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:
Hi everyone. I'm here today with Liz Allesandri. Liz, can you introduce yourself to the audience?


Liz:
Hi, I'm Liz Allesandri. I'm an intuitive life coach from Connecticut and I'm here to talk about my experience with smoking.


Jessi:
Great to have you. Thanks for coming.


Liz:
Of course.


Jessi:
Give us a rundown. What was smoking like for you?


Liz:
My mom smoked when I was young so I had very early exposure to it in my family. She did quit kind of. But ultimately when I was just about 15, I started hanging out with the smokers. There was one day where somebody had a pack of cigarettes and they were falling out all over the place. And so I just picked one up and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to see what this is all about." So, I took it home and was very intelligently smoking it in the bathroom. You know, I don't even think I inhaled that time. But from that moment, I was like, "Well, this is a thing I'm going to do." I wanted to. It wasn't obvious that I was addicted at that point, but there was just so much going on in my teenage life that I wanted something to take the edge off. And that was something that I knew was something that other people used to take the edge off. That was kind of the beginning of it.

Of course, at that point, I wasn't old enough to buy cigarettes for myself. You know, I was asking older people to buy them for me. Even like, this is gross, but like even taking stubs out of ashtrays and like just whatever I could do to get them at a certain point. Obviously, I did become addicted and I remember telling myself that I would quit before I turned 18, right? And I mean, I can't imagine how many people tell themselves that. And of course, that's not what happens. It became not only something to take the stress edge off, but it became like a friend. It became this thing that was there all the time. Even if my friends weren't there for me, even if my family wasn't there for me, I always had this thing to turn to.

And even beyond that, the older I got, going into college and going into the workplace, it became not only my friend, but also the social lubricant to meet other people. So, this is how I made any friends. And the few friends that I made in college, the people that I started to relate to when I started working, it was all through cigarettes. So, not only was it something at that point that I was physically addicted to, but it was actually the thing that kept me able to have social interactions where I may not have otherwise. As far as an emotional connection, I mean, I think there are probably few things that I've had quite that dramatic of an emotional connection to in my life. Simply because it was the thing that was always there for me.
But as far as what it did for me, apart from taking the edge off and being the social lubricant, I almost want to say it was a beautiful habit. And obviously it's not a healthy habit. It's not a habit that's good for you. But it gave me structure in a way to have something to go to like after a meal. Okay, cigarette. It kept me company on a long drive to work. Okay, cigarette. It was my lunch break, cigarette. It was everything.

The first time I tried to quit, I was probably around 23, and I cried because I felt like I was losing a friend. It felt like I was abandoning a friend. I went on the patches. I didn't know you could overdose on nicotine patches, but it turns out you can. So I had to take it off and I ended up having to get a lower dose and it was a whole thing. But it didn't stick. Unfortunately, it didn't stick. And I probably tried to quit another 50 times over the next 10 years, beyond that. So many times. And I would quit. And then there'd be a weekend where I'd be hanging out with somebody who I used to smoke with. And of course, we'd say, "Okay, well, just this one day or just this one weekend.” We’d buy a pack of cigarettes." And then all of a sudden, it's not just one weekend, it's it's all the time. And it was very much that social piece that often kept me coming back to it. There were definitely moments of stress that pulled me back to it. But more than anything, it was the social aspect. It was not just the cigarettes themselves that were the friend, but they were actually what kept me feeling like I had anything in common with friends. Which is obviously not incredibly healthy.

I always liked smoking. I genuinely enjoyed it. If I didn't have such a negative reaction physically to it, I probably would have happily continued to smoke. I have never had the best lungs and smoking definitely, you know, it does what it does. And it was very much at a point where I would get up in the morning and my lungs would be so heavy and dense feeling that it took me like 45 minutes to be able to feel like I could breathe normally again. But I genuinely liked doing it.

