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 Laurence. Laurence, can you introduce yourself?


Laurence:

Of course. Yeah, thanks so much for having me Jessi. My name is Laurence. I am currently a stay-at-home dad. So, I have two young kids. They are four and two. I have two sons. I'm a very lucky husband to an amazing wife. We are expats. We are originally from England. My kids were born in Asia. We now actually live in the Netherlands, which is where I've been doing the stay-at-home dad thing for about two years now. Formerly I was a teacher. So, yeah, just really excited to kind of share my story. I'm very glad to have the opportunity to come on a show with you.


Jessi:

Well, thank you so much for being here. Just go ahead and launch right into it. What's your story with smoking?


Laurence:

It's really interesting reflecting back on it because I genuinely haven't thought about this for such a long time. But I was kind of one of those typical kids at school that you might say was a nice enough kid but maybe hung out with the wrong people. And that was my first little point, like how do you define the wrong people at school? Like, at what point do you become the wrong person that someone else is hanging out with? Like it just felt very odd to me because I think a lot of people might have said that about me. You know, but at some point you start making the bad decisions yourself and it's not just saying for other people.


But anyway, as a teenager, I must have hung out with people that were smoking before it was legal for them to do so. So, kind of like between thirteen and fifteen. Honestly, they never actually pressured me to do it. I would be around them, hanging out with them. I'd spend long times with a big group of friends or smaller groups of friends, whatever it was, wherever we were. I never actually really took any pressure. So, for a few years, I was always known as the person that'd be hanging out with these people, but not getting involved, not trying it, not doing it. And people were fine with that. There genuinely wasn't ever really any peer pressure or anything like that, which is interesting. But then just one day, I guess just after a few drinks. I was actually sixteen. They finally asked me, "Oh, why don't you just try it?" And then I did, I was kind of just like, "Oh yeah, well, this isn't that big a deal." I guess I'd been around it enough and smelled it enough that it didn't seem that big a deal to me.



And then at some point, the night kind of stands out in memory of feeling very let down, probably quite sad that I wasn't spending time with a group of friends. Either it’d be the same friends or different friends, I'm not sure. I remember having tried to make some plans and then these plans falling through. So, I just kind of found myself like, "Oh, I'm just kind of stuck here at home. Got nothing to do. I know. I've always been able to buy beer at this local shop that thinks I'm over eighteen when I'm actually sixteen. Why don't I go to the shop and just see if I can buy a pack of cigarettes? I'm just going to try this by myself for the first time." I would say at this point, I probably would have done it a few times with this same group of friends when I'm with them. But this felt like a line in the sand of going to get it myself and doing it by myself. And smoking it on the way back home and then just feeling that lonely feeling. Like, “This is what people do in the movies and stuff when they're sad, right? When they're let down by their friends?” Like, “Oh this is the cool thing.”


That, I guess, just started the actual habit and then it grew. Probably not every day straightaway, or like at least all day. So when I was finishing my studies up to eighteen, what we call sixth form in England, the last two years of high school, it wouldn't have been like a full-on habit at that point. It was maybe every day or maybe every other day.


But then when I went off to university–I went to music college–It then became influenced by other people as well. The people I was living with, sharing an apartment with, also were smokers. So then it just becomes natural again. And this is the point I start, I'm not sure if people are familiar with it, in England we call them rollups. Rather than having a pack of cigarettes, you have the pouch of tobacco and you roll it into the papers yourself. So that's what we did. It was cheaper as a student and very quickly it just became a very daily habit, getting up. I'd say when I was about twenty-one, I was probably looking at about twenty a day of these rollups and never really thinking anything of it.



I went to music college. I actually dropped out of that first music college I went to. Long story short, I had a bad back. I was trying to play drums every day. That led me into more mental health problems. I've mentioned earlier about feeling sad and lonely. There were some more mental health problems just in terms of the difficulties of dropping out of college and not being able to do what I wanted to do, which I think fed into the loop of self-satisfying through things like alcohol and smoking. So then I did eventually kick on, and found another college to study at. I still did music related things. And I look back on it now, even some of my lecturers and my teachers; these were people that were from the music industry that had worked with famous artists and stuff. And they were like cool people that were also smoking. You know, we'd be at college going out for smoke breaks with our teachers and stuff. It just felt perfectly natural. There was never really any thought that it was something that we shouldn't be doing or unhealthy or anything like that. I don't know. It just felt perfectly normal, perfectly natural.


I guess I was about twenty-two years old. I got these things on my feet. They're called chilblains. Have you ever heard of chilblains before? Do you know what they are?


Jessi:

I looked them up after you had mentioned it.


