Hi, welcome to the You Can Quit Smoking podcast, where we go over stories of success with overcoming smoking addiction. Many people have moved through this radical transformation and use smoking as an opportunity for inner growth, with deeper self-awareness and a greater capacity for compassion. So many have done it and you can quit smoking, too. I'm your host, Jessi Hartnett, founder of Honor Your Heart.

Jessi:
Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm here today with Nick. Nick, can you introduce yourself?


Nick:
Hey, I'm Nick Villareal. I am the founder of the company Back to Wild. JessI, I'm really, really excited to speak with you today. I'm looking forward to getting this thing started.

Jessi:
I'm so grateful you're here. I know you've got an interesting story. Walk us through your experience with smoking. Where did you start and what was it like for you?


Nick:
I've always had a hard time with impulse control. I'm bipolar. I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid, but bipolar later on around eighteen. And so impulse control made it just challenging to live. One thing led to another. I was never a smoker. I actually started on a lot harder stuff. I became alcoholic by fifteen and got into crystal meth when I was about seventeen. And I got into rehab at eighteen. And that's when I was introduced to cigarettes because it was the only thing that you were allowed to have. Growing up, my parents had always talked about the negative effects of cigarettes or anything like that, but it seemed like a step down from where I was at the time.

It was delightful. As an impulsive person, I hadn't really developed the tools yet at eighteen to manage my own emotions or even really understand what that meant. It seemed like a way that I could cope and it was social. I think that was probably one of my favorite things about it is that it was social. And then I became a dad very early on at nineteen and I moved from California where at least on the coast where I was living, I didn't really know any smokers. And then I moved to the south. Not to be stereotypical, just is what it is. There I met quite a few smokers. I was one of them. And it became very quickly a part of my identity. It very quickly became that I was socially smoking all the time. Again, it was at that time better than other habits.

After going to rehab, I stayed sober for about four years and then a marriage fell apart and I picked up drinking again. And once I picked up drinking again, the smoking even got heavier. I worked at a lumber shed. Like six out of seven guys that worked at the lumber shed who were hauling sheetrock, hauling shingles, throwing lumber– everybody smoked. So it was just part of the culture, at least in that microcosm. I tried many different things, you know. I would chew tobacco, I would dip tobacco. But smoking, for me, really gave that full body high. And something about hand to mouth motion is just very soothing for me.

So as time went on, it became more and more in my life. I would wake up and have a cigarette. I would have a cigarette before breakfast. I would have a cigarette after breakfast. I would have a cigarette on my way to work. I would have a cigarette once I clocked in. Literally at every single event that would happen, it's like, "Oh, we got a load in. I'll have a cigarette before we start loading. I'll have a cigarette on my way out driving.” I'm basically chain smoking from wherever I started to wherever I was going. At the time, I wasn't in California, so cigarettes were a lot cheaper. I think they were like $6 to $7 a pack when I was getting them.

Of course, my parents never approved. None of my family members ever approved, but I was just kind of not caring at that time. It wasn't the most health-conscious point in my life. Right after my divorce, I got into mixed martial arts and cage fighting and was very health oriented. But again, I would have a cigarette before I went and worked out. I'd go and work out and spar and box and get done getting all beat up. And then go and have a cigarette or smoke all the way home. It was just very much part of my identity.

I think a low point for me though is when while I was working at that lumber shed after getting a divorce. I was just broke beyond broke. I was living on a friend's couch. And I specifically remember there was a guy, his name was…. I'll just call him Bobby. And Bobby smoked cigarettes, but he would only ever smoke half a cigarette. I was so hard up for money, but yet wanted that cigarette so bad that I would go and finish his cigarettes without him knowing because we had like an ashtray in the back. Or if he smoked them more than halfway and they were just all the way down, I would go in and unwrap those unfinished cigarettes into one that I would roll myself. And I just remember having those feelings with so much shame around that. And having it have such a hold of me. And I lived that way for probably a good two years. And I was in the middle of Tennessee at that time.

