As for cigarettes with Gabe, I would be willing to buy him the 4mg gum squares with instructions how to wean yourself from tobacco. Meth use might make it harder, but I think it can still be done. This method works even for alcoholics who keep drinking while they are tapering off nicotine.
This quit program works relatively painlessly if you stick to the rules.
Rules for success:
Start with one full 4mg square every waking hour. Leave the gum in the mouth the whole hour, and replace it with a fresh gum after the hour. This would be 16 gums per day and 8 hours sleep. Use the first 2 or 3 days to adjust more/less — but after you have made the determination, STICK TO IT and this is where you start your taper. It will be a point where you are comfortable.
For a meth user, because of their sleep habits, that will have to be adjusted -- what is the longest waking stretch vs. longest sleeping stretch? Without meth that would be 16-8 or 12-12. But with meth it could be 36-18. So if it is 36-18 then use the 4mg square every waking hour 7 days.
After the first 3-day adjustment period and you have determined where you are going to start your taper, then continue with that level (example: one full square every hour for 16 hours) for 3 full days. Make sure you are comfortable with that level of nicotine in your blood before trying to reduce the level. Go to fast in cutting down and you sabotage yourself. You are not allowed to go back up once you cut, so be sure.
If you are reasonably comfortable with that level of nicotine during waking hours in the blood, then you can go to step 2. Reasonably comfortable means not wanting to cry, not snapping at people, able to function. Not suffering. If you are not reasonably comfortable you are not ready to reduce the amount from 4mg. So go another week or however many days are needed to get comfortable. Going extra days is not going to hurt anything.
What kills the program is going over the 4mg level. That can happen by having two gums too close together. You have to pay strict attention to the clock.
This is step one, and the remaining steps are like it.
STEP 2
Reduce your hourly dose by 1/8th of a sliver of a square. Save the sliver. You will use it later. when you are near the end of your taper. Don't reduce again for at least the minimum set amount of days (3 or 7). Make the STRICT rule to yourself that you will NEVER let yourself backslide. One you reduce, the reduction is for life. Even if you are stuck at that level for life, it is cheaper and more bearable that full blown smoking. Don't worry that you will be stuck there for life, because if you keep the rule, you will eventually be able to reduce again. Even if eventually is months away, at least you are headed in the direction of being free from nicotine. But because of the no blackslide rule, be CAREFUL when you make the decision to reduce that you really are ready to reduce. There is always some slight discomfort the first day, so be prepared for that.
One time I reduced too soon. I got excited because I saw this was working. And because of my backslide rule, I was unable to fix my mistake. I SUFFERED and it was no fun. And it was unnecessary. I learned my lesson. Stick to the rules. DO NOT REDUCE your dose until you are sure you are ready for it -- make sure you are comfortable with a level for at least 3 days before reducing the level again.
STEP 3
Reduce your hourly dose to 3/4 of a square. Save you little quarter-squares for later.
You get it how to do the rest. Finally you will be down to 1/8 sliver of a square every hour. Then you can start lengthening the time between doses 15 minutes at a time. Again, wait 3 days to make sure you are comfortable before extending your time. This means you have to pay serious attention to the clock. Once you can get up to 1/8 sliver every 4 hours, you might notice this is when you will start to forget your dose. When that happens, take it when you remember and start you time count from the time you took the forgotten dose. Never think like, Oh, I missed my 3pm and here is it 7pm so now I can have two slivers... NO! The reason is again that you don't want your body to experience any other than a down-going level of nicotine. Not even for one glorious hour. The gradual reduction of the level in the blood, consistent, without ever going over is the reason why this method works.
The reason why other quit methods do not work is because of the up/down in the nicotine level in the blood. You want to achieve a steady and consistent reduction. Any time you go above your achieved low level, you have to start again at that goof up point, and then you end up in a yo-yo situation. It could be another year before you can try this method again if that happens. So don't let yourself mess up. It is not like going on a diet and you "slipped" by eating a candy bar.
If we are going to use the diet analogy, then we have to say that the candy bar caused you to gain back the 20 lbs. you just worked so hard to lose. So, dieting is not the same at all, and tapering off nicotine is nothing at all like burning fat.
Never let the level of nicotine in your blood increase beyond your latest achieved low level, no matter how long it took you to get there, Figure that even if you never your whole life progress beyond, say, a half gum piece per hour -- hey! that is better than being enslaved to smoking. A half gum per hour is live-able. You can still do everything you want to do (restaurants/theater) and save lots of money.
