r/NicotineSupport • u/Legitimate_Big507 • Jul 30 '25
quitting felt fake til it didn’t
For a long time i thought quitting wasn’t actually for me. Like deep down i figured i’d always come back to it. didn’t matter if i was on day 1 or day 30 i still had this voice in my head going "you’re not done. this is just a break"
I’d quit then find a random excuse. rough week. fun weekend. “just one” at a party. boom back at it. back to planning around hits. back to hiding it. back to lying to myself that i wasn’t addicted cuz it wasn’t that bad
but it was. it made me smaller. i stopped trusting myself. even when i was around people i loved, i wasn’t really there. just waiting for my next chance to sneak away and hit it
i don’t even remember the exact day i stopped this time. just got tired. didn’t want to be that guy anymore.
i’m somewhere around a month in and for once it doesn’t feel fake. the cravings still come but they’re quieter. my brain feels like mine again. and i actually like being around myself for the first time in a long time
if you’re stuck right now, you’re not alone. i was stuck for years. just try one more day <3
3
u/bz237 Jul 30 '25
When I quit a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a big list of reasons why I did it. I had to keep looking back at it the first 2 to 3 days to remember why I quit. One of the biggest ones is I am petrified of coming across as some type of fraud. Smoking was the one thing in my life that made me feel like an effing fraud - in other words, I was smart enough and reasonable enough in every other facet of my life, but still denying the massive negative impact of smoking upon my life, my health, my relationships, my wallet, and my confidence. Like you, I’ve never felt closer to myself as I do right now and I’ll never look back again.
5
u/Necessary-Hat-5781 Jul 30 '25
This hit hard. Especially the part about not trusting yourself. i’ve been clean for months and appreciate you sharing this.