I continued to smoke through my late teens and early twenties. Then I got into my mid-twenties and I moved to Nashville. There weren't as many smokers there. I actually got a job first working at an electronic recycling company. So I would drive around Tennessee picking up old recyclables and again, smoking all the way to my destination. I would pick up those electronics and I’d smoke all the way back. I would smoke two at every smoke break. And then I quit that job to become a ballroom dance instructor.


Jessi:
[laughter]


Nick:
[laughter] I know, right? Little bit of a different switch there. My dad sent me a Craigslist ad. He goes, "You like the job you're at?" And I was like, "I guess. It has insurance." He goes, "Here, why don't you try this out? No insurance. Crap pay. But you'll learn how to dance." And I was like, "Sure." So, I went and became a ballroom dance instructor. And that started to change things a little bit. I was no longer in the environment where everyone smoked. There was probably eighteen dance instructors altogether and about nine of them were men. Maybe about four of them smoked and I was one of them. I just remember at that point I was literally chain smoking anytime that I got an opportunity. It was just the hardest thing to meet a new dance student and smell like cigarettes. And so that's when it first dawned on me, “Maybe I should try to quit.”

I mean even before that, years before, I remember leaving my son. It was a horrible parenting moment. It just kind of tells you how deep I was in it. I left my son to go outside. He was five at the time. I said, "You wait right here, buddy." And he was watching, I forget what movie it was, but he was in watching a movie at the theater at five. And I went outside and smoked like one or two cigarettes and came back in. It just had such a hold in me from eighteen until about twenty-seven. And then I chain smoked probably starting around twenty-four, twenty-five. At one point I was going through two packs a day. I mean, it was thick.

One day, I think it was in November because it was chilly. I had a coughing fit and I couldn't catch my breath. It was just like I was literally gasping for air and everyone was like, "Dude, what's going on?" And it went on for what felt like forever. It really felt like forever. And it was at that moment I was like, "I have to quit. I don't know what's going on, but I have got to quit.” My grandfather was a smoker, not as heavy as I was. He died of emphysema. I think weaker lungs run in our family. My dad has had upper respiratory agitation. So, anytime there's like pollen, he's always coughing. You know, for me, it's like the first thing when I get a cold, it's always right to the cough and to my chest. I’m easily affected. And same with my kids. So, I imagine I was not doing myself any favors.

I had tried to quit years prior, before I moved to Nashville, and just failed. I would get through two or three days. For me, it was environmental; I was in a bad marriage. We were only married for four years and it was a bad marriage for about two-and-a-half of those, after the honeymoon phase ended. I tried to quit then; I was like, "Okay, I got to take care of myself." But I could basically go for as long as we wouldn’t fight, which generally would be no longer than forty-eight hours. I experienced that shame wheel of trying to quit and then falling back into it. I had fairly legitimate life excuses–or at least that's what I perceived them to be–of, “Hey, I'm really stressed out. I'm broke right now. I'm going through a divorce. I am not that healthy. I am drinking alcohol to help as a crutch. This cigarette helps calm my nerves.” Again, it really came back to that emotional regulation for me, personally.

And so, yeah, and I just cold-turkeyed that shit at that point. I was like, “I'm done.” Because it taxed me hard. I guess one of the blessings, in my mind, is when I really decide–and maybe this is for everyone, I don't know–but when it's really time, it's really time. And for me, it was really time right then. I just remember throwing that pack away and I knew I was going to go back and try to dig them out. So, I got them all wet. M’hmm. I just opened up the sink and I was like, "All right." And I closed it up and I threw it away. And it sucked. I probably went through pretty bad withdrawals for about, God, seven to ten days, something like that. Just really hard. I got by on secondhand smoke for a little while. I'm not going to lie. I was still hanging out with smokers. I did miss that.

