EP4: Quitting Smoking Restored Her Spiritual Connection - Monica

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 used 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, I’m here with Monica. Monica, do you want to introduce yourself?



Monica:

Yes, hello everybody. My name’s Monica; I'm just a normal human, navigating this crazy life that we're living. I am continually discovering myself, and I'm on a weight loss journey. I'm a new plant mom. I'm a cat mother. I'm a wife, tarot reader, journaler, and a seeker. I love to learn, and discovering the deeper meaning of life. And I'm a non-smoker; I can officially say that now.



Jessi:

Yay, that’s fantastic! So do you want to walk us through your experience with smoking, how you started, and ultimately how you were able to quit?



Monica:

Yeah. I've thought about this a lot, like how I started, and it seems like a lot of people have a very similar starting point. I was twelve years old. I had my first cigarette at twelve.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Monica:

I was like the weird kid in school. I had friends but I didn't quite fit in anywhere, and I wanted to fit in. One of the edgier girls came over to my house, and she brought cigarettes, and we went to my basement, and I had my first puff of a cigarette. I don't remember exactly when I started smoking consistently, but I think I was about fourteen, because that's when I started working my first job. I worked with some older, quote-unquote, “kids”, just by a couple years, but she had older friends. They were buying me cigarettes and then I really got hooked. At first it was just something to fit in, something to do socially, and then over time it transformed and got really out of control. I had severe anxiety, constantly. I call myself, now, a highly anxious person. It was a coping mechanism. I had a lot of social anxiety, and so when I was around people, I just wanted to smoke, and I started coupling it with other things like drinking and experimenting with substances, when I was sixteen or seventeen. I would sneak out of school and go smoke in the car, and as an adult now who's done a lot of healing I'm like, “Wow, I can't believe I did all that.” And more than that, it's honestly shocking to me how many younger people are doing the same thing, and got started the same way.



Jessi:

M’hmm.



Monica:

So as I got older, it was just coping with anxiety. I did enjoy it though. I'm not gonna lie. I did enjoy it. It was a way for me to be social, going out to bars and parties, and you know, you meet people when you're out on a patio at a bar, and somebody's like, “Hey, you got a smoke? You got a lighter?” And you're like, “Yes, I do.”



Jessi:

Instant friends.



Monica:

Yeah, instant friends. Even if you don't talk to them ever again after that night, instant friends. I like that. I romanticized it. Now that I'm almost five months clean, I am realizing how much I romanticized smoking. And I don't–maybe I can get into this in a bit–but I don't think that we take nicotine addiction–because there's many forms of nicotine, right? I don't think we take that addiction seriously as a society; it's so normalized, and I think that is a huge problem, just like alcohol.


You also asked how I decided I wanted to quit. I decided that many times, like I think most of us do. I actually saw a Facebook memory that came up just a couple of months ago from 2010, the year I graduated high school–I was eighteen. I said one of my goals this year is to quit smoking. I was eighteen. I said that so many times throughout my life: I wanna quit smoking. The longest I went was like two months, and that was like three years ago, and it was usually surface level reasons like, “It's expensive.” Because at some point, they just got so expensive.



Jessi:

Yeah, it’s gotten crazy.



Monica:

Yeah, like when I was still smoking like this year, I was spending almost $9.50 a pack, like, “Wow.” So that was my primary motivator. But this time, I didn't really experience the shortness of breath, I didn't really have a smoker's cough. I kind of had a smoker's laugh, but my lungs were always clear when I went to the doctor, and I didn't really experience too many negative side effects from it at all–that I noticed anyway. I'm sure I did. In November or December of last year, I just started to enjoy it less. I cut down to like five or six a day, from about ten or twelve a day over the last year. And I was just like, “Why am I doing this?” I just kept asking myself, and I was in therapy for several months, and then I had been in therapy for several years, but I took a break and then I started therapy again. And I told her, “One of my biggest goals in working with you is: I want to quit smoking. I want to get to that place.” So around November, December, I was like, “Okay, I think I'm kind of like ready; it's just not vibing with me anymore, and I don't feel good when I smoke anymore. It actually is giving me more anxiety because I feel kind of guilty and a little bit of shame. I would also hide it from people. Not my husband, he knew. But I didn't ever want him to see me smoking. I didn't want people, like my co-workers, to ever see me smoking. But they could smell it.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Monica:

