I’m 32 years old and I’ve been smoking for 17 years.
I started drinking, smoking, chewing tobacco, and recreationally taking drugs when I was 15 years old. I had quite a busy year that year.
And of course it didn’t take long at all for my “recreational” pursuits to become not-so-recreational. They turned quickly into a career. A lifestyle. An identity. A horrible set of systems that would help me create a horrible little life for myself.
I quit buying cigarettes nearly 10 years ago. Since then, I’ve been vaping. People often ask why I kept vaping. “What’s the difference between smoking and vaping,” they ask. My answer: it was the smoke I wanted to get away from. Not the nicotine.
Now, things are different. It’s still not even the nicotine I want to get away from, at least not entirely. It’s the obsessive, compulsive habit of having something in my hand to puff on. It’s the constant feedback loop of rewarding myself for doing nothing. It’s the headaches I get after inhaling nicotine vapor for 18 straight hours.
I sit around my house all day vaping.
It’s absolutely horrible.
Because I’m bored. Because I like to have a cute little activity to engage my mouth and hand in. Chewing gum or eating lozenges won’t do. I like to inhale something. I like to smoke. I have always liked smoking.
But it’s time to be done. It’s just time.
Extremely guilty pleasures
So many of our troubles as human beings come from trying to turn brief or uncommon pleasures into frequent or long-term pleasures. Trying to make every day exciting. Trying to squeeze fun or pleasure or gratification into as many moments of our day as possible. There’s no pleasure so mundane that we won’t try to maximize it.
Another thing I see people doing is eating fast food ridiculously often. People can’t stand the thought of sitting at home making scrambled eggs or a sandwich. Because that’s not exciting. That doesn’t exhilarate one’s taste buds. That doesn’t make it A Meal To Remember. (And it’s not even just about the taste buds. I have found that people get some twisted satisfaction out of spending money on a meal. People find meals that they have to pay for right now more novel, exciting, and appealing than meals that are already in the fridge that they’ve already paid for.) And it’s unfortunate. This lack of self control will cost people. If you’re the sort of person who wants every meal to be exciting, I’m willing to bet money that you’re either broke or unhealthy. Maybe even both.
I used to do this too, but I learned how to enjoy just sitting at home eating eggs. It’s worth it. Not every meal has to be exciting. We must be comfortable sitting at home eating a plate of broccoli. Or rice and beans. Sometimes, a meal should just be eaten to survive to the next meal. And we have to be okay with that. Or else we will probably be broke or unhealthy - at the very least, we will be unduly impulsive.
We convince ourselves that we will pay no price for smoking a pack a day, or chronic masturbation, or eating fast food 9 times a week. We get a third, fourth, and fifth cup of coffee without really thinking much about it. We convince ourselves that our body can handle this lack of sacrifice and self control. We tell ourselves we’ll fix our bad habits one day. Just… later on, when it’s more convenient.
But our body can’t handle it. And it’s not just our body at stake anyway. It’s also our mind that’s paying a price. And our emotions. And our self-respect.
I mean, think about it. Do you respect a person who gives into his desires more than 30% of the time? That’s a straight-up hedonist. That’s a hippie. That’s the kind of person who can’t even be relied upon to get out of bed. You don’t respect that person, or at least you shouldn’t. So why would you respect yourself for doing the same thing? Well… whether your defensive mind lets you admit it or not, you don’t.
It looks to me like the average highly-respectable person probably gives in to about 1% of his desires and impulses. I would say that’s approximately true for me. And I hope that I’m highly respectable. That’s the goal, anyway.
No, we must not trick ourselves into thinking our body is the only thing at stake here. It is also our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Our body is only the most tangible and salient form of measurement we have of our health. But that does not make it the most important. Not by any stretch of the imagination. We must also be attentive to our mental feedback loops, our emotional ups and downs, our sense of centeredness and peace.
And my sense of centeredness and peace, while typically strong, is shaky right now. I have a high baseline of serenity and acceptance in my life. I take life as it comes, even though it’s usually not what I wanted. This has come from years of practice and self-evaluation and honesty. As Naval Ravikant says, a calm mind cannot be bought. It must be earned.
And, although I’ve earned mine, I cannot let myself get away with this anymore. This obsessive behavior. This money-for-nothing hedonism.
Pleasure without pain
I have been obsessed with smoking since I was 15 years old.