It's interesting in that culture. There is something to be said about taking small breaks. There's something to be said about going outside and having some sort of social connection. Although something may not be the healthiest, the social aspect was wonderful. You were part of a group. It was just like your group's over here and we can go out and have an excuse to go outside or to take a break. People understand this. It's a reason to come out. So, I did miss the camaraderie. I did miss the breaks. I missed the checkout. And I definitely missed that body connection. You know, I later learned that tobacco has been used for centuries in very contained spiritual practices for Natives. They use tobacco to ground themselves into their bodies. For me, having an addictive personality, it just did not work out. And I also think the way that I was using it was for more of a coping mechanism rather than anything spiritual.

And I mean, truth be told, I didn't smoke for years and years. And maybe it was about… I'm forty now, so maybe it was about four or five years ago. I was still unmedicated for my bipolar, and had given up all the drugs. I'd given up alcohol. And I was in Las Vegas and I had I bummed a cigarette off someone because I was like, “I'm going to be wild.” I had a cigarette. I almost threw up because the nicotine was just so much from my body. I hadn't ingested it in forever. I got a splitting headache and I maybe took like three, four drags and I was just like “No, how did I ever do this?” Because I want to be honest, you know, because I missed it. I think I still miss it in ways like I talked about: the social aspect of things, the breaks, the moments of contemplation. You know, there's something very meditative about smoking a cigarette because what you're doing is very simplistic. So it gives you time to think and you have an excuse to take the time to think. You can't go out, or at least I've never experienced a workplace or a seminar environment or anything where it's just like, “Hey, I need to take a break to go just contemplate for fifteen minutes.”


Jessi:
Yeah.


Nick:
So, I did appreciate that. I will still just go hang around smokers occasionally because I do love that smell. But I do not bum them because I understand what sort of slippery slope that is for me, what that could lead back to. And B, I can't set that sort of example for my daughter. I mean, I have two kids. One is twenty now and one is nine, about to turn ten.

I wouldn't say it's the worst thing, but for me, it definitely robbed me of the experience of learning how to deal with my own emotions. It robbed me from being able to master my impulse. And hey I'm not, you know, I impulsively eat peanut butter now instead.


Jessi:
M’hmm.


Nick:
I don't ask for peanut butter breaks.


Jessi:
[laughter]


Nick:
[laugher] But the impulse has moved to something else, something healthier. I compulsively work out, which is better, but still I'm addicted to it. Like, if I don't get it in, I feel off. I feel dysregulated. So, I think for me, it was a transfer of addiction onto something that I still get endorphins from. Maybe not as easy to attain, but after a while, it becomes part of your identity. And I think about changing my identity from being a smoker at that ballroom dance studio. I was just like, "Nope, I'm no longer a smoker." I wasn't trying to quit. I was just no longer a smoker. Whereas in the past, I was a smoker trying to quit. And I think that identity shift really made a difference. And truth be told, there was a woman that I wanted to date and she didn't like the fact that I smoked. So that also helped. But ultimately, it was my decision. And it was that coughing fit that just scared the crap out of me. I thought I was going to die. I was like, "Here I go. Nick's checking out."

That is most of the smoking that I partook in. It's just kind of crazy for me to think about. Like I remember after my last cage fight in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was hanging out with all these guys that were just super, super healthy. They were really into their fitness because they were all, you know, elite athletes, and I was right there with them. I probably wasn't in as good a shape. I just bust out this pack of Marlboro Lights, just start packing it. Light it up. They're like, "What are you doing?" And I'm like, "I'm smoking a cigarette, dude. What do you think I'm doing?" And just having moments where it didn't exactly mesh with who I was trying to be, but yet I identified as it.

