Welcome to the Quit Vaping Podcast, the podcast designed to make you a non listener. In this show, I'm not going to scare you away from a life of vaping. What I am going to do is show you just how good your life can be without it. Thank you so much for listening and enjoy the show. Hello and welcome back to the podcast.

If you are a new listener, I recommend you listen to episode 2. It explains kind of the framework I use to help people quit vaping. If not, watch episode 2. Welcome back. My name is Andrew, and today we were doing the fourth episode on the myths that keep people vaping. So keep in mind, um, just as a refresher, the reason why people vape is because they have beliefs that are attaching them to want to use nicotine.

If you remove the beliefs and you learn how to feel your urges, you have no desire to vape, and you can sit through the nicotine withdrawal. That's all you got to do. There's only two things and it's super simple. So today we're talking about the addictive personality myth. Yes, it's a man. So first of all, I have a four year psych degree and I took classes on personality psychology.

I love personality psychology. Um, the most well researched back personality psychology method is called the big five and it's five personality traits that everybody has on the spectrum. You can look it up at. Open cytometrics. org. I will put a link to the big five personality tests. It's kind of interesting.

And there's a whole theory and it's just a theory that there's such a thing as the addictive personality. And it's founded on two beliefs and I'm going to read them off for you. So I'm going to sound a bit robotic here, but I want to get it right. So the addictive personality is based on two things. Um, one is that some addicts are addicted to more than one substance or activity and engage in more than one addictive behavior.

And two is that on giving up addiction, some addicts become addicted to another substance or behavior. So if you understand the framework I teach with the emotions and the belief systems, it makes a lot of sense that, um, a lot of people who are addicted to one thing are addicted to other things. Or if you quit one addiction, you get addicted to something else.

Why? Because addiction is an emotional problem, right? And a lot of people don't actually deal with the emotional problem when they're addicted to things. They quit and then have another emotional problem. One of the big examples here is overeating. So a lot of people quit vaping or quit nicotine in general and then they gain weight.

Why? Because they have the emotional issue where they aren't dealing with their emotions internally. They're using substances to deal with their emotion. So when you quit that substance, nicotine, You just go to the next easiest substance, which is typically food. Um, for some people it's alcohol for other people.

It's other hard drugs. Um, and that's what happens, right? It makes so much sense that people get addicted to one thing after another, because they're not getting to the root of the issue, which is always your emotions and your thoughts behind the emotions. And when people are addicted to more than one thing all at once, it's the same issue, right?

They have emotions that they're not experiencing. They're most likely not aware of. So they're constantly using substances, even like social media, porn, things like that category, um, in order to kind of get away from their emotions instead of processing them internally. So the addictive personality myth, although it seems cognitively to make sense, like, oh, your, your personality is more prone to addiction, it's not a personality issue.

It's emotional issue, right? So that's why if we get to the emotions and also the thoughts behind it, we eliminate the thoughts that the vaping is going to help me with my life or help me with my emotions. Then it ceases to do that for you. It's not a personality thing. Remember the only reason why people vape is because they believe that it's going to help them or that their life is better with nicotine.

That's it. And it makes sense, right? If you don't believe your life is better with nicotine, you just don't use it. And the example I always use is the chicken pot pie example, because I I'm Italian. I love food. Um, I pretty much eat anything like there's almost anything. I can't think of anything. I don't eat unless it's like really out there like chicken feet, um, or like tarantulas or something, uh, I'll eat it, but I just don't like chicken pot pie.

I just don't like it. It's the crust. I've never liked it. It's just something I don't really like. I'll eat it if I absolutely have to, but it's something I don't enjoy. So my friend came over a few weeks ago. It's about a month, a month ago in my apartment. And he brought this little mini chicken pot pie.

It was like a Marie calendar frozen one. And he forgot in the freezer. He got two of them. He left one and then he came back over like a week later and he's like, um, we're hanging out. And before he left, I gave him this chicken pot pie out of the freezer. I'm like, oh, here, take this. I don't want it. And he's like, why are you scared?

You're going to eat it and get fat and you're just like tempted by it. And I'm like, actually, no, I genuinely have no desire to eat it. I don't like chicken pot pie, therefore I have no desire. I don't see that it serves my life. I don't enjoy it. It doesn't help me with my stress. Like none of the above. So I have no desire to eat it.