Laurence:

I've had to look it up to remind myself, but they're essentially like these blisters you can get on your feet. I guess on other parts of your body as well, but I think it's mostly on your feet from a lack of circulation. They are very painful. I wasn't able to walk properly. I couldn't get to my lectures and things because my feet were in so much pain. So I went to the doctor.


This doctor basically found out that I smoked a lot and then kind of scared me into trying to make a change. I look back on it now–I guess it was for the greater good. But there are some ethical questions that go into this because the doctor basically threatened me to say that, “Oh, you might get this thing called Berger’s disease, which is like an inflammatory disease related to your veins and your arteries. But it's not that common at all. It's like really, really, really, really unlikely that I could have got that. And basically what he had said is, “If this doesn't get any better, you might have to amputate your foot.” And I think they were able to say it in such a way that was just trying to scare me into it. I lived in a very popular student town. I assume that doctors probably got a little bit frustrated seeing students that were making very bad choices for their health and then trying to get doctors to help them.


So I look back on it and think ethically it was very questionable. But I think for where I was at the time and the position I was in–I mentioned that I never thought anything of it–I never considered making a change for myself. It was the right thing. It's very easy for me to look back on that. I mean it's more than ten years ago now. I'm thirty-two now. So I'm talking about when I was twenty-two was when this was happening. I guess it was the right thing to do and it really struck me. I remember just coming away from this and I was like, “What on earth? Like, I've actually got to make a change. I just don't understand what's going on.” Like, I thought I would be young forever. I could just make bad decisions and it would never impact my life or my livelihood.


So at that moment I distinctly remember, actually on that same day, I bought one of the e-cigarettes. So it looked like a cigarette, like an orange thing with a white thing. It looked like a normal cigarette. So I tried using that and it was just like rubbish. It didn't really feel very good at all. But I was pretty determined to try and make a change. So I stuck with some of these e-cigarettes and I basically remember going from about twenty a day down to four. And I was very specific with that four because it was one cigarette when I woke up and then one after each meal. And I was able to keep with that for a little while and keep using the e-cigarettes.


Fast forward across a year or so, I get more interested in the vape technology and the various e-cigarette things that are out there. I have no idea what it's like now. My head is completely away from this. So I might make some comments that are really outdated for what the current technology is. I even remember that they changed some of the regulations just as I was finishing using this stuff. Because I tried to sell some of my old equipment and I wasn't able to because it was banned. Bit of a strange situation. But the interesting thing with the vaping was that it was something that you could kind of get into as a hobby. The rubbish e-cigarettes that you'd get, that didn't really kind of do anything. It was just an attempt at a replacement that was a very unsatisfactory replacement. Whereas the vape, the big vape pen that you can get the liquid and the different flavors and you try the different powers and voltages and batteries and and all that sort of stuff. I worked with a few people that did similar things. So, it just became like an interest and a hobby and I think that part of it really locked in to my brain. I can't remember at one point I had my last cigarette because I just fully swapped over to vaping and then would have been vaping for quite a long time.


But I do remember when I was about twenty-four years old, I was like, “I'm going to at least go down on the nicotine.” So what you could do with the liquids is that they had different nicotine levels. But I slowly decreased my nicotine levels and then would get to zero nicotine. But I do distinctly remember it was the 30th of April 2017. I remember that day because it's my brother's birthday. Also the same day that my girlfriend, now wife, and I climbed Mount Snowden in Wales. We had gone on this trip and I'd taken my stuff with me. But I didn't use it on this day, just didn't use it. So that was the last time I ever used nicotine. Just kind of haven't looked back since.


Jessi:

I'm curious about the loneliness aspect because you said that you tended to smoke when you felt lonely, maybe when you were going through hard emotions. I'm wondering how you were able to adjust to not having smoking, not having vaping and still having those feelings come up. How did you start to cope with loneliness in a different way?


Lawrence:

I think it was really only an answer to loneliness very early on and then it became a habit. Maybe those feelings would still come up and I’d try to explore other opportunities and other possibilities, if that makes sense. During this process, I lost my dad, unfortunately, when I was twenty-one. So I finally finished everything when I was about twenty-four. So during this process that was obviously a big impact as well. Answering the kind of loneliness question answers a question relating to that as well. And these things do align with one another.


I think I just got to a point of like, “Whatever negative emotion comes up, I'm going to try and better myself in some way to help get past that emotion.” A lot of it was exercising and going to a gym. I was afforded quite a lot of time off from my work when I lost my dad. And a lot of that was just spent on exercising and teaching myself to cook more healthy. Because I used to be quite overweight as well. Probably wouldn't specifically have been, “Oh, I'm feeling down. I want a cigarette. I need to do something else.” It was probably more like, “Oh, there are lots of emotions going on. The only way I can try and get through any of this is to try and improve myself.” If that makes sense.