It was an interesting ride and I'm super grateful. All life paths lead us somewhere for some reason. And I'm grateful for being on that ride because it showed me that I can rise above the impulse that I have with time, effort, and decision. It taught me that it's okay, in my mind. I had to forgive myself because I carried a lot of shame around that. But it's okay to have a part of your life that maybe you weren't shining at your best or you had some habits. And that's part of being human. I'm super glad that I can have those experiences because we're all human here trying to do the best that we can and some people are introduced to cigarettes. Some people see that example and so they try it.

I honestly think I'm more in my own mind from my own journey, I feel more human after trying that and saying it's not for me and being able to quit. Because now I can relate. If someone wants to quit, I believe that, I'm just going to put that out there, that anyone can quit. Although it might be harder for some than for others. If I can do it, they can do it. You know, that's part of what I teach now: emotional regulation, emotional mastery, impulse control, fitness. A lot of what I gained to be able to help me quit was through physical movement, better practices.

Jessi:
There is so much in your story that is just gold. I resonate with so much of it. I love that you ended on that note of gratitude because that is a pivot point for a lot of people that have that shame around addiction is to see the meaning in it and understand that we have gained things. We have gained probably more than we've lost: the resilience, the self-understanding. These challenges, these tests actually push us to become more human. I say that all the time. I've never heard anyone else say that. So, thank you. [laughter] This is really exciting for me. And yeah, there's just so much of your story. I don't even know what to start with because I can just see so many patterns from hearing these stories.

I'm glad that you talked about the shame because that is a big part of smoking stigma, I think, is that we carry that. And it's so much more than just the physical drawbacks, but ultimately that's what helped you to motivate you. I had a similar, not that bad, but I had my own thing that I went through physically where it became more real for me. I just am wondering with the emotional stuff more then, I guess: how were you able to change those patterns–you call it impulse–to smoke when you had those emotions that you were familiar with smoking for? But I think I already kind of have an idea because you said that your identity changed so it was just not even an option for you anymore. What did you develop to replace the need for soothing and comfort when you would have unwanted emotions?


Nick:
To soothe my emotions at that point. So I lost my car. My car blew up and that caused me to smoke a lot of cigarettes. [laughter]


Jessi:
[laughter] Yeah.


Nick:
It was when I was twenty-six or twenty-seven. Because it didn't have any oil in it. Go figure. I started walking to work for part of that time. I remember I was smoking. I would go to the gym in the morning. I would get a ride from someone and then come back and I would get ready for work. I would smoke on the way to work. But I started to feed myself, my brain, better information. And I had never done this. Like I think someone had suggested self-development or maybe it popped up on my feed. I don't exactly remember how but it was YouTube. It was the big hitters: Think and Grow Rich or Tony Robbins or Earl Nightingale or Jim Ran and Eckhart Tolle with The Power of Now. I started to feed my brain different ways of thinking, more expansive ways of thinking, more empowerment that really led to the idea of, “What is your identity? What is identity? Who are we as humans? What's going on here? Why am I identifying with who I've been and what I've been through?”

Because for a while there, I was walking through life backwards, looking at everything that had happened to me and taking that on as identity. I was a drug addict. I was a divorce. I was a horrible dad. I was not a nice person. I'm rageful. And it's like, imagine walking through New York City backwards regretting and feeling shame about all the things and people that you run into. You're just going through and so it was feeding my mind higher quality input.

I used to be really into horror films. Now, nothing against people that are into horror films, but for me, I'm very easily influenced. And I used to love Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Hostile or like these just really atrocious, gruesome movies that were just not for me. You know, they have their own quality and people can like them, cool, but just not for me. I don't judge, again, because I've been there. I know.

And so, I started to really clean up my diet of media and input and songs. Like, I loved Nirvana. I still love Nirvana. But I don't listen to it as much because I am personally affected by the angst that is in that music. I used to love Slipknot. Do I still work out to really crazy music? Yes. But it's instrumental. There are no words now. And so for me, being able to create a better internal emotional environment by feeding myself higher quality things and starting to honestly question my identity all around. Who am I? What is this thing that I am in? What is my soul?