And when I got into CrossFit as a smoker, that was obviously now not socially acceptable. So, I was caught between two worlds: of my social lubricant of smoking and then the CrossFit community where you wouldn't even dream of admitting to being a smoker in that type of situation. And I remember for several years, I had a whole ritual. I was known to be a smoker at work, but obviously in the gym I hid it. So, I would go to the gym after work and I had this whole ritual where I would change my clothes at work and brush my teeth and I had a ton of gum in my car at all times. I had a specific sweatshirt that I would wear over whatever I was wearing to make sure that the thing that smelled like smoke was that one thing. And anytime anybody even would remotely mention like, “Something smells like smoke.” I would just remove myself from the situation because I didn't want anyone to know. There was a lot of shame around it despite it being something that I genuinely enjoyed doing.

Even liking it, there were times where I tried to quit again: cold turkey, with the patches. I even tried the vaping thing for a while. But honestly, I preferred smoking to vaping. Although in truth, vaping is almost in a way more dangerous because there's so few places that you can't get away with doing it. But ultimately the major points that I hit that made me almost quit was the pandemic. And it was such a strange thing because it wasn't so much that I wanted to quit. It was just that I couldn't go anywhere. And I didn't smoke in my apartment anymore. It was almost like it became inconvenient. And I was so ready to take advantage of that inconvenience until I moved.

I moved in with a friend who had been dealing with some really heavy mental health stuff for a long time. And this person just needed some help taking care of their home, their pets, bills and all that. And so living by myself at the time and working from home at the time, I thought, "Okay, you know what? This will be good for me." So I moved in with this friend and we both decided we were going to quit together. And that never even remotely happened. This person would buy rolling tobacco and roll their own cigarettes while I would continue to buy whatever I bought. The funny thing is, that eventually I ended up quitting while living with this person. They did not quit. And not only did they not quit, but they hands down, flat out refused to open windows while smoking in the house. So, I look back on this and I think, you know, of all the opportunities that I had to quit, it was probably the most challenging situation under which I finally did it.

But the other piece of that puzzle was that at this point there was another person living with us. It was my partner at that point, who also wanted to quit. And so I think I have to give him some credit there because at this point now there was a kind of support system that I didn't have in previous iterations. It was always something that I hid from my parents. I didn't want them to know. I didn't want them to shame me for it. At one point with a prior partner, I would hide it as best I could. Because I knew he would want me to quit but not in a way that would be supportive. And then of course this roommate who kept saying that they wanted to quit. We continued. Not that I blame that person. It was definitely both of us. But having a person who was genuinely supportive without the judgment, I think made all the difference in the world when it came to actually quitting.

And really when I finally decided to do it, I had been planning for a couple of months and it was just a moment of like, “Okay, this is it.” I had always thought, “Okay, you pick a day and you stick to it”. In previous times I had tried “When I get to the end of this pack. I'll be done.” And then end up going and buying another one and repeating the same cycle over and over again 37 more times. But this particular day, I think I was just sitting at my desk from home as usual and I looked at the two or three I had left. And I was like “Okay I guess that's it.” And that was it. For several months obviously, it was difficult because I lived with somebody who was smoking in the house with no windows open at all or anything.

Even after we moved out I had dreams about it. I wanted to go back to it but I hit a point probably about a year in where even though I still wanted to and I still liked the idea of it, it was no longer going to be worth it for me. Because anytime I was around somebody who was smoking, I would get a headache. And just the thought of going through the migraines again, because they would level off after a while, but why put myself through that?

I'm very happy to say it's been about 4 years now. I don't hold any judgment for anybody that chooses to smoke. But it's definitely lost all of its luster at this point in my life, which I'm thrilled about because there are so many reasons that I loved it. And to have all of that finally be gone, all of the desire finally be gone, it's a great thing. Because truly, I would get jealous. There were people that quit smoking. They'd make comments if we smelled cigarettes in the car next to us or walked by a smoker outside. But me, I would be jealous. I wanted to be able to do that. Four years later, that's not the case anymore.