Do not count sleep hours, for different reasons, but mainly because nicotine levels in blood are not reduced enough during sleep, otherwise you would wake up in the middle of the night from a nicotine fit. All of our physical needs are slowed down or put on hold during sleep.
I was surprised that both times I was able to quit with one box of gums. I was finished with my taper before I ran out of gum. I still have some squares left over from my last quit. I had 2 quits, one in 1995 and one in 2002. That 2nd quite proves what an idiot I am -- going back to cigarettes a second time. But I will never get tricked again. Still I sometimes think about having a cigarette. I might want one, but I thank God I don't need one. There was a time when I did not have the choice whether to smoke or not — it did not matter what I wanted. I suffered most terribly Sunday mornings on the hour drive to church with 2 single-parented kids.
Smokers, even quit smokers have to live with being "smokers" whether they smoke or not. Like alcoholics who do not drink. I am a smoker who does not smoke. I can never go back to being somebody who never smoked. But it does get easier, As time goes on. Now after 20 years, I might think about a cigarette less than once a year. Also, discussing it no longer triggers a craving.
I imagine any addiction is similar. But I have heard more than a few x-heroin addicts say that it was less difficult for them to give up heroin than cigarettes. I also met a former meth-user who was in a program that allowed zero addictive anythings, including cigarettes — she said the cigarettes are a lot harder to give up than meth.
June 12, 2024
Feast of Annunciation
on my way home from Lowe's I took the time to pick up some trash on the highway, and this disposable vape device was among the trash items. I don't pick up butts except directly in from on my house, but now it looks like this plastic thing will be replacing the butts/filters that are made of fiberglass and do not degrade. People just throw their butts out of the car window and don't think anything of it
I decided to check out the cost:
Online it says this device has 9000 puffs at 5% and is priced at $13.99
most reliable estimate (confirmed by Quora)
1 cigarette = 40 vape puffs at 5%
PACK
20 cigarettes = 800 vape puffs
CARTON
11 1/4 packs = 9000 puffs
So, a 5% vape device 9000 is appx. the cost of a carton. Since a carton of cigarettes now is about $20, that is a considerable savings.
When I was addicted to nicotine I wanted something like this so bad. I wanted control -- where I would never have to throw a nicotine fit. I hated how it had control over me. I would have taken a pill instead of a cigarette if there were such a thing. Nobody every volunteers for that experience of nicotine withdrawal... Cold turkey is absolute misery, torture, and totally incapacitating for the first 2 weeks.
I still see the gum as the only way to sanely withdrawal from nicotine. It needs a very slow and very exact taper. The gum lets you get it exactly. Exactly reduced a little tiny bit every 3 or 5 days... It is still no fun, but at least you can function. You need about 2 or 3 months with no traumas. You have to be careful to stay peaceful, because even with the slow taper, there are "triggers" that increase the symptoms. You have to psych yourself up to not react to anything. Not to try to get anything done or have any urgent task to do. Just try to float through the day, like treading water. And don't try to taper down faster than you can. Make sure you are ready for each time you reduce your dose. Ready means you are completely comfortable with the level of nicotine in your blood before reducing it another little tiny bit.
I remember I was down to 1/8th of a gum every 2 hours before I started forgetting to take my doses on time. I got down to 3 doses (1/8th of a gum cube) a day and then wondered if I could get away with dropping it altogether. It was a scary last step, but I decided to go for it. And I found out I was not addected anymore. FREEDOM!
It was not the end, though. A few months later I started smoking herbal cigarettes trying to appease my desires... but that was a waste of money... I would go 2 or 3 days with no problem, then get hit with a craving -- but I assured myself that it HAD to be psychological, and not physical, or I would not have made it through the previous 2 or 3 days. And sure enough, if I forced myself to "change the subject" in my mind -- think of ANYTHING else -- the craving would pass.
I came up with a game that distracts me. I look around for a word. Any word. A word on a billboard, or a street sign, or the spelled-out word of some object I could see. Then I played that game where I tried to make as many words as possible out of those letters. It gave me something unimportant to concentrate on and helped me to "change the subject."
It was many years, over 10 years, before I was able to talk about cigarettes without triggering at least some mild desire. Even in the past 12 months I had a dream where I was trying to get to a store to buy a pack of cigarettes. So maybe it never leaves us — maybe it is never possible to return to what life was before cigarettes.
Now that I'm quit 20 years there is nothing that could entice me to risk reviving that addiction. During covid for the first time in my life I actually lost weight without cigarettes. I was actually able to do a diet.