I got very cosmic with it. And it really opened me up to the possibility of “I am not what I do. That's just what I do. I'm not what I've been through. Those are just experiences. Well, then who am I?” For me, I distilled it down to: “I am, for a lack of a better word, an infinite being encapsulated in a body. And I am, for a lower term, I am what I do in the moment I do it. When I'm smoking, I am a smoker. But when I'm not smoking, I'm not a smoker.” Again, and that comes back around to the impulse. How did I train myself to the impulse? That wasn't easy. But again, I felt like the more I fed myself good material and started to shape a better idea of who I wanted to be, the stronger the impulse to let go of unhealthy habits. And it became so much stronger.

And so it felt less like denying myself and more like, “Yeah, that guy I want to be, he doesn't smoke.” So it was almost like creating the identity to step into first and then obviously making a decision was more of a physical thing for me. But I believe the universe, God, whatever you call it, works in mysterious ways: “Oh you're trying to become this guy? Well I'm going to have you almost die so you can become this person that you're wanting to become.”


Jessi:
Meets you halfway, yeah.


Nick:
Yeah, exactly. And I still have a hard time with impulse control, but through meditation, yoga. Again, just for me, I'm a very physical person. So, the more physical habits that I can have, the better that I would be. I would go for walks. I would do push-ups if ever I got a craving. I would do sit-ups. I would just basically move my body until the craving went away. Sometimes I would just scream. But it was really for those first seven to ten days. And then once that was over, I was like, "Okay, I'm no longer a smoker." And for me, I bummed so many cigarettes in my life. Oh my gosh.


Jessi:
Yeah, “I'm quitting.” Air quotes. [laughter]


Nick:
[laughter] Yeah, “I'm quitting”. Exactly. So, that's kind of how I dealt with that just by cleaning up my input diet.


Jessi:
Yeah, it sounds like you were getting curious. You were paying attention to your self-talk and that you were tapping into your imagination. So, those are all really powerful steps to become the person…and well not really become the person we want to be but rather become ourselves and live the life we want.


Nick:
So exactly. Stripping away the layers of identity that I had put on myself. Through the experiences I had, I allowed my identity to be created and dictated by, in my life, the ignorance that I had around the decisions that I made. We don't know what we don't know. And for me impulse was always so hard. So, I'd make a decision, often the wrong one. Or at least I'm not going to say wrong, but an unhealthy and unhelpful decision, which fell downhill. And I identified with that until again, it started to feed that. And, you know, like you said, it definitely makes a difference.


Jessi:
So, it sounds like you've had a lot of strides. You really fell into emotional regulation. You have this work that you're doing now, that you're passionate about. You've gotten in touch with your body more and are taking care of yourself. Is there any kind of surprise gain that you just didn't even know would happen until you quit smoking that has been a benefit to you?


Nick:
I know we talked about feeling more human and letting go of that shame. I think for me the biggest thing was the fact that it had such a hold of me for such a long time. I was able to overcome that and even it still serves me ten years later. In knowing it's like, “Wow, if I could do that.” I think it brings me back to basics when I get in my head because I'm operating at a higher level now than I was then. But the basics don't change with the ideas of: cleaning up my media diet or my physical diet, dialing in on my integrity and the self-talk, having more forgiveness, letting go of shame. All of those things that came from letting go of smoking cigarettes have really continued to serve me. I never would have imagined that quitting would continue to allow me the perspective of “You can get through this” because it hasn't been easy. [laughter] I've gone through quite a bit since then as well but I didn't fall back into it.

I guess what it did, it shot me in a projection of quitting cigarettes, gaining more onto the health spectrum, and now instead of falling back, I have a tendency to pull up and forward because that's the trajectory that quitting cigarettes taught me.


Jessi:
And it sounds like you have trust in yourself now, which is priceless.


Nick:
More.


Jessi:
[laughter] Okay.


