if that's the case the underlying problem needs to be treated correctly.

But to be clear, I wasn't trying to put anyone off nicotine patches. More that I was maybe a bit verbose in describing my experience with them :-).

I think with addiction it's simply a case of retraining your mind, though that can be very challenging. But with self medication the "addiction" vanishes when the cause of the problem is treated properly. If the problem isn't dealt with, then old habits will re-emerge. It's just a matter of time.
 
I will say that I've found the following breathing techniques to be quite effective @ammogan. They can help me avoid smoking, though aren't as convenient I guess. But I thought I would link them here so maybe you can try substituting the odd ciggie with them if you want to try. Please do watch the safety video first though!



They do help me. I find them very relaxing, I used to do them often but I had to stop due to possibly aggravating my heart condition. But I'm thinking I should start doing them again now that I'm feeling better. The best tip i can give with these is to not worry about sticking rigidly to the instructions, just do your best. Eventually you will be able to do them like a pro! :-)
 
ammogan said:
Hi all! So I've realized smoking is me stimming. I am 40 and have been smoking more than a pack a day for over 20yrs. I have never been able to quit, I do not want to- I want to want to. It is so ingrained and calms me. Im having a panic attack- sit down and chain smoke, I feel better. Ate to much- I chain smoke and feel better. It takes me hours to fall asleep, I'll nearly be asleep when I think about smoking one more before bed and cannot shush that thought until I do- several times. It's not even for just the nicotine, I'll continue to smoke even if it hurts my throat and I can actually feel like there's too much nicotine in me. I tried chantix, it really messed with my head but made the throat hit feel like I was swallowing glass so that's made me stop. But I started again when I couldn't stop eating gummy bears, fidgeting and going crazy. Gums make me super nauseous and the fidgeting, irritability returns. Same goes for patches. Vaping hurts my throat really bad, but helps with all the other aspects. I always go back to cigarettes, they are my comfort zone. They give me and excuse to go be by myself, give me something to focus on. I need to hand to mouth motion. I'm rambling now sorry. Anyone have any other stimming solution so I can kick this one? Thanx
Click to expand...
I urge you to quit. My father died of lung cancer -- twenty years after he quit smoking. It was set up by the 40 prior years of smoking. Best of luck quitting.

Aspychata, he was finally able to quit after hypnosis. In his case, it really did work, but he had an individual session with the hypnotist, not one of those group sessions I see advertised. I suspect hey are not as effective as a customized one on one.

Outdated, ethyl acetate and similar do smell appealing. I believe that is why they are called aromatic hydrocarbons.
 
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