As long as I’ve lived in my townhouse, which has been about 8 years now, I have sat around virtually all day vaping. 8 years.
I sit around giving myself a constant reward for doing nothing. I did not earn any pleasure. I did not earn a physical release. I did not earn a reward, and yet here I am rewarding myself.
That is a cardinal sin. And I’ve known that for a long time, but I haven’t decided to stop doing it until now. I have long known how bad it is for humans to accept pleasure without work… but that doesn’t make it any easier to stop accepting the pleasure. To err is human; to keep erring even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence is divine.
This habit is so deeply part of my routine, part of my very existence… it’s part of who I am now. And that worries me. That makes me uncomfortable.
We ignore the fact that we are watering down what it feels like to be rewarded. We reward ourselves so liberally, so generously, that the rewards themselves become nothing less than expectations. That defeats the purpose of what a reward is supposed to be. The pain-pleasure balance begins to shift the other way, and what once was a reward becomes an obligation. A necessary and expected release just to get through our day.
It’s time for me to learn how to read, study, play piano, and watch a movie without constantly smoking something. It’s time for me to learn how to eat a meal without looking forward to smoking immediately after.
I limit myself to one cup of coffee per day. I have for years. For several reasons. Firstly, this ensures that my cup of coffee is actually worth drinking. It actually brightens my day and gives me a boost in productivity. Secondly, I am the kind of person who obsesses over how much of a substance is in my blood. “Have I had enough caffeine? Do I have enough energy to finish this project? Should I have one more cup? I could have one more cup.” By making this decision in advance, I take this stupid behavior away from myself. And finally, I don’t want to rely on coffee just to get through my day. I want it to be something I look forward to. A gift, not a curse.
In addition, I never drink coffee seven days a week. I always give myself at least one day off from caffeine, even though I am always in the mood for coffee. Why? Because I refuse to get caffeine headaches. I refuse to do that to myself. (Clearly I’d prefer to give myself nicotine headaches, like a responsible person.)
(God, we are such unreasonable creatures. Look at me.)
Could I get away with smoking a few times a day, or only at night, or with some other arbitrary rule? Sure I could. And there may come a day when I enjoy a cigar once per weekend or something like that. But what I’m looking to do now is re-wire my brain. The smoking needs to go completely. I need to learn how to live life again. Without constantly living in a reward cycle. Without constantly living in this childish buildup-and-release loop that has long since stopped being fun or pleasant. I need to stop living every day as if it ought to be full of rewards.
I have already given up drugs and alcohol. And lots and lots of compulsive and pleasurable behaviors, like drinking too much coffee. But I need to learn how to live life with even less pleasure and gratification. Soon I’ll be just like a monk.
A Decision
Something I have practiced for a long time now is action-based denial. Actively denying myself whatever impulse my brain has just fired at me, even if just for a moment. To practice self-control. To re-wire my brain for patience. To remind myself that my impulses are not in control - I am. Spend 6 minutes of your life watching this video from neuroscientist Andrew Huberman for more on this topic:
I have been sitting around for 3 days now obsessively thinking about smoking. That’s not an exaggeration. My body is tense, my emotions are wound tight, my mind is in a constant state of self-reminding. It’s amazing that I was even able to focus long enough to finish this blog post. My body, my mind, my emotions want me to go buy something that will deliver nicotine into my bloodstream. They desperately want it. I cannot escape these thoughts. My hand wants to reach for something rewarding. My tongue wants to taste vapor or smoke. My lungs feel empty and bored. I knew how miserable this was going to be, and it’s even worse than I anticipated.
And the timing probably could have been better. I recently broke up with my girlfriend, my little brother relapsed, my older brother has Covid, I’m struggling financially, and I really don’t have anything or anyone to distract me from how awful I’m feeling. It sure would be nice if I didn’t have to quit smoking right now.
But that’s life. When it rains it pours - and you just may have to give up your raincoat to make it stop.
I have made a decision. I’m finished.
There is nothing more powerful than a decision. A decision takes no prisoners, makes no compromises. A decision puts up with any how, because the what and why are good enough.
So I’m sure the next few weeks will be rough. But this too shall pass. And I’ll be a better man for it.
Drink water and deny yourself some pleasure.
JDR
“Decisiveness is often the art of timely cruelty.” - Henry Becque