I started getting more conscious of that, and I really wanted to deepen my spirituality and my spiritual practice. And that's ultimately what it was and what it still is: for me, it's a spiritual mission. Just like my weight loss journey and my health journey, it's a spiritual mission. I couldn't hear God anymore–God, as in, the universe. I couldn't hear my higher self very much anymore, and I just started feeling like I was poisoning my body, and I just got really honest with myself. I cannot get my health together and smoke at the same. I can't get deep in my spiritual practice and smoke at the same time. It just doesn't work.


My mom came for Christmas. I got Chantix from my doctor, and I told myself, “When my mom leaves, I'm gonna start Chantix.” And I did. And I was on that for about a month, started dwindling, dwindling down, because I knew that cold turkey just didn't work for me very well, because part of me still did enjoy it. And honestly, I didn't want to do it just myself. I was like, “It's too damn hard…



Jessi:

Definitely.



Monica:

…It's really hard. It's too hard. Everything else I'm trying to do is also hard. I just don't want to do that myself.” And so I started Chantix for a month, and then that's one day I was like, “Alright, this is the last one. This is it.” And it's been almost five months.



Jessi:

Awesome. Well, that’s amazing. So I have so many questions about the Chantix. You said that after a month, you had your last cigarette, or your last Chantix pill, or was it both?



Monica:

I think it was about both. I think I maybe had a couple left after I had my last cigarette. I don't quite remember, exactly. But yeah, it was about the same time.



Jessi:

Okay, so you still had cravings, but they were lessening when you were on the Chantix?



Monica:

Yes, so the cravings dwindled pretty gradually. It was like two weeks in and I'm like, “I still crave cigarettes. What's going on?” And my best friend back back in Ohio, she was on it at the same time…



Jessi:

Nice.



Monica:

…except like she started like a month earlier, and she's like, “Don't worry, just hang in there. The cravings will literally just stop.” And I was like, “Okay.” And they did. One day they just stopped. I woke up. I didn't really think about it. I would be at work, or in the car, or even just feeling stressed, and I just wouldn't think about it anymore.



Jessi:

Oh, wow. Well, that’s really amazing that you had a friend to help guide you through that. I think that’s really powerful. When you have people who are supporting you and know what you’re talking about, and are going through the same thing. And if it’s something new, too. So that’s amazing that you could have someone talk you through that.



Okay, so I want to take a step back here. Back to when you were knowing that you wanted to quit, and you were cutting back, and every time you were smoking, you were asking yourself, “Why am I doing this?” Did you get an answer back?



Monica:

Yes, I did. I would pray about it, like, “Spirit, please help me figure this out. Help me get to the bottom of this, because I'm not going to actually be able to quit until I follow the thread all the way down to the root, to the source.” I'm feeling kind of emotional right now. My hair is standing up on my arms. Spirit told me, “It's always been there for you.” Through my most formative years, I always had smoking, always. All I had to do was go to the store and buy more. It was always there. It was always in my purse. It was always in my car. Like, it was the most reliable thing in my life, more reliable than myself. I relied on smoking more than I relied on myself. (Laughs.) Yeah, and saying that out loud, I'm just like, “Wow, that's kind of sad.” Spirit was just like, “Go easy on yourself.” Number one, it's literally an addiction, a deep addiction, a serious addiction. And number two, it's something, like I said, that I've relied on and it's not easy. That can't be discounted. It's not easy to just give up something that's always been there, aside from the addiction piece. So that's what I heard when I asked that question. And I asked that question over and over again, and it was always the same answer, and that's how I knew.



Jessi:

Yeah, I can relate to that so much. Just the consistency of it, the stability of it. It's hard to go somewhere you're not used to. So, it's really a big feat to have done that.



Monica:

Yes, exactly.



Jessi:

And everyone does it their own way, so the fact that you knew that you could wean down–I always struggled with that–so what was that like? What was your process for doing that, for cutting back, for smoking less over time? I’m curious.