Jessi:

You were kind of forced to, by crisis, to face those things that you were avoiding earlier. And instead of trying to run from that, you're trying to use that to propel you forward. So, that's amazing work and I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I know it's been a while now, but still, that's very hard as a young person.


Laurence:

I appreciate that.


Jessi:

And I'm wondering about the chilblains. Did you notice a change in that when you stopped smoking cigarettes?


Laurence:

I mean, I guess I did other things as well. I remember my mom telling me about this. Because I was not a poor student, but I was a student. You know, I never put the central heating on. I'm quite tall, so I think my feet literally stuck out the end of the bed. I remember my mom telling me, she was just like, "Yeah, that's not hugely surprising. Maybe just wear thicker socks to bed." And I think because I did a few of these different things, I do think they resolved themselves very quickly. Which is why I was saying how I think it's an interesting ethical question for someone that's in the field of medicine. Do we think that doctor kind of went to quite an extreme to say something like that to me at that point?


Jessi:

Yeah, they're very good at fearmongering. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for most smokers. But nicotine does cause circulation problems. I have trouble with my gums because of that.


Laurence:

Okay. Wow.


Jessi:

So, I do know there is something there, but you know, like you said, it could be a multifactor thing. And to do it in such a way like that is kind of questionable, I think. But you know, it helped you on your path, I guess. But, yeah. So, let's talk about that switch to vaping. So, you said that when you were smoking, you didn't really think anything was bad or abnormal about it. Did that change at all when you were vaping? And did you have any feelings towards it like, “This isn't something I really want to be doing”? Or what was the feeling about yourself as a vaper, as a smoker?



Laurence:

I think I very quickly started to be put off by cigarette smell and everything like that. I think once I started trying the more powerful vapes with all the fruity, funky flavors, I was then getting my nicotine fix. I think quite early on, I would still take all like smoke breaks with people I worked with and hang out with them. But it would be way more noticeable to me like if I was in the office, someone came back in from a smoke break, like just how much they smelled. I think that was quite a big deal for me. It was just starting to, I guess, have some of those senses coming back of being more sensitive to the smell of it and realizing that, “Hey, this isn't something that's good and I'm starting to smell that it's not good.”


I'm not sure if that's still common today, but I even to this day get really quite sensitive to it. And normally I'm not that confrontational of a person, but when I'm with my two kids, if we're at a playground, for example, and there's someone there smoking when obviously they shouldn't be–because there are signs up–I will go up and say to them, "Hey, this shouldn't be happening." Or if we're outside in a restaurant and we end up being near someone who's smoking, I will not make a fuss because obviously they are allowed to be there. But I'll try and see if we can sit somewhere else. Whereas my wife is a bit more like, “You need to chill out. It's not that big a deal. Don't make a scene,” sort of thing. I've just been really, really put off by the smell of it and it really affects me. If it's even really far away, straightaway I can smell it. Yeah. Just not liking it basically.


Jessi:

It bothers me as well now, ever since I got pregnant. [The issue was] with a neighbor, I was just like, “Please, please.” But I could feel for him, you know, because I've been there. So, some people like the smell after [quitting]. They still enjoy being around the smoke and wow, just can enjoy that. But not me.


Laurence:

That's interesting. When I lived in Asia, our first apartment was on the thirtieth floor. So, we're in this really high high-rise and when my wife was pregnant with our first son, I kept noticing the cigarette smell. I was like a hawk. I was like a detective trying to figure it out because it was completely against all policy to be smoking anywhere in there. And I eventually figured out that it was someone in the kind of the fire escape stairs, which is inside. And so maybe like they were about two floors down and if I smelled it, I was like, “Right. I've got to get a picture of this guy and go and get him and send it through to the management because I was determined. I was like, “Hey, my wife is pregnant here.” And not having, you know, these bar apartments were really small. I'm not having this become an issue.


So, yeah, I became a little bit–probably to a fault–a little bit too righteous in that sense and very judgmental. Something I'm still working on. I think this reflection process has kind of opened it up for me. Maybe I need to work on myself a little bit in terms of other people and their stories.


Jessi:

I mean, we all do. We all need to keep working. And so, what kind of changes have come after quitting vaping? What kind of gains did you notice? And I'm also curious about going back to vaping, like what were some of the drawbacks? What inspired you to quit or was it something you just no longer had interest in?


