​Welcome back to the quit vaping podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, and I want to offer before you listen to today's episode. If you have not listened to episode two, I'd recommend you do that. I'm a life coach and I have a vaping course and I help people quit vaping and I have a framework. Did I take people through?

It's a very simple two part framework, and I want to offer that you'd listen to episode two, where I described that framework basically so that you can understand a little bit better about today's episode. So today's part four or five, I don't know which one, but four or five on the myths about vaping.

So, my job as a life coach is never to brainwash or make anyone believe something they don't want to believe, because if you do not believe it, then it won't work, right? A lot of people in the self help and coaching world, they think mantras work, but a mantra does not work unless you believe it, right?

Because it has to have the emotional charge to it. And the emotion only comes from believing something. So what I'm going to do is talk about these beliefs today, and we're going to question them because most likely if you're vaping. You've never questioned these beliefs sincerely and you are believing things that other people have taught you without questioning them.

My entire job as a life coach is to help you find a deeper truth that resonates with you. Right? Again, you have to be willing to keep an open mind and be willing to think about the things you believe. Logically. That's all I ask. So today we're going to talk about concentration and stress. All right. So I want to offer that concentration and stress.

These are both things that people often act like they're out of their control, but they're really not. Uh, stress is an emotion that is caused by our thinking. And you know, this is true because there's some people that can go to a job and be completely stress free and others are completely stressed, not free, right?

Stress comes from our thoughts. Right? Right. Thoughts like, Oh my God, I have so much to do. I can't possibly pass this exam. I don't know how to do that. It's too much. I'm overwhelmed. Like all those thoughts are optional. And I want you to pay attention because a lot of people wake up the first thing in the morning and they just regurgitate thoughts that they've programmed into themselves.

Like, Oh my God, I have so much to do today. Oh, I don't want to go to work. This is going to be a horrible day. It's so cold. I hate winter, right? Like if you wake up and you're unconsciously regurgitating thoughts that are cert that are not serving you, you're going to have kind of a shitty day and a crappy life.

Okay. So I just want to offer, um, stress comes from our thoughts and it's really important to be onto ourselves on that. Okay. So a lot of people say that vaping helps us stress. We're going to start with that and then we'll go to concentration. So I want to offer that when you were addicted to nicotine and.

That is what vaping is, right? I don't like to sugarcoat it. That is, it's an addiction. So let's just be honest. I'm not saying that it's wrong to use nicotine, but I'm still going to be honest about it because when we're looking at anything we do, we do it from a truthful lens and then we can decide if it's going to serve us or not to keep doing that.

But when we are not honest with ourselves, it's very easy to do things that don't serve us and then act. Like they are serving us, right? So, when you're addicted to nicotine, your life is more stressful. And I really want you to sit with that thought, and I'm not trying to tell you what to believe, but I want to offer that if you sit with that thought, is it true for you?

Like, really ask yourself, is that true for you? When I was smoking and vaping, I've done both, uh, my life was more stressful. I was consistently worried. About where I was going to get my next vape, when a vape would die, it was immediate panic and anxiety. I was worried about getting caught at work, which I did get caught at work.

I was worried about getting caught at school, which I never got caught at school, thankfully. And my life was just revolving around when I was going to get my next hit. That is stressful. Whatever you think, whatever you don't think about drugs and drug addiction, it is stressful to be an addict. There's never a time in your life where you can actually sit down and relax.

There just isn't because even when you're using nicotine, it's not feeling relaxed when you hit it. It's feeling relief that you're no longer having the addiction pangs. And to me, relief is not relaxation. And again, I don't want you to just like adopt this belief without thinking about it. Like think about it in your life.

Think about all the time in your life where having an addiction is more stressful than not having an addiction. And think about the times when you're hitting your vape and you're, you're making the connection that that's helping you with stress. But what if it was actually the nicotine addiction that's created the stress in the first place?

It's so funny cause I always ask vapers, what are you so stressed out about? Maybe it's because you're an addict, like it's kind of stressful and I feel this and I'm not judging anybody. Right. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong to vape, but I'm saying there's consequences to it. And when we zoom out and look at the bigger picture.

When we're using vaping, we are addicted to nicotine and having an addiction to nicotine is a very stressful thing. And when you're addicted to something, the only thing you can focus on. is when you're going to get that next hit of something. And that brings me to that next point, concentration. So a lot of people tell me that vaping helps with concentration, and I think they're right, but they're wrong, because we're looking at it from too small of an angle.

Yes, vaping is helping you with concentration, but it's only helping you concentrate because the drug addiction has made you unable to concentrate to begin with. Alright, so after I went to community college for two years, I did my four year, I finished the last two years online. When I was in school, I used to sit in the back of the classroom so that I could literally rip my vape.