Monica:

Yeah, I think I did it for about a year, maybe a little more. But it was about a year. And I wanted to quit for a long time. Cold turkey didn't work. I didn't like the patches, they were itchy, they didn't stay on. I wasn't gonna chew the gum, I wasn't a fan of that. And so I was just like, “Alright, I guess I'll just start weaning down.” Energetically, it just was resonating in my body, in my energy field, less and less and less. So it was kind of easy to wean down. But I just was like, “Okay, I'm not gonna smoke on my way to work. I'm not gonna smoke on every break that I take at work. I'm not gonna smoke as soon as I get home from work.”


It was an experiment. I wasn't that good at it for a while, because it's such a habit, like hopping in the car and having a cigarette on the way to work. Like, that was just normal. So I went back and forth, but after like a few months, I think it just started feeling more natural, and I started feeling okay with not having a cigarette in every single instance that I normally would.



Jessi:

So you were kind of practicing quitting, developing ways to postpone those cravings and to try alternatives.


Monica:

Yeah.



Jessi:

That's really smart. I was always an all-or-nothing person, so I would take breaks and learn that way, but I think it is a lot easier on the body, and the mind, to practice slowly…



Monica:

Yes, exactly.



Jessi:

…ease your way into it, take small steps. So that’s great.


Yeah, I want to talk more about the Chantix though, because I'm so curious. Did you have any side effects? Because I've heard some crazy ones with the dreams. I tried nicotine patches as well, and I had crazy dreams on those, so I ripped that thing off and said, “No way.” But I heard that Chantix is pretty intense too. Did you have any kind of ill effects that you had to cope with and keep going forward with?



Monica:

I had the weird dreams. They didn't last the whole time. And, sometimes I have really strange dreams anyway, so I wasn't too concerned about that. But I was worried. I was kind of scared. I've read pretty scary things about it too, like it makes people super depressed, their mental health goes to crap. That was some of the things I was reading. And so that's why I didn't want to take it while my mom was here, just in case. And I read that it makes people nauseous and all that kind of thing. But honestly, it just gave me weird dreams sometimes.



Jessi:

Nice, yeah, that's not that bad. Because everyone's so different.



Monica:

M’hmm.



Jessi:

I guess I'm kind of hopping all over the place in my thoughts here. I'm wondering too, with the weaning, did you see benefits show up right away with cutting down from smoking? In terms of your anxiety, especially.



Monica:

No. (Laughs.)



Jessi:

Okay.



Monica:

No. (Laughs.) I am a highly anxious person–I don't want to say naturally, because that's just an old story, but–I just have a lot of anxiety. It's a work in progress. So no, I don't think I really noticed any positive side effects, other than I did feel better mentally, because I wasn't thinking about it. Like, I was still thinking about it pretty much constantly. It was more like an eighty-five than a hundred (percent of the time), if that makes sense.



Jessi:

Right, so has the anxiety gotten better since you've quit altogether?



Monica:

You know what, I don't know. I don't know if it's linked. I have read a lot of stories though, people saying that, because nicotine is a stimulant…



Jessi:

Yeah.



Monica:

…so it makes sense that it exacerbates anxiety, but I still have a lot of anxiety all the time. (Laughs.)



Jessi:

But you found some ways to, hopefully, cope a little bit better?



Monica:

Yeah, that's the big thing, right? I'm journaling again. I’m reading books for fun again. I have a container garden on the patio. I'm working out and exercising. I think that's the biggest thing, like a redirect for my energy channel and an output. Instead of channeling my anxiety into smoking, I'm channeling it into these creative outlets, but especially exercise. I'm working with a fitness and a nutrition coach. I have a very–I don't want to say strict, but–a pretty regimented exercise routine. I'm tracking my macros, which really works for my brain. And so I have all these other outlets now.



Jessi:

Okay, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. One thing that I noticed when I stopped smoking: it was a lot easier for me to stay hydrated. And that made such a difference in my anxiety, because I also struggle with anxiety...



Monica:

Oh, interesting.



Jessi:

…especially social anxiety. So I found that being able to stay hydrated–because smoking just sucked all the water out of me, I always had the dry mouth and dry skin…



Monica:

Oh yeah.