Jessi:
I think your story is incredible. It resonates with my own experience with how you weaved it into your day, how you depended on it as a friend, how you were so emotionally connected, socially connected. And to just have a day where you're like, “I'm done.” I mean, that's incredible that you had done all that inner work, all that examination, that you were able to do that. And then with support too. Even though you were in that situation that was kind of working against you, you were able to push through with that. That's just really impressive. And that just goes to show that when the time is right, the time's right. It doesn't really matter what's going on around you. It's all about what's happening within you.

You had these migraines and that you lose them or that you would push through them when you were in the addiction, but what other benefits did you notice? What did you see that was a change after you quit smoking? Maybe it surprised you?


Liz:
I could breathe.


Jessi:
You could breathe.


Liz:
Yeah. I mean, that's not very surprising, I suppose.


Jessi:
It’s an important one.

Liz:
Yeah. For a long time, like I said, when I would wake up in the morning, it would take a good thirty to forty five minutes to get my lungs. It just felt like there was sludge in my chest and I had the shortness of breath and all of that. And it would get worse in the winter. And to have that go away, that probably took at least 6 months to a year, especially since I was at the beginning still living with a smoker. But that's been great. I mean, I haven't taken up running again since I quit smoking. I haven't done CrossFit since before I quit smoking. But I'd be very interested to see the difference in performance with that for sure.

One of the best things, and again, I don't know if it's really surprising, but I haven't gotten sick since the winter before I quit. I used to get a cough, a horrible cough, at least once or sometimes twice a year. I haven't had anything like that since I finally quit. That's been good.

The migraines have definitely decreased. I know that having stopped and started so many times, the starting was definitely a major trigger. It's not the only trigger, but there was a distinct difference between a cigarette migraine and a non-cigarette migraine. Because a cigarette migraine would go on for like 2 days at least, and nothing I would take would touch it in that time. I would get it from secondhand smoke, too, but especially from firsthand smoke. So, you know, to be able to kick those obviously all together is great. Definitely not getting sick anymore is a huge benefit.


Jessi:
I'm wondering how you were able to replace that friend relationship. You said that you thought of smoking as a friend. So what did you do when you lost that friend? You kind of described that you were going into a grieving process. Did you ultimately move through that grief and was that connected to your relationship with yourself?


Liz:
It was certainly connected to my relationship with myself. If I'm going to be honest with myself, I think I put a crutch on cannabis as a replacement for nicotine for a long time. And quitting that really was the last straw. And actually, now looking back, I can see the timeline makes sense for having hit that point where I don't even miss it anymore. That came after quitting smoking cannabis. And again, that's not a judgment of anybody choosing to do that for whatever reason. You know, looking back, I think for me, that was almost like the replacement. and giving that up was the moment where I was like, "Okay, I don't need this anymore."

And to your point about the inner work, it was really in that space: in between quitting cigarettes and quitting cannabis that that inner work really happened and exposed to me what I didn't realize. I always thought it's just the physical addiction, and it's the emotional attachment. I didn't put two and two together that this was something that was coming from an inner void trying to make up for something or give me some kind of comfort that I wasn't capable of providing for myself without these substances. And you know, we think of substance abuse as alcohol and hard drugs. But the truth is that even cigarettes are giving you something, or at least were giving me something, that I didn't think that I had the ability to give myself. And having found that I do and what that is; I mean, it's so simple and it's so complicated all at the same time. It's just the radical acceptance of yourself and having that thing outside of you to turn to means that you don't have to look inside of yourself. And to the same end, it actively helps you avoid looking inside of yourself. It's a fascinating relationship that runs a lot deeper than we think that it does.


Jessi:
How did you start that work, that inner work? What did that look like? What shifted?


Liz:
I stumbled on a book. I mean, I think it started slowly over time. I was diagnosed with ADHD probably a year or so before it really started. That obviously got my attention and got me looking at my life through a different lens. It helped me to understand honestly even a little bit of why I would have picked up smoking in the first place, and why it was so difficult to quit.

