Anxiety is a burden, if not a beast to bear. It's swift and deceptive, fast and sneaky. It can show up out of nowhere, for seemingly no reason, and stays around as long as it pleases. It can take many forms - sometimes an uncomfortable heat radiating from your belly outward, sit heavy like an elephant on your chest, leaving your gasping for breath, or it can slam down on the gas peddle of your heart, until you hear it racing and pounding in your ears. Like lightning it speeds from your body to your brain, poisoning it with compulsive, spiraling, circling irrational thoughts. You are left feeling trapped and powerless it in it's embrace.
You try to fight it, and you know what they say, you've been here before. You go for a walk, put on some calm music, take some long deep breathes. You work out, try to see a friend, read a book, drink a tea, meditate, shut off all the lights, pet your dog, see your therapist, your acupuncturist, try CBT, try hypnosis, take a pill....but that beast is strong and powerful. In the throws of anxiety, panic and fear, I felt weak and helpless - until I lit that cigarette, or in future years, took a pull from my JUUL, and slowly felt the fear and dread wash away.
While I've suffered from general anxiety, and the occasional full on panic attack for as long as I can remember, it was about 4 years ago that it spiraled out of control. I remember the day, the moment, like a photograph instilled in my mind. I was sitting with my husband around our coffee table, unpacking thai takeout, when the heat started. Fire burning deep inside my belly and spreading fast through all my limbs. My breathing became shallow, hard, and the heavy weight of panic and dread filled my brain. I looked at my husband and I said "I think I'm going to die, my smoking is killing me".
That moment set off the most emotionally unstable year of my life. I lived for 6 months in a near constant panic attack. I consulted with psychotherapists, cognitive behavioral specialists, psychiatrists. I tried 4 different anti-anxiety drugs, I started taking xanax daily. Terrified of getting addicted I would wait until the pain was too much to bear before taking the smallest amount to possibly take the edge off. I lived in constant torture while I tried meditation, yoga, deep breathing, acupuncture and massage. A high achiever in a leadership position, my work started to suffered, I couldn't focus, concentrate or really even care. At the prompting of my caring boss, I took a 5 week leave of absence. At the encouragement of my supportive husband I used this time to try to "feed my soul" by going to a wellness retreat, traveling alone to truly connect with myself. The only thing that I did not do, was quit smoking.
When I returned from my trip, with my anxiety only about 25% relieved, my psychiatrist made a bold suggestion - "perhaps you should try to switch to an e-cigarette". I was skeptical, and scared, but it was worth a shot. You see at the time, like I have now learned so many of us do, I associated smoking with my sense of calm, my relaxation, my stress and anxiety relief. During this particularly acute period of anxiety the only relief I would get would be those few glorious seconds after I lit up, and deeply inhaled. I didn't register the momentary relief as the curing of a withdrawal, and thusly couldn't imagine putting down my only cure in a moment of such anguish.
The e-cigarette seemed like a fair compromise - and it was worth a try. I set a 3 month plan for myself to transition slowly, cigarette by cigarette, and was pleasantly shocked to realize how satisfying my shiny new JUUL was and that in one week's time I was "free". While the following two years had their anxious ups and downs, I was overall markedly better. With the help of my JUUL, and the occasional xanax, I regained my ability to function, even was able to take a new job, and about my life I went, free from the fear that took me down in the years before, that the cancer sticks I loved so deeply were going to be my demise.
My tale is one of "you can run but you can't hid". This year among the scrutiny, a rise in teen nicotine addiction, and the media frenzy around the true impacts of vaping nicotine on your health, sent my anxiety back into a tailspin. I could no longer deny the deep seeded connection between my anxiety and my nicotine use. I could not help but realize that when I would refer to myself as a "life-long anxiety sufferer", I was referring to the alignment with the year I became addicted to nicotine. I could no longer hide from myself the fact that the JUUL allowed my addiction to spiral completely out of control and that my brain was now living in a near constant state of withdrawal.
As I write this probably too long post, I am 6 days, 22 hours and 8 minutes free from the evil grasps of the JUUL. I am no saint, and I while I read and agree mostly with Allen Carr, I have chosen to use NRT in the form of the patch because, know thy self. I am pouring myself in to this post, this community and many others because unlike what Carr has promised, and even though I am so incredibly proud and happy to be free, and to have a life of being a non-smoker in front of me, I am struggling. The physical withdrawals I went through in the first 3 days while my body revolted at the decrease in nicotine from 50 high-octane mgs to 21 light and easy mgs did not feel like "pangs". I shook, I sweat, I froze, I couldn't think or concentrate, I was nauseous and couldn't stop going to the bathroom, I had horrific insomnia and wild vivid dreams. I cried all the time and couldn't think or talk about anything but smoking. My cravings, frequent and strong manifest as the feeling of that anxiety I so live in fear of feeling - searing heat coercing through my body, spiking my heart rate and heavying my lungs. I went to see my psychiatrist 2 days ago and begged him for a help - his response, so painful but true "there is nothing that I can give you that will help, you just have to go through this".
And I am because I want this, and i need to feel every ounce of discomfort to imprint on my brain why I can never go back. I now know that even though I've packaged myself on the outside as a beacon of health and determination, on the inside I was a I miserable addict, living in constant torture between the smoke free life I knew I needed to live and the anxious pain of near constant withdrawal.
I thought it would be better by now, but it's not, and that's just my truth. I think there is a wild connection not only between smoking and mental health, but quitting and mental health. I feel things stronger and with more of my body than those who may not have my anxious affliction, it causes me to be compulsive and my thoughts to circle on repeat through my head. It forces me to obsessively google every fear, every feeling, praying to find a magic cure or the answer that I so desperately want.
I am trying to, as I move into my second week quit, to move into the stage of acceptance. I want to accept that this has and may continue to be for some time, hard for me, no matter how other people have found it or what Allen Carr says. I want to treat my anxious mind with the assurance that while I may feel crappy today, that doesn't mean I will feel crappy tomorrow, or next month or year, and truly know that "this too shall pass".