Jessi:

I just felt dried out. So I saw a big change when I quit, with that. And it surprised me, it was pretty easy.


Monica:

Yeah.



Jessi:

When I had cravings, I would drink water too. So it was both: I was taking better care of myself and then not undoing that work as much. But yeah, it's still something I deal with. It's not like quitting smoking makes everything go away, it's just that you have more options and tools and awareness to help yourself. So that's what I found for myself, anyway.



Monica:

Yes, exactly, and it's interesting that you actually said your skin is less dry. I didn't know that smoking can make acne worse, so my skin actually has been improving, now that I think about it. My skincare routine is also not all over the place…



Jessi:

M’hmm.



Monica:

…and I'm just using basic products. But my skin actually has improved, now that I think about it, since quitting. And I know eating right and actually hydrating myself makes a big difference, too. My therapist quit two years ago–she's forty-seven–and she said that smoking really made the lines around her mouth a lot worse. And since she quit, they haven't gotten worse. They're just like normal aging lines, which I thought was very interesting.



Jessi:

Yeah, I'm curious–because it's common–a lot of people are worried about gaining weight and overeating, and that's a pattern that some people fall into. And you were saying that you were working on eating healthy and exercising, losing some weight. Have you noticed that you've had any increase in taking sweets in or, has your weight been affected by quitting smoking?



Monica:

It’s hard to say, because I started… literally a week after I quit is when I started working with a coach.



Jessi:

Oh, that’s perfect, yeah.



Monica:

In the past, when I quit for like two months or like a couple weeks, I definitely ate more, because I'm an emotional eater. And not smoking, removing even for a short period of time, just removing that cope, I turn to food. So, I can't say for sure but I definitely have, I mean, I've lost twenty pounds eating right and exercising. Overall, I'm just feeling a lot better, and I don't think I would be able to do that if I was smoking, still.



Jessi:

Yeah, I found that I had an appetite come back…



Monica:

Oh, interesting.



Jessi:

…which I think that's what a lot of people experience, because I would just skip meals and smoke. So I had an appetite, but it was normal. So I definitely put on weight, but I was underweight before. So it's kind of like, “Skinny isn't always healthy.” That's something I need to remind myself, and other people that are worried about it, that it’s okay to eat, you know?



Monica:

Oh, for sure. Yes it is. I love to eat.



Jessi:

Yep. Yes. One of the great joys. Have you noticed your taste come back?



Monica:

Honestly, yes! And I can smell things. So I said earlier I haven't noticed any positive benefits–yes, I totally have. I can taste things, I can smell things, because I'm not constantly smelling like smoke anymore. And I can smell my ambient surroundings, and my mouth doesn't taste bad all the time. Huge thing. My mouth isn’t dry all the time either.



Jessi:

Yeah. You were talking a lot about the spiritual side, which I think is so important. And I think it's beautiful the way you said it: that it just didn't align anymore, and you felt like you were being called to something better for yourself. Can you talk a little bit more about that: maybe how you felt before, compared to how you feel now, in terms of your connection to yourself, to the Divine, to God?



Monica:

Yeah, I've said from the beginning–I have hair standing up my arms again–I've said from the beginning of this whole quitting journey and health journey, I mentally have felt connected to my spirituality, to the Divine, to myself. What was missing was feeling it in my actual body, and nicotine and alcohol and unhealthy foods, I mean, it's poison. It is. I try to stay away from extremes, but in this case, it's poison. All of it is.



Jessi:

M’hmm.

Monica:

Our physical body is a vessel of the Divine. And when I was ingesting all of these things, it was almost like my energy field was just murky. It was muddy. I couldn't hear God as clearly anymore, and that made me sad. I didn't feel as creative anymore. I didn't feel as intuitive anymore. That's one of the elements of life that I crave the most is creative, intuitive connection, and it just wasn't resonating in my field anymore. I've been up-leveling so many other areas of my life, and this was really like the missing piece. And I tried to trick myself into thinking, “Oh, if I just go all out on these other areas–improving my relationship with money, and my marriage, and having a career that doesn't drain me–then it'll be fine.” But that was just delusional.


