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FROM: Troutnut 1 ... posted (3) Years Ago, Circa 2016
That's practically the national anthem for people who want to quit without really quitting.
I've thought that too when addiction ruled my life and I was trying to find different ways to quit without quitting. There were no e-cigs or vaping when I quit or I probably would have tried them. I did try little cigars, clove sickarettes, switching to pot, and I still have a massive old pipe collection from my attempts to quit without quitting.
I did the same thing with my alcohol quit. I tried to switch from whisky to just beer. Then to just wine. Then to vodka and rum. But these attempts were all doomed to failure because I kept putting the drug ethanol into my body.
When I finally joined AA in 1998 I was shocked to find out I wasn't different at all. It took a while for a kind older gentleman to show me the truth. And the truth was I wasn't different, special, or unique at all. At least when it came to my addictions.
Turns out I was just a garden variety alcoholic. And I later figured out that I was just a garden variety addict of the drug nicotine as well. And these two addictions were actively working together in a race to see which could kill me first. A deadly partnership of diseases the medical field calls "comorbidity".
I was lucky. People told me the truth and eventually I was able to get through the denial and recognize my terminal diseases for what they were. I asked for, and received help that saved my life.
Those of us that have been here a while have seen it thousands of times. Nice folks who don't have a clue trying to quit without quitting. There are certainly more ways to do that than there ever have been before. But the results are always the same. A return to smoking at even higher levels than they were before the substitution. They use "addict speak" like "we're all different" to try and cover their tracks and try to fool themselves.
So here is the truth. We are all garden variety addicts of one of the planet's most powerful, deadly, and addictive drugs. Our very survival depends upon the ability to recognize this fact and do something about it. That means that eventually we have to learn how to stop putting the drug nicotine into our bodies, one day at a time. Legitimate NRT is the only exception I can see to this rule, and then only when used precisely as directed.
Alcoholics don't get better by switching types of alcohol. Heroin addicts don't get well by switching to hydrocodone or other opiates. And nicotine addicts don't get well by switching delivery devices and keeping the rituals and habits alive with smoking like actions.
We are certainly all special, unique, and different in many ways. But when it comes to this addiction, we are all in exactly the same boat. Garden variety.
It took over three decades for me to finally acknowledge the truth. To quit, you have to stop putting nicotine into your body. It is my hope that most of you get that fact quicker than I did.
We're All Different