As always, I'm your host, Andrew Cipriano, and I'm a life coach. That's going to help you get to the root of your vaping. So if you want to quit, you'll understand why you're doing it, where the desire comes from, how to process your emotions without it. And that's the cure. So pretty much, um, if you're new here, welcome.

I always say, I hope this is the last podcast you have to listen to in order to actually want to quit or be done. Um, I can't decide if it's right for you to vape or not. So that's totally up for you to decide. And I have no judgments about what's right for you or wrong for you. So you decide if you want to quit, if you're here, I'm guessing you've gotten the point where you're thinking about it.

Maybe you've made the decision. So we're going to talk about quitting alternatives today. And when I say alternative, I mean, alternative to the way that I do it. Remember what I practice is called causal life coaching and why it's called causal is because I get to the cause, the root issue. We eliminate the problem.

So then the symptoms stop showing up pretty much. Now, a lot of ways that people quit smoking is treating the symptom. And I want you to understand this is really important. The reason why life coaching is so important and effective is because it gets to the root cause of your problems, which is your thoughts.

Or your beliefs and your emotions. If you're vaping and you want to quit permanently, you have to stop seeing vaping as a problem and start seeing it as a symptom. And when you can see vaping as a symptom, you can ask the question, well, then what is causing. The symptom, right? What's the actual problem?

And we can zoom out. And when we zoom out, remember, it's your belief systems attaching you to nicotine, that's what's creating the desire, and then also your emotions. So, your emotions pretty much, you're using an external substance to numb over uncomfortable emotions. And we're doing this with a whole bunch of things, right?

Nicotine, overeating food, alcohol. Um, you know, anytime that we are using an external substance to feel better, we aren't feeling good on the inside and that's why we're using it to feel better. Right? So, that's not a problem. In itself, but it becomes a problem when we lose control over it. And the reason that we're losing control is because we're not aware of the emotion.

So we're not very capable of sitting through it. So that's what we teach in life coaching is the skill of sitting through your emotions. And that's why I teach causal coaching to change the beliefs, feel the emotions, problems gone. It is that simple. So, um, we're going to talk about alternatives and we're going to talk about different ways to quit that I.

No exist. And I'm going to talk to you about them. So quitting alternatives like nicotine replacement. So nicotine replacement is pretty much where you're just getting your nicotine from another source, completely, completely, completely treating the symptom, not the problem. So here's, I mean, this is really funny, right?

If I'm addicted to a drug, maybe I should take more of the drug in a different form to get unaddicted from it. All right. Do you see how silly that sounds? Because it is silly. And I think it's funny that companies created products with nicotine in them to get you unaddicted from nicotine. It just seems to me like a money grab.

Like that's not treating the problem. It's actually kind of funny. I knew people in the psychiatric hospital who were addicted to nicotine gum as opposed to smoking. And they said they had been addicted. There was this one person who had been addicted for like 20 plus years to the gum. So nicotine addiction is nicotine addiction.

Your body becomes addicted to the drug. It creates additional anxiety in your body when you don't have it, but we want to find out why you're desiring nicotine to begin with. We don't want to just cover up one method of using it for another and other nicotine replacements are things like, um, yeah, the patches, the gum.

I did lost in just for a while. Anything that you're getting nicotine from, I think even some of the pills that you take have, I don't know if that's right or not, but we just want to find out why we're using, like, I actually use the lozenges for the last full year that I vaped. So I was just using the lozenges at work.

Cause I couldn't vape at work really. That's what ended up happening because I wasn't dealing with the actual addiction, right? Addiction is always, always, always an emotional issue. That's it. That's all you have to know. So when you try to. Substitute one addiction with another substance or the same substance in a different form.

You're not dealing with the actual issue, so you're always going to be addicted. And that's why I say even if you manage to quit vaping and you haven't changed your belief systems around it or learned how to process your emotions, I don't think you're ever not a vaper because you're always desiring it.

So nicotine replacement is a funny way to pretty much just keep you addicted and to help you think that you're not going to be addicted. And I think the only reason that it would work ever for anybody. Is because your beliefs change about nicotine. You just think, okay, I don't need this or whatever.

Like you're, you're still getting the addiction. You'd have to either, it would have to change your beliefs because if you're using the lozenges instead of the, you know, vapes or cigarettes, you're still getting nicotine, so you're still avoiding your emotions. So that's there. So I think that maybe your beliefs would have to change if that's ever going to work, but it's a, it's a far shot.

And if you do just quit with the lozenges or the replacement and you understand why you want it to begin with, you're always going to be in willpower. Fighting yourself and your desire for nicotine, which is completely unnecessary and I would not recommend it. Um, that brings me to my other, um, alternative for quitting that isn't my life coaching is the willpower method, right?

We've talked about that before. And what willpower pretty much means is that your actions don't align with your beliefs. So I'm quitting vaping, but I still think that I want it and it's desirable. So you're always going to be still desiring it. And I tell everybody, like my dad did this, right? He quit cold turkey after like 40 years of smoking two packs a day because he had a health scare.

None of his beliefs changed. None of his desire changed, no emotional processing whatsoever. And now he's smoking again, because when you're using willpower, you're always going to lose because it's you versus you. So somebody on your end has to lose that fight. And it's either in the form of just going and smoking again, or it's in the form of always wanting it and fighting yourself and white knuckling it your entire life.

When the desire could totally just be eliminated. If we understand the actual root, which is your thoughts and beliefs. So we've talked about Um, nicotine replacement. Yep. That's never going to work the long term by itself. We've talked about the willpower method that in itself is always a losing battle.