Laurence:

I think there was still an aspect of the circulation thing because obviously, yeah, you get rid of a lot of the other health issues with smoking but with the nicotine liquid, there is still the circulation possibly being an issue. So that was just what was on my mind. It was a fairly expensive habit.


What I noticed was that I was in more and more situations where I would feel uncomfortable doing it around certain people. So this is when I was dating/courting my now wife. And yeah, I wouldn't want to do it around her. Like if we were out for a meal or out with friends or whatever, I would only use it kind of sneakily. Even if other people we were with would be using it doing theirs or smoking, I would kind of do it off sneakily, because she didn't. And it's not like she ever told me not to do it. But because I found myself in these situations more and more of like, “Hey, I don't really feel like doing it.” Therefore I should probably try and quit because there are quite a few positives to quitting and just kind of moving on from the stage and saving a bit of money and just kind of forgetting about it.” So I guess that's what inspired that decision, I guess.


Jessi:

And then when you quit, what did you experience in terms of gains? Or did you notice anything, maybe something you didn't expect? What was life like after?



Laurence:

I think just that comfort level of not having to have that thought and just one less thing to worry about when going out because you know it'll be those things, like you're leaving the house and you're worried about this. You're worried about taking things with you. And I think just having that one less thing was super vital and super important. Specifically after vaping though.



It's a very important part of my life now, but it doesn't actually play a really massive part of my story about smoking, whatsoever is that I actually came to faith, became a Christian like a week after I stopped vaping. So like I went back through my diary and I was going back through this as I was reflecting. I was like, "Oh, these two dates are actually this close together." It's a super important part of me, but it's not super important to the actual smoking journey, if that makes sense. But that kind of like is the answer to that question. I guess there's not a huge amount afterwards because that would kind of be the only thing that I would really reflect on now.


Jessi:

No, I mean there probably is a connection. It just seems like doors open [when we] don't have addiction. It's kind of wild. I found that for myself. Do you have any final words for people that are in it? They're struggling. They want to quit. They're not sure if they can. Maybe they’ve tried. They’ve failed.


Laurence:

M’hmm. I think the biggest thing that I remember and the biggest kind of victory I had was when I told you how I used to smoke about twenty to twenty-five [a day] and then I set myself the goal of going down to four. And I distinctly remember, once I had that habit of four set in, I did feel quite successful in that. And I know for a fact if a doctor had told me when I was at twenty [a day], it's like, “Okay, your first step is to get from twenty to zero,” that just wouldn't have worked.


And I probably wouldn't be here right now in terms of my life situation right now, my life circumstance, the fact that I was able to take a first step that wasn't what we see in the movies where like the guy takes his cigarette pack and throws it in the beer or runs water over it and destroys it. It's like, “I'm going cold turkey and just nothing's going to happen.” Just starting that process and going a tiny step forward is more than going backwards or staying where you are. And no matter how small that step is, that's still a super important point. And yeah, just a lot of small steps will get you somewhere.


Jessi:

That's great advice. Thank you. Do you want to talk more about your work now?


Laurence:

Yeah, as I said, I'm a stay-at-home dad, but what I also do on the side is host a podcast called Dad Dialogue, which is where I just interview dads and we call it the successes and stresses of becoming a dad and being a dad. And kind of similar to this, we're just trying to lift up stories of fatherhood and stories that hopefully will impact other people. And the thing I've often said to people is, “In a world where so much is trying to get your attention–like you know, there's a million and one things that want your attention and they want to kind of get you zoned into something to get your engagement or even just get you consuming stuff–I think just lifting up stories, spending time hearing someone's perspective and opinion and story from start to finish is such a valuable thing that we can all learn from.”


And I'm also glad to have the opportunity to come here because it's just stories. Like, no one can kind of fight my story or argue with my story. My story is my story. And maybe it'll impact people, maybe it won't. And it's the same when I interview dads. I think there's so much for us to learn from each other that just lifting these stories up is such a valuable resource.


Jessi:

I think it's a great podcast. I listened to it and the story got me. Even as a woman, as a mother, still the dads’ stories are powerful and it's a different role. It can be really tough to transition into, just like quitting smoking. It's transformational. So, I appreciate that work and I appreciate you coming on and talking to us about your experience and what you went through. So, thank you.


Laurence:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's been awesome sharing with you.


Jessi:

Take care, everyone. See you next week.


End of interview.


Jessi:

Every story shared here is a testament to the power of change. And I believe there's so much strength in hearing from others. If you have a story about quitting smoking, vaping, or using any form of nicotine or marijuana, and you're ready to share your journey with your listeners, I want to hear from you. Please send me an email at Jessi@honoryourheart.net. We need your voice to keep this movement going. Thanks again for joining me today.