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Comment by ChuckMeOut | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how to feel about this article. I'm about turn 28 and at various times in my past I have been addicted to cigarettes, methamphetamine, ketamine, heroin and tramadol.

I'm currently clean, however I feel like I am always just one small slip away from sinking into the abyss, it takes a concentrated effort almost every day to avoid this abyss, I certainly don't feel like I'm growing out of it. I am happily married and have a high paying job that I love, I'm generally really quite happy about life but still feel the darkness calling.

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For smoking at least, look into Alan Carr’s, The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently. I’m not into self-help books, but this one really made sense and worked for me. I’m 28 by the way, and funnily enough, I started smoking and getting into drugs at 23. I have been around smoking friends a lot since reading the book, and have not had the desire for even a single puff.

You can apply the same ideas to drugs and alcohol, and he actually goes over that near the end of the book. I have still found myself snorting the odd line of coke when it has been laid out, but I haven’t bought any drugs since reading the book. I can’t really handle them now anyway. Last weekend I actually refused, which is a first in ages.

The book will help you to build the massive mental fortifications needed to realise that the abyss tobacco and other drugs create are shit and do you no good. Give it a go even if you’re not smoking currently.

I tried reading it, but stopped around the first pages when he boldly states something along the lines of "you don't smoke because it tastes good" (it was more than 10 years ago, my memory can be a little fuzzy). That was my main reason for smoking my whole life, I couldn't take the man seriously.

I stopped smoking a year ago without any effort: I just started to forget to do it, day after day, and one day realized that I no longer smoked on a regular basis. Guess it wasn't a real addiction after all.

I find it hard to believe that the smell and taste of smoking was actually pleasant to begin with, and more likely that you now have a positive association of the smell with the pleasant effects ("high") that you got from nicotine. Although I've stopped smoking marijuana now, I still really love the smell, very herby and fresh. My wife, on the other hand, absolutely hates it and can't stand it.

Why do you find it hard to believe that other people like it, considering your shared anecdote to the same effect?

I enjoyed the taste of some tabaccos as well, though the after taste was always unpleasant. Thankfully, smoking never became an addiction for me

"Why do you find it hard to believe that other people like it,"

Because if there was no nicotine high / dopamine response to smoking, then sales of cigarettes would fall to almost nothing indicating that 'what people like' is the 'dopamine'.

How can you say that with such certainty?

Vapes have been around for at least 20 yrs and have not replaced cigarettes in any way... nicotine pills are even older and continue without a significant dent in the tobacco industry.

" at least 20 yrs and have not replaced cigarettes in any way."

Vapes have not been common in any easily usable format for 'the last 20 years' - it's really only been in the last few years have the formats really been workable.

And they have vastly changed behaviour, especially where it matters - among young people. There is essentially a vaping epidemic going on right now in high schools, and vaping has actually replaced smoking and then some [1].

Also I should point out that vaping and nicotine gum, are not perfect substitutes for smoking, so it's also hard to compare.

Do you know what the sales of 0mg nicotine 'juice' are compared to those with nicotine? Almost nada. Without nicotine vaping, then 'vaping' simply would not exist - there wouldn't be enough demand to justify the market for it.

Essentially nobody buys cigarettes without nicotine i.e. 'just for the taste'. The market is essentially non existent for that product. Ergo, it's the 'high' they are after.

I say this as a former smoker/vaper.

[1] https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/09/12/vaping-high-school-st...

I first tried reading the book a few years ago and also decided it was bullshit, but not for the same reason. The tone and style of writing certainly didn’t help.

Incidentally, even before reading it this time I believed that I liked the taste. I realised later that I really didn’t like the taste after all.

I commend you if you’ve managed to stop of your own accord without any effort. The problem is that a lot of people will try that like me and then fall back because they don’t have the mental framework to maintain the realisation that smoking is worthless.

Anecdotally, I found that coffee tasted much less good than I remembered it tasting after having given it up for a couple of months.

The point is that the reason you smoke, even when you're consciously trying not to, is because of chemical addiction.

Addicts build up a myriad of justifications for their addictions.

I liked the taste of cigarettes. They helped me wake up in the morning. I smoked to concentrate. I smoked to distract. I smoked to relax. I smoked so I wouldn't overeat etc.

At the end of the day, I didn't really smoke for those reasons. I smoked because cigarettes were chemically rewarding and I had become conditioned/dependent on smoking.

I should've clarified that I've smoked pipe. Never got the appeal of cigarettes, especially factory-made - they smell and taste horrible indeed.

The author covers pipe and cigar smoking too.

I never read it. I have to agree with you, though.

I loved [good quality] cigarettes and beer or coffee or whisky.

I don't regret quitting at all. I do wish I could enjoy it without getting addicted—but I can't. That said I don't like the smell anymore, and I have very little inclination to start up again. I don't think having a smoke would cause me to fall right back in anymore, but few occasions are worth it.

But yeah, always loved smokey smells and flavours (I love peaty scotch). So that premise you targeted is a bit naive on the author's part.

For the record, I quit without any aids outside of a bad illness for about a week and the desire to stop.

The study does not say that all recovers, only 75%. And with alcohol and heroin the recovery is longer, until the age of 35 or so.

I'd be interested to know a bit more about the method they used. Obviously anecdotal but when I started getting heavily involved in drugs my group of friends consisted of 7 people including myself, today only 4 of us are still alive, 75% recovery is not what I've experienced.

Not sure if it’s too personal or private so I’m sorry if it is but what made you get involved?

Yes OP there's an underlying reason to explain it. Without dealing with it, you never solve the problem

And to add to the question on "what made you get involved", I would be interested in knowing which drugs were they (opioids and heroin?)

Thank you, and sorry if it's too personal to ask

The point of the article is that you, as the lucky most, now at 28, can keep yourself from making this one small slip when before you couldn't.

Same here. 28, and I've been trying to get rid of my cigarette habit for 5 of the 10 years that I've been smoking. I've quite often made it to the 2 month mark, but whenever something bad happens in my life, it's becomes way too tempting to fall back in to old patterns and just have one cigarette. And then another one, and then I might as well buy a pack...

Honestly cigarettes were probably the hardest for me to quit, the only way I finally managed to get beyond that initial climb was a close family member was diagnosed with lung cancer and died shortly after, this was enough of a shock to carry me through the hardest stage.

Yeah, it was the same for my dad; he quit smoking after smoking for 35 years (since his 12th!) after his doctor told him his lung function was dangerously low and he wouldn't last more then 15 years unless he quit.

Nicotine is one of the most physically addictive substances.

I quit smoking several times, even went a year without smoking, but eventually relapsed into it every time. What helped me quit for good was snus. It's still nicotine and I'm addicted, but as far as we know it's _a lot_ less dangerous than cigarettes. I guess vaping might do the same but that didn't work for me.

I am 28 and managed to give up a few months ago during one of the worst periods of my life after reading Alan Carr’s, The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permentantly. Read it.

I found Narcotics Anonymous immensely useful.

It saved my life, my marriage, my sanity and my family.

that’s kind of how I felt reading this. “Congrats on growing out of it”, was all I really thought, while reading the whole thing.

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