But even beyond that, I started learning about trauma. And I think there's so much controversy around the word trauma. We think it's only certain types of things, but there's so many different types of childhood adversity that fall under that umbrella. And understanding how those things impacted my life helped me to start to unpack and understand again a lot of my behaviors. And yes, these are the same behaviors that were associated with ADHD or even depression, anxiety; some other things that I had dealt with in my life. But understanding that this wasn't like just “Okay, it's my brain chemistry that's all wrong.” Like not that that's not true, but these behaviors are a reaction to something that happened early in life and that's creating these patterns. And no amount of willpower is going to change those patterns when you're not addressing the underlying issues, the underlying trapped emotions, the underlying subconscious wiring and things like that.

Learning about trauma was a huge breaking point for me in a good way. And that just started a whole downhill race through learning even more about trauma and about the impact of emotions in your body. And I could go on a tangent for days about this because just the understanding of how we in Western culture especially, we don't process our emotions. We suppress them. And when we suppress them, that takes a lot of work. That takes a lot of effort. And so when I talk about having something external to you that you can turn to instead of looking inside, well of course you're not going to want to look inside when you have all these painful feelings that you've been pushing down for your entire life. And the older you get, the more you're stacking up if you're not processing them. And so, of course, it gets harder and harder to quit. Not just the physical addiction, but the emotional addiction and and having that thing to turn to. And to that end, I mean that's very much I think in my case and potentially in others when it comes to turning to things like vaping or something instead of smoking and in my case turning to cannabis instead of cigarettes; it was still something external to me that I could look at. And when I did finally do that work, when I did finally start to uproot all of that stuff that I was afraid to look at for so long, that's when it was like, “Okay, I don't need this anymore.”


Jessi:
I think that's so powerful that even when you have a diagnosis, because I've seen that come up a lot with people. They really think that they're not capable because of what's going on with them. But I love that you were able to work with it and not use that as a handicap or something that was going to hold you back. That you're able to navigate life with it and be yourself because that's part of who you are. It's just part of who you are. And I just think that's really inspiring.

I do have a silly question. So for me, nicotine was a big stimulant and it would really stress me out even though I convinced myself that it was relaxing. But I've heard with ADHD that stimulants have a different effect. Do you know anything about that? What was your experience with that? It's kind of off topic, but I'm just curious.


Liz:
No, that's a really good question. And I had never even thought about it because I got the diagnosis so long after I quit smoking, right? I mean, I definitely believed that it calmed me down. I would say that it did. I mean, I think there's kind of a two sides to it. And without going way down the rabbit hole, one of them is just the general disconnect from your body that that especially that comes with something like ADHD. And honestly, with trauma, so many of us go through experiences that have us just completely disconnected from our physical bodies. But especially with something like ADHD, you hear a lot of the time people like they go all day without eating or they go all day without drinking water because they don't even notice the body cues that they're getting. And so, yes, I felt like it calmed me down, but I don't think that that means that it wasn't also creating anxiety at the same time because it probably was increasing my heart rate. And it's just not something that I would have paid any attention to. But certainly, I can see even more in retrospect why I would have turned to cigarettes and continued to turn to them because they offered that something.


Jessi:
Yeah. And even if it is calming, there are other options available that aren't self harming. What tools do you have now to calm yourself?


Liz:
Oh goodness, I have so many now. My biggest problem is like, “Okay, which tool do I pull out of the toolbox in any given moment?” But I mean the simplest is, just sounds so silly, but breathing. Even just taking a few deep breaths is signaling your nervous system that it's okay to calm down. Having the awareness when you are experiencing heightened anxiety or a stress response, that what's going on physically in your body is a stress response. Even just having that awareness almost helps to neutralize it at least a little bit because you can say, "Okay, this is just my body responding to the situation.” It's not as much of an engulfing experience as when you don't know what's happening." So, yeah, I mean, first and foremost is breathing.