Ever since I quit, I've been feeling more creative. I'm not really an artsy person–I wish that I was–but creative in other areas, like plants, and journaling, and my tarot practice. I didn't really practice tarot for awhile. I wasn't posting readings online. I wasn't reading for myself. And I really missed that because that's one of the ways that I talk to Spirit. So when I quit, and started exercising and doing those things together, my energy field just cleared up instantly. Ever since then, every time I show up to the table to journal, or show up and read the cards (for TikTok or myself), every time I show up to the gym, every time I'm tracking my food, and logging my food, and being very intentional with how I'm thinking and how I'm feeling, I feel just a little more space opening up. And I've been feeling very abundant in my life; I've been feeling very wealthy.

Because wealth just means wellness and health, you know, it's not just money.



I got up at seven this morning. I went out to the patio, and I'm reading a book and I'm journaling. I'm drinking a London fog. And then I go out to the pool before all the kids take over for the day, and I've had a very slow morning before I hopped on here with you. And I'm like, “Wow, if I still smoked, my whole morning would be consumed by that.” Instead, I'm connecting with myself, and I'm connecting with God, and listening to the birds chirping outside, and soaking in some sun. It’s truly life-changing, quitting.



Jessi:

Yeah, one hundred percent. Amen to that! You said it so beautifully! It's really hard to know when you're on the other side. Do you think it surprised you, how much your life has changed?



Monica:

Yeah, totally. I'm still surprised. Like, I don't even think about it. Sometimes I do. I think the key was–there's many keys to this–but I think for me, one of the keys was not romanticizing anymore, and detaching it from, like I can enjoy the positive aspects of my life without smoking. And actually, smoking didn't enhance anything. I thought that it did, but that was just the addiction, you know?



Jessi:

Yeah, it's just so hard with the identity part of it. It sounds like you’ve been able to move past some of that. Like you said, you’re a non-smoker now. And you’re able to enjoy the things you always did, and maybe even more so now that you’ve quit.



Monica:

Yeah, definitely more so now. The identity piece was a big thing. Same thing with the weight loss and the health. I always told myself, “Oh, I'm just a lazy girl who loves to eat.” And that's still true. I love being lazy and sitting around and eating snacks.



Jessi:

Yeah, I'm with you. (Laughs.)



Monica:

One of my favorite things to do. I love it. One of my favorite things to do, also, was to smoke. I'd go up to the mountain, hang up a hammock, smoke. I'd go out to the patio, smoke. I loved doing that and it was a big part of my identity, like, “Oh, I'm just a smoker; that's what smokers do.” Honestly, after about two months I deleted the tracking app off my phone, because I was counting the days. I don't need to keep track of the days because I'm just not a smoker anymore. You know what I mean?



Jessi:

That's awesome, yeah. It can drive you kind of crazy when you're always looking back. It's just nice to cut ties and move forward. I think what you said is important, too, about the side of you that likes to eat some sweets or salty stuff, and lounge around. But, some part of me likes to exercise, too. And I think that gets so lost. Everyone gets siloed, and you think, “I have to be this way, and so I have to do this whole suite of things all the time, or I'm not myself.” But in reality, we have all sides of us available to us all the time. And we can be creative; we can pull different sides of ourselves when we need it, because we all need rest and we all need activity. So, I think that's great that you can connect to those different parts of you now, to expand yourself,

because that's what happened to me as well. I had this idea of who I was, and then I found out I have all these other sides to me too. And not all of them I like. And that's okay.



Monica:

Yeah. And that’s okay. We’re multidimensional, multifaceted humans, you know. It’s just part of the game.



Jessi:

Okay, this might go a little bit rant-y, but you were talking earlier about how nicotine addiction isn’t taken that seriously by society, and I want to hear more about what you think about that.



Monica:

Yeah. I don't know when smoking became a thing and tobacco companies really started to take over, but when you look at old cigarette ads from the ‘20s or whenever, like Marlboro, for example, started getting heavy into marketing. It was seen as this cool thing to do. It was cool. Like, you weren't cool unless you were smoking a Marlboro, you know? The cowboys did it. The movie stars did it. And you could smoke in freaking airplanes! It's crazy, but even up until like twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, some places you can still smoke inside. There were smoking sections of restaurants. You could smoke in hotels. You could smoke in a doctor's office.