Nick:
More than I have. I still struggle with impulse control, but again, it's much better to peanut butter. You know, self-trust is challenging, especially when at least in my experience, for my life, I've started to ask a lot more of myself. Because I started to believe or you meet mentors that believe in you a lot and then you commit to things and I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, I guess I got to trust myself." And what quitting smoking did, it allowed me to experience trusting yourself entirely for the first time in probably in my entire life up to that point. I continue to try to just nail that in. I don't know if it'll ever be perfect. There was a great book by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements. I don't know if you've read it or not.


Jessi:
Read that one. Yeah, it's great.


Nick:
Yeah, it's great. And so, integrity, being impeccable with your word and being impeccable with your word to yourself. I think that smoking journey that I was on was the start of being impeccable with my word.


Jessi:
What final words do you have to someone that's listening that's feeling stuck, wants to quit, maybe doesn't know if they can do it, maybe they've tried and failed?


Nick:
I would say what worked for me was everything else. Don't necessarily focus on the quitting. Focus on cleaning up your diet. Focus on movement. Focus on feeding your mind a better diet of self-talk. Work on your spirituality. Dig into your identity and who you know yourself to be on a root level. In my experience, humans are layered like onions and you keep peeling back the layers into your most authentic self which is full of peace and love and forgiveness and compassion and empathy and joy and happiness. If you continue on that path, everything externally has a tendency in my experience to drop by the wayside because you start to feel so full as opposed to needing to reach for external things.


Jessi:
Wise words. Thank you. So, how can our listeners get in touch with you and do you want to talk more about the work you do now?


Nick:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I said in the beginning, I founded a men's wellness company called Back to Wild. So if you have a brother, a son, an uncle, a friend, a nephew, you know, men are in crisis right now. They are more isolated than ever before. And most men are okay with that. They suffer in silence. And so I created Back to Wild to create a community of men that can come together to build better habits together. I work in the five realms: the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and relational. It is all about owning yourself in all five of those realms. We have a 60-day online reset coming up at the beginning of the year. And I also lead wilderness excursions where we go backpacking anywhere from three to fifteen miles into the wilderness and we get crazy out in the woods. It's a good time. And we do the work. We dive deep into all of the things that we talked about today: identity, forgiveness, love, shame, and all the things that when you go into a bar, you're not exactly going to open up about for fear of being judged. So, it's a very judgment free zone.

If you're curious about the way that I work with my clients, I also do one-on-one coaching. I think there will be a link to my scorecard that you can take, it's www.backtowildscorecard.com and that'll give you a good idea of how I work with my clients as well as where you are on your journey. If you're just interested, go ahead and take that. We also have a free gift: the seven codes to the wild man. And those are just basically there to help you dial in on where you currently are because you can't start to change unless you just accept where you are. So, yep, hit me up.


Jessi:
Amazing work. There is something so powerful and like-minded people gathering to heal together. I feel that healing is so much more accessible when it's done with witnesses. I don't know why. It's just part of the deal.


Nick:
Being human is a team sport. Especially in this day and age, we need each other on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual connection more than ever. We have so many things trying to divide us. And again, all of those things that are dividing us are external. So when we start to peel back those layers and become healthy within ourselves, we see the connection that we can all create. And that's what my work is all about.


Jessi:
That's very powerful. Thank you for doing that work. And thank you so much for being here and sharing your story with vulnerability and honesty and heart. It really means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to all those listening. So, thank you so much.


Nick:
Thank you, Jessi. This has been great. Thank you for having me.


Jessi:
All right, everyone. We'll be back next week. Take care.


End of interview.


Jessi:

If you found hope or a new perspective in today's conversation, make sure you don't miss any future episodes! Hit the 'Follow' or 'Subscribe' button on your podcast app right now. It's the best way to get inspired every week and ensure you keep receiving the tools and stories you need on your journey to live smoke-free. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next time