Meditation, everybody who does it will talk about it all day, and I certainly will. But in general, if you do it regularly, the benefits for your baseline stress level are incredible. The first few times you do it, the first ten, twenty, thirty times you do it; if you're not used to it, it might actually be a stressful experience. But once you are able to kind of get into that quiet place and you do that consistently, it's going to do wonders for your baseline. Which means you're not going to be as stressed out all the time from the get-go. So, especially if you're still a smoker and you're trying to find ways to deal with that anxiety outside of smoking, even starting a meditation practice while you're smoking is still going to pay off dividends when you do decide to quit.

EFT tapping, that's something I've been doing a lot of lately. That's been really helpful to just move the emotions out of your body. Even just the typical: feel your feelings. That doesn't mean anything if you don't know what it means. But again, to the point about your energy kind of being outside of your body and that dissociative state. Getting into your body and feeling your body, you can find typically there is a physical sensation associated with any emotion. So if emotions are running high, I strongly recommend just taking a minute and trying to find that physical sensation in your body because more often than not, when you find it and you just allow it to be there and focus on it for sixty to ninety seconds at most; it's going to pass through and you're going to feel a lot better.


Jessi:
Oh, we have to talk about intuition because it is so near and dear to my heart. I'm wondering what has your relationship with intuition been and has that changed with quitting smoking?


Liz:

Yes and no. I have always had a strong intuition. I just didn't trust it or myself. And so I can look back and find many situations where my intuition nudged me in a certain way. And I knew and I knew that I just knew and I didn't know how. But it was after I started that whole process of learning about trauma and energy and all of that stuff that I really dove into the intuition rabbit hole because I wanted to understand it better. And just learning about it led me to realize how many more ways that it was actually available to me than I even realized. And with the cannabis crutch that I was holding on to long after I quit cigarettes, I think part of what led me to the point of like, “Okay, I'm genuinely done with this.” It was that for me, and I think everybody's a little bit different with this, and I think it depends on your relationship with it, but for me, I couldn't tell where the effects of that ended and my own inner self, if you will, my intuitive self, my higher self, whatever you want to call it, would begin. Then I made that decision to let that last piece of smoking go. Because again for me a big part of the reason that I was still smoking cannabis was just the habit of smoking. And when I let that go that's very much I think when I started to feel so much more attuned to my intuition to the point where I most often at least when it comes to a simple answer situation I can ask myself is this right for me? How do I feel about this? And I'll know instantly because of my intuition. I feel it physically. And because I don't have the extra stuff clouding my judgment and clouding my inner world anymore. It's that much more clear.

I always like to say that getting in touch with your intuition or reconnecting with your intuition is the most efficient way to reduce or cut out anxiety because so much of anxiety is like am I doing the right thing? Am I behaving the right way? Am I showing up the right way? Am I going to make a mistake? And when your intuition is there, when you trust your intuition, when you can access your intuition, you no longer need to overthink because you know whether you're making the right decision. Or you know that if you're going by your intuition that you're making the right decision. And so, yeah, I mean, cigarettes specifically, I quit long before I started really getting into intuitive work, but the final crutch, the cannabis, it was leaving that that really opened up my ability to connect to myself and my intuitive guidance.


Jessi:
That is my experience, too. I also smoked cannabis. I quit nicotine and cannabis at the same time, but it amazed me how much more in touch I was able to be with myself. And I was a person that thought it all along, like you said, I always had a pull to it. But I was training myself to ignore it. So, I just think that's a beautiful thing. And I feel like I was able to quit because of that call from intuition. My intuition was like, "This isn't right. You want more than this and this is hurting you." And it kind of just hung over me. I felt like I was just like, "No, shut up." Like, I was just fighting my own self every day with it.

Yeah, I love intuition. It's such a gift and I will never fight it again. I mean, I still do sometimes, buI've learned to trust it and accept it and embrace it. And I really appreciate your work. And just as an expert in intuition, kind of just a little side note here, do you think that some people are more intuitive than others, or is intuition something that's available to everyone?


