At first, Zyn is amazing. Work is effortless, dopamine is sky high, and somehow coffee becomes even better.
But then, one random day, all of life’s color gets drained from the world and poured into a pouch. It becomes your single source of happiness. Your compass. Your god.
Everything that should be enjoyable, that once was, no longer is. The delicious meal is suffocated by a post-dinner zynbabwe. The slow moments on vacation turn miserable without a zynachino. The work becomes impossible unless you’re stimmed out the wazoo by a Thomas Jefferzyn.
I know you just wanted to have a little fun. I’ve been there. But you’ve always known, deep down, that you shouldn’t keep this up forever. That one day rent will come due.
But hope is not lost. Not if you’re willing to sack up.
And no, you don’t need to quit forever. Why would you do that? Nicotine is incredible.
Control. That’s what people are missing. When you take it back, it’s like the first warm day after a long winter. You see in color again, and wonder how you ever let a pouch of ground-up leaf get in your head and drive the ship. The pouch works for you, not against you, and the downsides shrink to a rounding error.
The problem is not nicotine. Its you. It’s your relationship with it. The two of you simply need to be on the same page.
Time for a little therapy session.
There is no free lunch
I’m getting deja vu from high school. Missed the cigarette wave but witnessed the Juul in full force. Experiencing the same thing now with pouches. Same molecule once again larping as something new.
We are in the 1950s of Zyn. Just like all of its predecessors, the zeitgeist approves for now. But soon enough I’m sure the downsides will surface. And then it will be the next thing. And the next thing. Until it’s just nicotine.
A plague sweeping the globe once more. Millions of humans brainwashed into believing that nicotine has no side effects, many even advocating that it is good for the world.
Unshackle your mind and think about it for 2 seconds. You have not reasoned yourself into that way of thinking. Of course nicotine is not harmless. A little bit of objective science for you:
It is a vasoconstrictor. It narrows your blood vessels, so every organ in your body, brain, skin, hair, genitals, receives less blood flow. That often shows up as ED, hair loss, and bad skin. It drops your heart rate variability and raises your blood pressure. If you wear a fitness wearable, watch what happens when you take a break. Your resting heart rate will drop and your HRV will skyrocket.
There is no threshold below which nicotine is proven non-addictive. It alters brain chemistry within minutes of the first use. Very quickly 1 pouch turns to 2, to 3, to 4, to 5.
I’m not a scientist, but 30mg of nicotine circulating in your body, permanently, for 40 years, cannot be a good thing.
Especially when you live more of your life on nicotine than off of it.
The impact nicotine has on the body isn’t even the worst of it. The real cost is upstairs in that skull closet.
Willpower is useless. Biology and science have you in a headlock and are laughing in your face. Nicotine up-regulates happy receptors in your brain. When you use it chronically, it sets your baseline dopamine “requirements” higher.
This is why experiences that were once enjoyable now taste like a flat Cola. Your baseline is higher, and that activity is falling short. Everything in life turns gray and the only way to see in color again is to reach for another.
Basically, life is no longer tall enough to get on the ride.
Without even realizing it, the pouch has become a moral compass of sorts. Everything you do needs to be accompanied by a little lip pillow. You can’t go on vacation without making sure you’ve an ample supply, the pouch consumes your thoughts while you’re out to dinner, video games (one of the most stimulating activities ever invented) are boring.
These are all wonderfully unique human experiences, all of which become lifeless when you forget your little puck of nicotine at home. You panic, your thoughts consumed by getting to the nearest 7/11 or bodega.
You don’t need it, it’s just a productivity tool right? You’re Eddie Brock, and Zyn, is the Venom.
But Dante, Dante, random blue zone people smoke cigs and live to 100 and it prevents Alzheimers and it makes me more productive. Sure. You are not a Sardinian grandpa enjoying a cigarette on a porch. You’re on pouch 7 and it’s Tuesday.
Control is everything. The minute you lose control, it’s gg. All of these side effects blasting you in full force, even if you don’t realize it. This is your new normal.
The other side
Fear not, after just a few weeks off, it’s like seeing the sun again. I cannot explain it. A ship emerging from a stormy sea, a cast off a broken arm, a weight off the chest.
The brain feels calm and focused not wired and tired. Your resting heart rate drops and random anxiety disappears. Every recovery metric improves and you can run faster.
The gray things come back in color. The meal is delicious again. The slow moments on vacation are actually slow. Dinner with your friends and family is fun again. Video games are fun again. The weather excites you. Walks are elating. Buildings are gorgeous. Sunbeams on your skin are the best thing in the world. Awe and wonder are restored to the galaxy. No more crafting a master plan to get to the gas station.
Life starts to feel like it was meant to. You feel again, and wonder how you ever let yourself fall so far.
“Quitting” doesn’t have to be forever
Losing that feeling, not being captain of my own mind, is what gets me to reset. Every single time.
Not “because I should.” Not some study. I reset because I remember what the vivid version of life feels like, and I can feel it slipping. I can feel the runs getting harder, the dinners getting duller. The color starting to drain. It’s like a fire alarm going off in the middle of the night. And then the guilt arrives.
I’ve “quit” nicotine more than once. But quitting hasn’t really been the objective. The objective is to siege my own mind and exorcise the demon. To regain control, which is what I’m really advocating for in this essay.
At the end of the day, why would you want a wintergreen zinger to be the first thing you think about when you wake up?
I like nicotine. You like nicotine. I find it beneficial, so do you.
BUT ONLY UP TO A POINT.
It’s easy to let slide because it won’t level your life the way say alcohol does. But you must admit it’s pretty sad to see a pouch become a priority over water or to become your new favorite dessert.