All right. And the next one I want to talk about is when I first started getting into the vaping coaching, I was looking at like different ways to quit and what existed in the market. And I keep seeing these things pop up that are like no nicotine vapes. Also like little fake like fidget spinner things that you suck on things like that that say quote unquote.

We're not vapes We're nicotine free and you can get off nicotine. It's like, okay, here's what I think I think that that can help you to get over the the week to two weeks of Actual addiction to nicotine like if you are using that to kind of wean off the actual nicotine addiction, that's great. But This is what I want to offer is that the ultimate solution, the long term solution is to learn how to process your emotions.

And when you're using something external, like a fidget spinner or something to process your anxiety, you're actually distracting yourself from the anxiety. That's what a fidget spinner is. I need to distract myself, right? Well, the actual cure for anxiety is just processing it, feeling it, being present with it.

Don't distract yourself from it at all. So when you use some kind of like an external, even if it's not a nicotine vape or some kind of fidget spinner or a little sucky device or whistle in order to quit for good, you're actually not learning how to process the real problem, which is your emotions, how to process your emotions.

If you can sit with your emotions. Incomplete certainty that you can just feel anxiety. It will pass and then you don't need anything external to distract you from it. So I can understand the utility of those little sucky devices and all that kind of stuff in terms of long term quitting. It's not going to do the solution and you can understand why, right?

Because you're not learning how to process your emotions and the little fidget spinners are like fake nicotine vapes. They're not teaching you about the beliefs that create the desire. What they're actually doing is reinforcing the belief that you need something external to deal with your emotions, which is really the problem that started the whole vaping thing, right?

So I don't see those as really valid, um, you know, valid things to quit. And of course they're going to do successful in the market because people think, Oh, I can just use this and it's going to feel good. So I'm just like, no, the cure is that you don't need anything external to feel good. Alright, so this is going to bring me to my final one that I can think of today.

It's the Alan Carr method. So Alan Carr is a guy, I think he's from the UK that came up with this method called the easy way and pretty much what he does, it's similar kind of to what I'm doing. He has, he calls it the big monster and the little monster. The big monster is your belief system. So we're similar in that regard.

And then the little monster is a nicotine addiction. Well for me, I've changed it. The big monster to me is the belief systems, right? That is the main reason you have desire. That is what's going to change permanently for you to have no desire. You have to change your beliefs. There's just no going around that.

And then the little monster to me is I call it the emotional side. Now I consider the nicotine addiction part of the emotional side. In my framework, because the addiction only lasts like a week and a half. And the way to get through the nicotine addiction part is to manage your emotions. So if you can understand your thoughts and your emotions, then you're going to get through the whole thing.

So similar, a little bit different. Now he has a book called the easy way to quit smoking. He also has one that's called the easy way to quit vaping. He sold like five or 10 million copies of this thing. So it's successful for a lot of people. And the reason why it's successful is because he gives you alternative ways to believe about nicotine.

So he pretty much just undermines all the existing beliefs you have about nicotine. He calls He calls you brainwashed, which I do believe that you've been brainwashed. If you believe that nicotine is serving you, those are beliefs that have been put in your head by the people around you and the nicotine companies, because if the nicotine companies never existed, you would have no beliefs that it supports you at all.

So we kind of talked on that, like the, why you do have desire to vape. So I, I can get behind Alan Carr on that, but the only thing I don't like about Alan Carr is that he pretty much claims that there's no enjoying it. And I tried to, I did try to believe that for a while that there's no enjoyment in it.

And I kind of do believe that. But, to an extent, nicotine releases dopamine, so it does feel good. Like, we're just going to be honest about that, you know, when you use anything that releases dopamine, it feels good. So for Alan Carr to be telling everyone doesn't feel good, like I can tell people I don't enjoy it because looking at how I use nicotine, there's a lot of guilt and shame around it.

So in terms of enjoyment, I don't think I really enjoyed it that much, but it felt good, right? There's a difference between something feeling good and actually enjoying it. So that's where I draw the distinction. But you know, if you want to quit vaping, you have to be able to question the current beliefs you have about nicotine.

Is it aligning with the person you want to be? Is it actually something you enjoy? Or is it just kind of like that quick hit of dopamine? And then the question is, where else can you get a hit of dopamine that isn't doing so much negative in your life? Well, I can offer this. It's like meaningful goals.

This is where I get all my dopamine hits pretty much. I drink coffee still, so I guess that's a quick dopamine hit from an external substance. But when it comes to nicotine, the reason why I think it's so damaging and why I coach on this specifically is because I think that nicotine is so addictive.

It's very hard to become the best version of yourself. I've cut coffee out before. No problem. It's not like affecting my personality in a negative way. There's no shame or guilt about me drinking coffee, but when it comes to nicotine addiction, it's just a very damaging psychological addiction that it's very hard to become your best version of yourself as so.

Those are some of the, my thoughts on the replacements. The reason why I do my work with thoughts and beliefs is because that absolutely is the cure of nicotine addiction. And that is how you get to a point where you genuinely, truly don't desire it. You change your beliefs. You learn how to feel your emotions.

You see that there's genuinely no reason to be a nicotine addict in your life. So it's your choice. What's right for you. If you want to quit, that's how you do it. That's the right way to do it. If you want to try like. One of the little outside vape things, whatever, that's fine. If you want to use it for like a week and a half to get off the actual nicotine, but I want to offer the best way to do it is just to learn how to sit with your emotions and your urges.