Liz:
A little bit of both. I do think it's just a natural part of being human in a lot of ways. Calling back to the childhood adversity; so many of us learn to deal with that by stunting the natural sensitivity that we feel as humans. I do think that some people are well, I'll use the word “naturally” more intuitive than others. But I think that's just because those people, I'm among them, learn to navigate our world by being more in touch with energy, not even realizing it, not even knowing it. We learn to navigate the world that way. And other people, for whatever reason, they react to their situation in a different way by trying to suppress even more. And that suppression, they need to be, I don't want to use the word insensitive like I don't think it's like an insensitivity. I think it's a an intentional lack of sensitivity if that's not the same thing


Jessi:
Protection, yeah.


Liz:
I think when somebody goes that direction, they are less in touch with their intuition. Now I do think it's available to everybody. I think if any person particularly you know starts a meditation practice, or then like you don't even have to sit down in silent meditation. I mean if you go for a walk in the woods and set an intention to get some intuitive guidance , you will get something. It's there, but you have to be open to it. You have to want it. You have to be willing to hear it. And if you are constantly trying to distract yourself to avoid your inner world, those distractions are going to speak so much louder than your intuition is. So, it really starts with A) the desire and B) the willingness to do what it takes to tune into that.


Jessi:
So, do you have any final words to someone that's smoking still? That wants to quit either nicotine or cannabis? Maybe they've tried to quit and not been successful, but they're struggling. What would you say to them?


Liz:
I would say to them exactly what I said to a family member just a few months ago who had started vaping again after a death in her family. And I literally just said, "When you think about smoking, what do you feel?" Literally, that's all I said. This was maybe a one minute exercise and she found the feeling in her body. And she let it come up. The next day, she put it down and she hasn't picked it back up. I'm not saying that that's going to be the situation for every single person.

But the reason that you're turning to cigarettes is because you're avoiding something that's inside of you. And when you stop avoiding what's inside of you and you allow that to come up and out, then you no longer need this outside thing. I may be oversimplifying it. Everybody's journey is going to be a little different. But if you start with what's on the inside, that's what's creating the behavior. All behavior is communication. So, if you're doing something that you know is physically harming you and you don't even want to do it anymore, it's time to start looking on the inside at what's creating that behavior outside.


Jessi:
Great advice. Thank you. So, how can people get in touch with you and your work and what services do you provide?


Liz:
So, right now I have one-on-one coaching. Generally, I prefer to do it in 90-day packages just because it can take some time to work through stuff and it's good to have that guidance for some extended period of time. I do offer single sessions if that's something that anybody is interested in doing. I believe we're going to have a link in the show notes and that that's got all my social media information. There's a link on there to schedule a consultation. If you are interested in working with me one on one, you can schedule a free consultation and just see if I can help you. And of course, you can find me on TikTok, you can find me on Instagram. And both of the links are in there as well.


Jessi:
Great. And yeah, a 90-day program makes sense because of forming a relationship, a connection.


Liz: Most definitely.


Jessi:
Yeah. And just the consistency of it. It can take a while to get comfortable using intuition. I know that it's something that I struggled with in the beginning.


Liz:
And having somebody to affirm you, I think, is a big part of that. Because, you know, like you said, “I fought it for so long.” And for me it was the same. And if you're accustomed to wrestling with yourself over it, just to have somebody that's going to continue to affirm like “You're not crazy. Like if that's what you're feeling, if that's what's coming up, that's what you should do.” Because most people are going to tell you to do whatever they think you should do. They're going to tell you whatever through their own life experience lens. And so having somebody who's going to tell you to trust yourself and affirm your trusting of yourself every time; don't underestimate the power of that because it definitely makes a big difference what you're building that self-trust.


Jessi:
So true. Well, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your story with vulnerability, a lot of heart in there, and a lot of just great advice that definitely spoke to my own experience. So, thank you so much.


Liz:
Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.


Jessi:
Appreciate you being here. Thank you. Take care, everyone. See you next week.


End of interview.


Jessi:

Today's conversation really emphasized the power of intuition. If you're ready to dive deeper into powerful emotional tools and start on your path to quitting smoking, I encourage you to check out my book, Honor Your Heart. You can find purchase details at honoryourheart.net/book. Thank you for spending this time with me.