I would wear a sweatshirt to class even in the summer so that I could hit my vape underneath the sweatshirt hood or the sleeve. So that's really all I could concentrate on, right? I wasn't paying attention to the coursework, even though I was paying thousands of dollars a semester to go to school. I wasn't really, well, it was less than that.

Listen, it was community college side note. If anybody wants to go to college for really cheap or affordable, go to community college and see if you can apply for the Pell grant. little insight for you. But anyways, I was not concentrated on glasswork. I was concentrating on trying to hide and be sneaky about my vaping truly.

And then when I went to school, I went to Southern New Hampshire. You guys see the ads on TV. I went to school at Southern New Hampshire online. So I got the last few years of my schooling online and I always. Had concentration issues unless I had a vape with me, but I can tell you there was like 20 times within the two years that I was trying to quit vaping in between where I couldn't concentrate.

So I have this party store by my house. Well, it's actually not a part. I think that you guys call them something else, not in Michigan. We call them party stores, but just a convenience store, right? Where there's like alcohol and cigarettes and a lot of tickets. Uh, so. I used to have this normal habitual battle with myself where I would be doing schoolwork.

I would get to a point where I didn't really know what I was doing in like a stats class or something, and then I would feel anxious, and I would feel stressed, and immediately I would want to habitually hit my vape, but I was quitting. So what I would do instead was sit there and have a 35 minute to 40 minute debate with myself over if I was going to buy a vape or not.

Most likely there'd be some kind of like, well, I wasn't doing homework. I was either going to eat something. I was going to go like bite my fingernails and walk around outside. But the point is until I got a vape again, there was no concentration going on. Why? Because when you're addicted to a drug, it's very hard to concentrate when you do not have that drug.

So when you use that drug, obviously it's easier to concentrate. So when you hit a vape and you associate it with concentration, what you're actually doing is associating the relief of being a drug addict. To being able to concentrate more, which is exactly what you're doing. But if you were somebody who didn't vape like I am now, I could sit down and record a podcast in one shot without ever having to take a break or take a hit of anything.

So it's kind of funny because when vapors use vaping to de stress and concentrate, what you're actually doing is trying to feel like a non vapor because right now in my life, I'm perfectly concentrated and I don't have that much stress. Well, I have a lot less stress than I did as a vapor. So I want to offer that if you are calling vaping a habit, Stop doing that.

And the reason why I say that is because when you call a drug addiction a habit, what you're doing is giving yourself the space to accept any excuse that your brain has that's going to defend the drug addiction, right? You're going to accept it easier. Vaping helps me concentrate when I'm not an addict.

Maybe nicotine does help me concentrate, but when I'm addicted to a drug, it's clear that it's not helping you concentrate. It's helping you feel normal so that you can concentrate again. Right. Vaping helps with stress. Well, actually, what if it's created the stress? Because when you see vaping as a habit, well, habits don't create stress.

Oh, but drug addiction does. So the whole point of this podcast is not to make you believe things you don't need to believe or want to believe. It's to help you see the deeper truth and be honest with yourself because I promise you that an honest vapor who knows what's going on and calls it an addiction and knows that it's creating stress and concentration issues.

It's a very different form of vaping than someone who's lying themselves with shame and guilt and self deception. And the reason why I'm so strong about quitting vaping as a life coach is because I truly see quitting vaping is the first step to creating the life that you want. If you are addicted to a drug and you're using it all the time, it's very hard to be the type of person that you're imagining in the future.

And also, I always ask people like, you know, what lifestyle do you want? Let's say a 20 year old. What lifestyle do you want when you're 30? They're like, I want that awesome like yacht lifestyle where I have my own business and I'm traveling the world and all this stuff. I'm like, awesome. That's so possible for you.

But let me ask you a question. When you're 30, do you picture holding a vape in your hand and being a drug addict still? And they're like, of course not. Not really. I mean, there are people who say, yeah, of course, but they're just answering that like on default. Right. But when you actually think about it, like the dreams that you have in the life that you want, most of us don't imagine us vaping in that life.

And it's interesting to see that from that perspective, people who use nicotine in general are really good at distorting the truth. Myself included. And I'm not trying to tell you what's true for you in your life, but I am saying that if you want to quit vaping, the way that you're going to do it without feeling deprived, without forcing yourself, without feeling like you're missing out on life all the time is by identifying what you currently believe that is leading you to want to vape and then question those beliefs.

And if you question them and you really want to know the truth, you'll get the truth. And once you have the truth about vaping in your life for you. You most likely won't want to do it anymore. And if you do, it'll be a less strong desire and even a less strong desire is better than feeling completely out of control and not knowing why you have the desire to begin with.

And if you want to keep doing it, that's totally okay too. But just be honest with yourself about how it's affecting your life and don't allow your mind to come up with beliefs that are supporting nicotine in ways that really are damaging you because I'm a life coach, damn it. And you deserve a great life, but you're not going to get there with self deception.

Okay. Have a great day, guys. I will see you next week.