Nicotine addiction is one of about three regrets I have in my life. People say love life with no regrets. But there is nothing practical that can be learned from having an addiction.
I only tried to quit once, 13 months ago and didn't look back. I finally looked at my kid and said "Do I want to live long enough to watch her grow up?" I kept myself occupied by trying to avoid other vices. It's certainly retarded to take up a steady drinking habit to balance it out, I smoked a bit more pot than I should have the first couple months bit makes you MOODY so I bottled that up since a year ago I was already insanely miserable for different reasons. I also started working out every day to keep my mind off the addiction, plus you crave to eat more-- snacking at night is typical-- so you have to watch that, some people gain shitloads of weight when they quit. Every sign points to "Enough" once you pass the Era Of Invincibilty in your mid thirties and start to accept your mortality. You look back at when you did shit in your early 20's like going out drinking with your psycho-crew six nights a week, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or throw yourself off a second floor balcony and think "I can do this forever!" We only wish we could.
I got the fucking flu two years ago and didn't have one for 10 days, I just ran with it then, beer doesn't make me want a smoke, it's the damn coffee that gets me. Nothing better than coffee and a few smokes.
Alcohol addiction is definitely one of mine. What was fun, turned into something that I physically needed just to get through the day. When I didn't drink, I felt that part of me was missing. Very sad looking back on it. It almost ruined my marriage (I have a very patient wife, to say the least). Almost killed me twice when basically alcohol poisoning interacted with meds and left me blue in the face and struggling to breath -- you'd think I'd have learned my lesson after the first time, but such is addiction. It took away a fun, social thing, that I know I will never be able to return to because I am afraid that if I return to it I'll go back to the addiction extreme. It'd be easy for me if there was a point where I can say casual drinking became addictive drinking, but the transition was so gradual no one noticed in real time how bad it had gotten. I disagree with your statement though that there is nothing that can be learned from addiction. What you learn about yourself after you overcome addiction is invaluable... But I'd trade those lessons 100 times over if it meant not having the addiction in the first place.
My friend went on Chantix. He became suicidally depressed. He was telling his kid shit like she was adopted, he didn't love her, and he's only proud of her for being a lesbian. She was 11 at the time. This guy is also a chronic asswipe so it's tough to say if the meds made him do that. But he doesn't smoke anymore! Got another friend on Chantix now. We'll see what it does to him. I do not have an addictive personality, so if I don't want to do something I don't. Your best bet is probably cold turkey. Stock up on some chewing gum. Whenever someone tells me they can't stop smoking I remind them my dad was a 2 pack a day guy. Which is why his aorta turned into a literal charcoal briquette and he dropped dead at 56. Almost out of the blue. He felt a little rough for a couple days, like the flu. He's stepping into bed and BAM, dead before he hits the pillow. Just like that. Remember that next time you feel a little sick or your arm tingles. Out of all the addictions, cigarettes seem the dumbest. They stink, they're expensive, the euphoria is small, and you can't even cook with them like booze.
I have a friend who was a pretty heavy smoker who quit about a year and a half ago. He quit along with a guy he works with, and they have an elaborate humiliation planned for the first one to relapse. It also helped that he had just started a new job at a plant that made it really inconvenient to smoke, in a new city where he had pretty much no social life.
That is a very large and very tall structure that looks to be in a rural area. Do you have any background on this?
I tried Chantix, and it worked in that I was down to about 8 cigarettes a day. The downside is I was horribly depressed, and wanted to kill everyone and everything. Good times! I think I'm going to try the lozenge thing. Since I don't drink, I'm good with cigs that way, but like someone said, the coffee and smoke thing is so awesome. It will be hard to give up. But I'm way past the age of immortality.
I hope I did this right, but for you gearheads out there, I saw this on Saturday and had to take pictures: I was in 5 Guys having lunch. I told my wife 'Watch, every guy that walks by that car will stop and look." They did. My wife says 'It's cute and all (I don't know how I didn't run her over in the parking lot with the Audi for referring to a Shelby Cobra as 'cute' but I digress) but I don't see what the big deal is." That's justifiable grounds for divorce, right?
Has anyone else seen Bone Tomahawk? Jesus Christ that movie was a tough watch. But as far as modern westerns go, its pretty good.
I was perusing #explainafilmplotbadly on twitter and had to stop after this one because it was the clear winner: https://twitter.com/goldengateblond/status/676159182593064960
I can't find the exact source at the moment as I'm on my phone, but I know I've seen this before on reddit and it's a huge setup. The guy is actually a BASE jumper and fell off on purpose. There's a longer version where you see his chute fully deploy and he just glides away.
Personally, being around people who have COPD, lung cancer, and lung transplants (I get to see how shitty the long-term outcomes are) makes me never want to pick up a cigarette. Being around people who have had their tongues or lower jaws removed because of cancer makes me want to slap cigarettes out of other people's hands. Get nutrition from a J-tube and not be able to communicate or breathe very well? No, thanks. Nobody wants to live like that.
I'd add chewing tobacco to that list. Watching an uncle slowly die from cancer that spread started in his mouth and spread through his body, reducing him from a giant of a man to a gaunt shadow, is a pretty good way to never want to touch that shit. I used to have a co-worker who thought he was really cool every time he kicked his boots up with a big fat wad of Cope in his lip. Idiot.