I’m here to tell you that quitting doesn’t have to be forever. Just like you can have a few drinks every week and still operate successfully and stay healthy, the same can be true with nicotine.
The goal here, and always should be, maintaining control. Quit for life? That depends.
Retaking the fortress
Nobody just up and quits nicotine because they don’t like it, it’s awesome. This essay won’t make you quit. Your girlfriend asking probably won’t work either. Only a decision made by you, for a reason that’s yours, is strong enough to carry you through the irritation, the withdrawal, and the frustration to get to the other side.
Take cigarette smokers for example. Even little babies know cigs are horrible for you. You think smokers don’t? Of course they know. They just don’t think the bad outcome will happen to them.
Then, when they get a bad diagnosis, or it catches up with them, and they quit instantly, because they finally have a reason why.
Don’t let this be you. Find a reason why, today, one you can feel now.
For me, the alarm is when nicotine time is the best part of my day. When life starts getting boring. When my watch confirms the decline, resting heart rate up, sleeping heart rate up, HRV down. And, something I haven’t really talked about, nicotine likely isn’t great for reproductive health, and I want healthy kids one day more than anything.
Find yours. Then channel that fuel into powering through the exit.
Use the rule of 3, taught to me by good friend BowTiedPhys (see his guide to full exit and more science HERE)
3 minutes to suppress the cravings.
3 days to push past the withdrawals.
3 weeks to form the new nic-free habit.
3 months to rewire your brain chemistry.
Start with the 3 minutes. Think about what it takes to lose weight. When I’m cutting, the hardest part is getting up from the table still hungry. Leaving a few bites. Every primal instinct screaming at me to meander to the fridge and scarf down more. A tiny choice that seems like nothing in the moment but makes all the difference. If I can make it a few minutes, the urge subsides. I’m back in the driver’s seat, one day closer.
Nicotine cravings are the same. Make it 3 minutes and the craving passes. 3 minutes to set the tone.
From there, 3 days. 3 horrible days. This is the worst of it. Withdrawal, irritation, anger, hunger, garbage sleep. And you’ll lie to yourself. You’ll try to convince yourself that life is better this way, that nicotine is adding to your life, that it needs to be part of the experience. You’ll want to cave. This is a lie. A little leviathan whispering sweet nothings into your ear. It’s the voice of another. Hold strong. Be steady. Press on.
(Spoiler: knowing you can come back actually makes you want it less. It’s like how you spend money when you’re on a budget, but forget about it entirely and you spend nothing. Brain is weird.)
Make it 3 days and it’s smooth sailing. No more physical withdrawal. The next few weeks are only hard because you want it out of habit, tied to certain times and activities. Difficult in its own way.
3 months is the full biological reset, if you’re brave.
Keeping the monsters out
So the fortress is yours again. Now your job is to make sure nothing moves back in.
First and foremost, know yourself. For some people, control will not work. There is no happy medium. For some people, nicotine just plays the perfect melody, their biology loves it. I’m like this with video games. If that’s you, you must abstain. Nicotine is your Ring of Mordor. It cannot be wielded, no matter how well intentioned. It corrupts and must be tossed into the volcano. Know thyself.
For everyone else, your castle needs a drawbridge, with rules for when it opens.
The best way to stay in control is to gate it to specific tasks, at the lowest effective dose. The sweet spot is 1-2mg, which is hard to get from most sources, so I opt for 3mg of Nic Nac Naturals (cut it in half), the cleanest source I can find.
Use it for reading, writing, building, studying, anything that actually matters, I do it in dead silence to get the most out of the dose. I tie it to the task like Pavlov’s dog, so I actually get the benefit.
Outside of work, keep it simple. Never alone. Never on a Tuesday. Always for a specific task. Make it a reward for doing something you really really don’t want to do. Treat it the way you treat caffeine, a tool for a fine window, not the key to happiness in your life (guilty lol). Use it to keep you awake on a long drive or to get you through the hard thing.
I keep it to 2 to 3 lozenges per week. At that rate I see no observable impact on my cardiovascular health. Beyond it, I do.
Why so strict? Because of the leak. Nicotine, gated to real focus work, is the best. But that’s not the problem, it never stays “just for the work.” Work becomes golf becomes video games becomes a little treat after dinner becomes Tuesday.
Plus the pouch only buys you 30 minutes anyway, and when it runs out, the work ain’t working. You need another one. You’re a salivating dog to a dinner bell. All you’ve done is condition your brain to know that pouch means work. Stimulated does not mean focused.
You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to hold the leash. Remember that mirror from Harry Potter? The one that showed them exactly what they wanted? Imagine if all that thing ever showed you was a hockey puck of nicotine. Dumbledore had to drag Harry away from it because bro was drooling in it night after night.
You can look. Dabble. Enjoy! You just can’t make it your life.
A fortress is not a prison
I have this weird mindset where if I try too hard to be healthy, the opposite outcome will happen.
Being neurotic about health is easy, and quite damaging. Yes, be a unit. Work hard. But you need to live! Chud out every now and then. Get a double meal from Chick-fil-A, destroy a sleep score, have a drink or 12.
I’m of the belief that we need hobbies that do nothing and vices that take our minds off things. Little escape hatches and nights we don’t remember. Without ever releasing the pressure valve we turn into boring lifeless losers who can’t relaxed. Horrible way to live.
For me, nicotine is one of those eject buttons. In my opinion, it’s really only problematic when we leave the ship and never come back. As long as we can stay in the drivers seat, can say yes or no on our own terms, can keep it from being our source of motivation, I think were good.
The key is building that relationship.
Hopefully this shifts your mindset a little. Talk soon, and thanks for reading.
Dante
Great read, loved it. Thanks.