5-Week Taper, 1-Week Free

Quit Caffeine 3.5 months ago, and I started quitting nicotine pouches about 6 weeks ago. What a freaking journey it has been.

Starting Pouches Last Year

I want to start off saying that tobacco has NEVER hooked me the way pouches did. I would smoke cigarettes in my teens and then just walk away. I've had seasons of smoking cigars in my 20's and just walked away. No symptoms, no withdrawals, nothing. So now in my 30's I went through a few months of having a cigar on the weekends, and I don't know why but I thought I'd try a Zyn pouch last year. I guess their stupid bull marketing about it being "clean" and "safer" than tobacco convinced me. That was my fault. HOLY CRAP - I got addicted fast! I quickly got up to about 25mg/day and had been on pouches for 8 months.

At first it was great, it felt like having a companion by my side. Things like going on a long drive were enjoyable as long as I had my pouches. But slowly I've started to have shortness of breath, some pressure in my chest, and if I didn't have my pouch in I would start crashing and getting fatigued. So I knew I had to quit.

Quitting Caffeine in May

I had to quit caffeine first, because no way was I going to quit both at the same time. I had been up to about 5-7 cups of coffee per day. It was really interesting, quitting caffeine made me realize that my memory problems, short attention span, impulsivity, sleep problems and other issues were majorly linked to the caffeine. When you quit caffeine, your brain is full of adenosine receptors which make you insanely tired until the brain downregulates them which took me about 5-6 weeks. Oddly enough though, the nicotine was keeping my dopamine levels up so I didn't get the dopamine effects of quitting only caffeine.

Nicotine Taper in July

So July 4th I started to taper off of nicotine. I bought the patches in my case, which really helped but it stretches the timeline of quitting. I started the first patch for 2 weeks. I still had insane physical symptoms going from pouches to a patch. I had the itchy craving-brain torment, I was very irritable and angry with people, and had sleep problems at night, but had to take a nap EVERY FREAKING DAY after work.

I actually browsed this subreddit daily just to get some encouragement that what I was going through was:

1. NOT PERMANENT

and

2. NORMAL SYMPTOMS

That's part of the reason I'm posting on here today is because every story about withdrawals helps each reader see that there is hope at the end of the journey.

Tapering to 0mg

I tapered down again to the lowest-dose patch and then it has been about 10 days since I finally quit the patch altogether. I've had about 5 days in a row where I'm taking a nap every day after work. All the major tormenting symptoms have gone away, but today out of nowhere I got a craving that lasted a couple hours. Still though, I'll take that over the insane physical torment. And overall I'm sleeping insanely well at night, I'm exercising way better than before, and I'm feeling less numb. My goal is to replace every dopamine hit with a natural dopamine hit like laughing with people, going outside, exercise. I feel like my brain is learning to get a reward from just life itself instead of a stupid pouch.

Other Things I Learned

I also took a blood test while tapering and it showed my insulin is really high. I think I read another person on here saying they also had high insulin, and that nicotine can cause insulin resistance, as well as the ACE-K sweeteners they put in these pouches which signal to the pancreas to produce more insulin. So screw every ad campaign that says nicotine is "safer!!!!!" Because I never had these problems with tobacco personally, it wasn't until I tried these stupid pouches that I got addicted and my insulin went off the charts. I'm sure the caffeine didn't help as both of them together raise cortisol and stress hormones. But if I eat anything with too many simple carbs and sugar I get a reactive hypoglycemic crash and have to sleep for 2 hours. Never had this problem before starting Nicotine. I have been trying to lose weight and couldn't figure out why my gut won't go away. Pretty sure it's a cortisol gut from all the caffeine/nicotine too. We'll see as time goes after quitting. I do exercise every single week and I eat very clean.

Something I tried for the dopamine depletion was the amino acid L-Tyrosine. Apparently it's a building block for dopamine so it just gives your brain what it needs to rebuild that.

I didn't do the ice breakers, but I did sniff a bottle of peppermint oil, and I went through several bags of salted sunflower seeds. Man, I ate so many sunflower seeds... That was my go-to.

Anyway, I'm here on week 6, still standing, still strong, and encouraging you that YOU CAN DO IT. Be strong, remember your "why" of why you're quitting. I just figured I'm going to go through this hell of withdrawal at some point, and I don't want my future self to suffer, so I'm getting it over with NOW. It is absolutely worth it as everyone says. I love how much money I'm saving every week too.