Jessi:

Yep.



Monica:

That’s insane to me! And it just became, at some point, this totally normalized and idealized and romanticized part of society. And then, when tobacco companies started putting those warning labels on packs–sure that kind of took the romanticism out of it publicly, I guess, or for the marketing part of it. But it didn't do anything for the addiction.


Jessi:

Right.



Monica:

You can still literally just go to any gas station, 24/7, and buy cigarettes. And then they started making clove cigarettes and flavored cigarettes and when I was like sixteen, seventeen, I was smoking these–Camel-infused was the brand–and it was like a fruity cigarette. I was frickin’ seventeen years old!



Jessi:

I think I remember those, yeah.



Monica:

Yeah, it's just very accepted. Like, if you're with somebody and they're like, “I'm gonna go out and smoke,” and you're just like, “It's kind of gross, but whatever.” I see people all the time–I go to the grocery store–and I see people, younger and older, as soon as they walk out of the grocery store, they already have the cigarette in their mouth. As soon as they walk out, they're lighting it up.



Jessi:

Yep.



Monica:

I think alcohol is the same way. But I think that cigarettes is the most insidious addiction– nicotine, not just cigarettes–but nicotine and alcohol are the most insidious addictions, because it's just out in the open, constantly.


Jessi:

Yeah.



Monica:

People are just getting drunk, constantly. Driving drunk. They're drinking alone in their house and they're smoking all the time. Drugs are illegal. Addiction is still a huge problem, but with addiction to drugs, society tries to sweep it under the rug, but with nicotine and alcohol, it’s just out there all the time. People just think, “Oh, I just like to drink. Oh, I'm just a smoker.” But it's like, actually, those are serious addictions. People have serious withdrawals from quitting nicotine, even for a day, and quitting alcohol, even for a day. And it's just not taken seriously as addictions. And I think that is part of the problem.





Jessi:

Yeah, I didn't take it seriously myself. Those were some of the excuses that I always had for myself, like “Oh, it's not that bad.”


Monica:

Yeah.



Jessi:

And you know, “It's okay, they sell it.”


Monica:

M’hmm.



Jessi:

And I think that was a huge hang-up for me, too, was that I thought I just needed to get away from the cigarettes. And I’m like, “If it's just not near me, if I don't have any at home, and I'm not around my friends that smoke, then I'm okay.” But you can always just go around the corner. They're always there.



Monica:

Yes.



Jessi:

It's not that hard to get them.



Monica:

Exactly.



Jessi:

So it really takes a lot of the mental work to not want it, so that you're not constantly fighting yourself, and hiding in your house.



Monica:

Yes!



Jessi:

Because that’s not healthy.



Monica:

Exactly, and that’s what I would try to do in past quitting attempts. Like you said, I did not take it seriously as an addiction. I didn't. I was just like, “Oh, it's not that bad. Oh, I don't need to smoke. I just want to smoke.” I told myself that for freaking years! Probably like a decade or more, or the whole time I smoked, to be quite honest. I think that's what I told myself. “I don't need to smoke, I just want to smoke.” I think that's part of my success right now. I was like, “Girl, it's time to get real with yourself. You are addicted. This is serious. This is severe. You can't even go a day without smoking. That is serious.” And I started thinking of myself as an addict, which was like, “Oh, I'm just tying my identity to something else.” But in this case I think it was warranted and it was helpful, because I would love to be able to casually smoke when I go out to concerts, and have a drink and have a smoke. I would love to be able to do that. But it's not me. I can't do that because I'm a nicotine addict, period. And I still am. Just like people who don't drink for twenty years, they're still alcoholics.



Jessi:

Yeah, I don't tend to think of myself as a smoker anymore, since I'm not smoking. But what’s been really helpful for me, I can relate to what you’re saying with, “I just want it.” Because it’s true, a lot of people are like, “Oh, I really wanna quit smoking.” But something in them wants it,

or they wouldn't keep doing it, you know? I just don't want it anymore. So that's the big thing, is that I don’t have to struggle so much, because I don’t want to do it. I mean, occasionally, but very occasionally. But I realize that I don’t really want to, it's just an impulse, an imprint and a shadow. It's like, “Oh yeah, that's something I used to do.” But when I think about what it would feel like, what it would taste like, I’m just not interested anymore.



