Nicotine Dreams

The difference between medicine and poison is the dose.

Lately I've been self-medicating with nicotine. That's right, self-medicating. I used to be a smoker, on and off. I quit about a decade ago, then got back into it for a while, and quit again. I never really took to smoking all that much but lately I've been having my work seriously affected by a fog of depression and knew I had to do something to bust out of the rut.

The something that kept floating up in my mind was having a smoke, but I thought maybe I was just craving nicotine so I started looking into cleaner alternatives. First I looked into e-cigs, but all the nicotine juice for sale seems to be candy-flavoured stuff and that just sounds totally digusting to me. Then I looked into the patch, but for various reasons that didn't seem like a good option either. Finally I settled on just trying the gum. Minty fresh breath and stealthy drug delivery system in one, how could I not try it?

I've done enough drugs to know I was just reaching out of desperation, but I'm still surprised at how well it's been working for me. My morning routine now is breakfast followed by a french press of coffee followed by a 2mg piece of nicotine gum. 2mg is roughly equivalent to the dose in a cigarette, but the effects of the gum come on smoothly and it leaves me in a state of bliss accompanied by the energy and focus to get shit done.

The first few days I was tempted to abuse it, but managed to control the urge and kept it to just one piece a day. Benzos have taught me to be especially wary of half-life and tolerance, so I went into it with an exit strategy if tolerance started building but it's been a few weeks and I'm still getting the desired effect out of a single piece per day. Hence, I consider this self-medicating as opposed to jumping into a fresh addiction. Well, for me it would be jumping back into an old addiction. Funny how I never took to the usual illicit stims but I love my coffee, cocaine and nicotine.

Thanks to the nicotine (never thought I'd say that), I've finally been able to get started on one of the two website ideas I've been thinking of launching for a while. Usually I just do back-end stuff for other people's craptacular sites so I already know my way around a server and the only new challenge for me will be front-end programming (the stuff that the user interacts with directly), with which I don't really have a lot of experience but I'm feeling optimistic about being able to handle it myself.

Almost a decade ago I wrote down my mid-term goals and itemized the short-term goals I had to accomplish to reach them, and I managed to cover the most important goals and it felt amazing at the time. Since then, I've been feeling more and more lost, and maybe that's what catalyzed my spiral into depression. Now I think I finally have a crystallized notion of what I want my next set of mid-term goals to be, so I need to firm up the short-term goals needed and get started on them. I feel anticipation today for the mountains I'm going to climb tomorrow. Today, I am an optimist. Today, I am alive.

 

Scientific studies have consistently shown that nicotine improves memory and increases performance on mental tasks. I'm sure it helps with coding too. With gum or a vaporizer, you get all of the benefits with very few harmful effects. I believe pure nicotine is fairly benign. I really doubt that anybody can damage their health when using either of those 2 options.

 

hey I agree with socko, usually when i'm working the first thing I want to do before work is to 'fire one up', and the smoke gets aggravating!same with trying to run back and forth carrying tools,equipment,and working all with a cigarette in my mouth. Hell i'm usually winded before I make it back to the truck, and have to put the shit it out, its like giving a runner a cigarette and tell them to go run and smoke a cigarette, lol.everyone knows that shits about to suck for the runner,buttt what about the 'reward system' type shit?i bet the runner is puking up his breakfast wishing they'd never smoked that cigarette.
I recently started the patch, its the nicoodermCQ 21mg patch, in the last day I've went from smoking 1-2 packs a day, to 1 cigarette, and 1 roll-up cigarette. and tbh, that's afucking accomplishment. like you throujne, you quit for a reason, and i'm quiting for a reason. I hate it when my mom rolls down her car windows, or has to open the windows in the house when I visit because I smell like stale cigarette smoke., it makes me feel like crap, then I go back outside and smoke while I feel like crap lol.
Don't get me wrong, I want to smoke, except am I really wanting to smell like cigarettes again? I want to start exercising again, and seriously, the smoking has to go, even when i'm eating something good, I don't want the first bite to taste all cigarette like. hell if my drinking buddy irl can stop drinking liquor and beer, I can quit smoking. I CAN AND WILL DAMMIT!

you can try those e-cigarettes out, they got em for like $9.99+tax at some gas stations, or get one of tose vaporizers . the gum i.s an option too, and the say chewing gum helps with focus, just don't stick the shit under your desk

 

ugh, yeah remembering the SMELL is a good way to stop cravings. i like the tobacco smell but the cig smell that lingers on your hands and clothes is naaaaaaasty!

i know that e-cigs give cheaper doses than the gum or patch so i figure after the cost of the mod (what they call the vaping unit) is covered it's a good deal but i just find the sweet flavours a turn off. i think for flavour-free stuff you need to mix your own base with nicotine but eh $30 is almost half a year's supply of the gum for me so i don't want to spend time messing with mods and batteries and mixing juice and cleaning the unit or whatever else maintenance there is to do.

socko, i read about the memory thing too, it's an imperceptible change but i used to be so bad at short-term memory that i needed a shopping list written down or i'd forget things for sure, now i don't need to write anything down. it's like my brain got more RAM, don't have to strain to remember anymore it just comes to me