Hey everyone, I'm a medical student who first developed an affection for nicotine in college through cigarettes. I had considered myself a "chipper" back then because I would sometimes smoke a pack in a week and sometimes it'd take me 3 months to go through one. It didn't seem to have much of a pull.
Then I discovered snus pouches. These may seem like an odd thing to get hooked on, but I think they ended up being dangerous in my case as I could use them as a surrogate to caffeine that would wear off quicker so I could study later and sleep, and they are less messy so I can use them wherever I want. Eventually I started using them during tests to increase performance, and then every time I was studying, and then every time I was at school, etc. It creeped in without me really noticing how much I started to depend on it.
I know the effects of tobacco all too well, and am confronted with it almost every day. I think that's a good thing, because I think a lot of patients I see are able to by and large ignore the reality of their use the 99.99% of the time they're not interacting with a medical professional. It's also a good thing because it's fucking emasculating to talk to a patient about their smoking habit from a position of medical authority when I don't follow the advice I'm giving.
I've gone weeks without tobacco "to see if I could do it" without much issue other than lots of sleep and irritability in the first 72 hrs, but I've noticed that after a couple of weeks when I finally start to feel like I could do without it for good, I'll end up casually going back to it as if I'd never tried it before, because the problem is I still think I'm in control. Finally admitting to myself that's not the case, and I think this site can help keep me reminded of that in the coming weeks.
Posting roll now. Good luck to everyone else on their journey.