I think it depends on what perspective we have, because we all have different needs. Some of us need a little bit more, some of us need a little bit less. But, it helps me to be free of that smoker identity. The thing is honestly, I really connect to ex-smokers. So I've kind of gotten into that identity, now, where I’m in the quit-smoking club, and it’s fun. I just feel like I connect well with people who used to smoke, that there’s something in people that look to smoking. They're looking for something more in life, not just following rules. And they tend to be just more fun and more cool, especially if they've gotten through to the other side. They've got this kind of grit and this confidence in themselves. So these identities, they can just hang on us.



Monica:

Yeah, very well said. How long have you been a non-smoker?



Jessi:

I actually stopped counting too, early on. That was helpful to me. So I always have to remember. I think it’s been about five years now.



Monica:

Oh, wow. That is awesome. I have to humble myself; it's only been five months. It's not that long; I smoked for twenty-two years. And sometimes I still wonder, “In six more months, or three more years or whatever, is it gonna get harder?” I know at times it'll vary and I'll go in and out with it, but in the back of my mind, I just hope that it stays this smooth in the long haul.



Jessi:

Yeah, I think it will. Like you said, you might have some rough patches, but you might not. You know, some people are going to miss it every day if they keep it on that pedestal.



Monica:

Yeah. I think that’s the thing, right? It’s the pedestalization and the romanticizing.



Jessi:

Yeah, I think we grew up around the same time. I remember seeing everybody in the movies. I remember the Marlboro Man. I remember seeing… you know, I grew up around it.



Monica:

Me too, yeah.



Jessi:

Yup. It was just part of the normal landscape.



Monica:

M’hmm.



Jessi:

So hopefully things are changing with that, but I think people are always adapting to the newest thing that’s out there. I remember those fruity camels you were talking about. And I remember there was one that you would squish it and it would turn into menthol. So there’s always some kind of gimmick going on.



Monica:

Yep. And now there’s pouches that you put in your mouth like chewing tobacco, but it’s a nicotine pouch. And there’s all these little vapes. These companies are just so predatory, and they really just seek to keep us as addicted as possible. It’s just disgusting.



Jessi:

Yeah, I'm going for the kids too. I also started very young. But, they're gonna do what they can do, and we can only focus on ourselves. And I think that if we're in a good place, then we're less susceptible to these tricks or these promised shortcuts. It's hard work. Worth it. So do you have any final takeaways for our listeners?



Monica:

Obviously, if somebody is here listening to this, they thought about quitting. They want to quit. They're somewhere on that spectrum. And I just want to say, if something in you is saying, “I need to quit smoking. I should quit smoking. I don't wanna do this anymore.” Whatever it is, listen to that part of you, even if it takes you a year, like it did for me to actually quit, or it takes you longer, just come back to that every single day. Do not abandon that part of you–because that’s really what we do, is we self-abandon. We ignore that higher part of ourselves that is telling us, “This is not good for me anymore. I deserve more.” You deserve so much more. Your body deserves more. And you are so much more capable of quitting and living a full life without this addiction. You are so much more capable of that than you ever think that you are, and I know that you can do it.



Jessi:

Well said. So, how can people get in touch with you if they want to follow you or check out your tarot?



Monica:

Yeah, I love TikTok so much. It’s such a good platform for connecting. So I am more active on there. My username is monicareadstarot. I post tarot readings, oracle readings, spiritual chats,

chats about life and weight loss and health. But most of all I love sharing spiritual stuff and I love sharing tarot readings. If you're interested in that, I would love to have you over there.



Jessi:

Well thank you so much! This is a really inspiring story and it’s so helpful to hear different versions. You know, it's gonna look different for every person, so thank you so much for contributing.



Monica:

Of course. Thank you so much for having me.



Jessi:

Alright, see you guys next Tuesday. Thanks for listening. Take care.







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