Born when lightning struck the swamp, He rose from the murky depths. His skin was green and scaly, His eyes were red and fiery. He had a tail and claws and fangs, He roared with a dreadful sound. toot

  • 3 Posts
  • 115 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 12th, 2023
  • RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Lemmings who quit smoking and/or vaping, how was your quitting journey like?
    14·
    6 months ago

    Rocky. I quit once years ago for like 3 months and went back, never got the will power up to try again. Then one day my doctor told me there is a good chance I had cancer (spoiler: didn’t have cancer) and it scared the shit out of me.

    Knowing technically its probably to late I tried to quit, failed almost immediately.

    Then kind of sat down with myself and had a good long thing about why. Determined it was a multi layered problem.

    1. The nicotine itself.
    2. The act of getting up and going outside
    3. The hand/mouth part of it

    So I took a multi phased approach.

    I switched to vaping, which I found hard. But instead of puffing on a vape non stop I got really strong fluid so each time would just be a puff or two. Then I’d sit on the porch for a min before I went back in.

    Later I lowered the MG on the vape fluid. Then about a month later lowered it again. Kept that up until it was the lowest MG fluid.

    Started the patch. Still went outside a few times a day and would just have a tic tac and relax a bit. Occasionally I’d get a really strong urge so for the first week so I’d let myself have like one puff off the vape but after a week of that, threw it in the trash.

    Patch level down, down again, and then right before the lowest level I actually felt I was already ready. I had to take the patches off each night or I’d have bad dreams and the next day I’d put another on. But that last day I woke up and I just put last nights back on. I’m sure it had very little left in it but I knew it would have some effect. I did this so that I would be totally unaware of when the nicotine really stopped. I was playing a mind game with myself and so at some point that day I pulled it off and went about my life.

    Two days later I had an ABSOLUTE HELL DAY. One where later I even had to apologize to my boss because I was being such a raging asshole and then… I was free.

    I kept up the sitting on the porch thing a few months, I also picked up a pretty big tic tac habit which I had to later break but thats childs play compared.

    Its been over 2 years now. I’ve finally stopped dreaming about smoking or if I do I’m mad at myself (in the dream) about it. The smell to me is now awful instead of something that I want. And I never ever ever want to go back.

    I do struggle with my weight a lot more then when I smoked though. Oh, and every scan shows whatever they thought might be cancer hasn’t changed in size and might even have shrunk a little. So I guess if whatever that is doesn’t kill me I can say “Thanks, weird shit on my lung.”

    But if you’re reading this and you’re a smoker. Quit. Now. Soon. But quit. Don’t wait until its too late. When the world drops out from under you and you know you’ve fucked up in a way that can never be fixed. Don’t wait until you feel like your whole world is winding down and wait on some sort of miracle. Find whatever path works. Please.

  • RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What groups you are unwillingly associated with? How you handle it?
    592·
    7 months ago

    I own a gun and I strongly think that you SHOULD be able to own one IF you meet the qualifications. But I think those qualifications should be more strict and the penalty for being unsafe with your guns should be to lose them. Forever.

    Violent crimes in the past including domestic? Say bye bye to your guns. Can’t pass a background check? No exceptions.

    Guns should be accessible to those who can pass strict check and removed permanently for behavior that is indicative of a potential problems.

    But because I support the owning of guns I’m assumed to be one of … them. Ugh. Yucks.

    I handle it by showing my disgust and trying to explain that just because I support something doesn’t mean that I fall in on a survey.

    The entire gun “culture” is just toxic as fuck. To the point that if we ever do lose the right it will be their unwillingness to bend that causes it.