It's either going to go in the garbage or it's going to go home with you. And that's exactly how I feel about vaping. I don't hate vaping. I don't hate chicken pot pie. I just don't like it. So why would I use it? Right? It's not like I'm using willpower to avoid eating it in my freezer. It's not like I'm forcing myself to believe thoughts I don't believe about chicken pot pie.

I just don't like it. I believe that it doesn't serve me in my life, so I have no desire to eat it. That's how it goes. And I know we're talking about addictive personalities here, but the reason I bring this up is because I believe that the emotional weight gain that comes along with vaping and the appetite suppressant also has to do with the set, the same psychology behind the.

So if you have an emotional problem, which is overeating and weight gain, that's an emotional problem, right? You're eating more food when you quit vaping because you are not dealing with the emotions with vaping anymore. I avoid my anxiety with vaping. When I stop vaping, I avoid my anxiety with food.

It's the exact same emotional issue. It has nothing to do with your personality. Okay, I understand that there are professionals out there who are pushing that, and it's just nothing but a theory. And if you think about it logically, it makes sense why they've come up with the theory. But once you dig deeper, you can see that it's really a mistaken case of correlation is causation, right?

It's not. Correlation does not mean causation. Just because people are addicted to more than one thing doesn't mean they have a personality issue. Right. They have an emotional issue. So, um, interesting theory, totally unfounded, and you can disprove it by actually thinking critically about it and seeing that the patterns are caused by emotions, not by any kind of personality.

And you know, this also isn't true, right? Because some people who are addicted to a lot of things can then go and become not addicted to a lot of things, right? By dealing with the root of the issues, which is their belief systems and their emotions. Now, if you know anything about Personality psychology, you'll know that it's quite difficult to change someone's proclivity and their actual personality for something like on the big five.

And again, I listed it below if you want to take the test, but you can change your level of extroversion, for example, but it's not going to change dramatically. You still are always going to have a proclivity for that personality trait. Whereas addiction, you can completely go from being addicted to five different drugs all at once on the street to then owning a successful company.

Like look at Mike Lindell. I don't know if you like his, his politics or anything, but the, my pillow guy. You know, he was an addict and now he is a successful business owner. That's like. Changing the world without being a drug addict anymore. If he had an addictive personality, you'd think you'd see that coming up in all sorts of areas of his life, but it wasn't a personality issue.

It was an emotional issue, right? And probably a belief system issue. When we have beliefs that our life is not worthy and that we don't have good beliefs for our future. It's very easy for us to fall into instant gratification addictions in the moment. And I really want you to think about that. A lot of the work I do as a life coach is helping people believe in a better future, because when you believe in a better future, you don't take.

Immediate instant gratification actions as much you plan for the future and you live your life in anticipation for that better future. And a lot of the times when we're doing that and planning for that life, it doesn't include things like drugs, right? Like if you believe that your future is going to be amazing and that you're going to make it a meaningful impact on the world and have a lot of money and be successful and have a beautiful wife or husband, then you're going to take actions.

Where they probably aren't revolving around drug addiction, right? You're going to find a good job. You're going to do the things you need to do to stay healthy and fit. So again, it's not a personality issue. It's a belief system issue. And it's an emotional issue. Really think about this. Um, it doesn't serve you to say you have an issue of personality.

All it does is serve as an excuse for you to go and do things that don't serve you. Right? Because if I say I have an addictive personality, well, then I'm allowing myself to get addicted to anything and just fall back on that very, very shaky theory in psychology. Okay. My job, my goal as a life coach is to empower you to create a good life.

And I promise you that that using excuses, um, like this one are not going to allow you to have a good life. So even if you should decide to keep vaping, that's no problem, but please watch the beliefs that you're believing, because this one will never serve you. The, I have a data personality myth, never going to serve.

You always going to allow for excuses in your life. And quite honestly, it's a very slippery slope and that's how gateway drug things happen, right? Well, I just have an addictive personality. I can just try it. This wants, it's fine. Or. I don't want to try it ever. I don't have any control. It gives you an excuse not to have control of your emotions.

Yep. So the reason that addictions happen is because of lack of emotional control and regulation. And people just don't have the skills to deal with their emotions. You don't fix the personality. You fix the emotional issue. That's what I got for you today. I hope you guys enjoyed. Have a fantastic day.