Ep. 373 - I'm a LIAR...and an ADDICT

Addiction is an involuntary neuropsychological disorder characterized by persistent use of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use often alters brain function in ways that perpetuate craving, and weakens self-control. Wikipedia

Today, Rob shares a recent discovery he made about nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and draws some analogies to "dirty keto."  Rob talks about his experience with addiction, 12 step programs, and choices.  

If you are sensitive about addiction or are actively participating in a 12-step program, some of what I have to say here might be considered provocative and I mean no disrespect.  I am merely sharing my own experiences and opinions on the matter.  

I welcome any dialogue about your experiences with addiction as well.  

Join us in the comments and let us know what you think! 

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Discussion Links:

Ep. 283 - Tobacco Withdrawal (Day 1)

Ep. 292 - ADDICTION (and a Tobacco Withdrawal Update - Day 13)

Design, formulation and evaluation of nicotine chewing gum
The gums release a controlled amount of nicotine in mouth that is absorbed directly through the buccal mucosa, producing nicotine plasma concentrations which are about half that is produced by smoking a cigarette. Aug 28, 2012

Nicotine hydrogen tartrate | C18H26N2O12 - PubChem
Nicotine tartrate appears as a reddish white crystalline solid. Combustible. Toxic by inhalation (dust, etc.) and may be toxic by skin absorption.

NICOTINE TARTRATE | CAMEO Chemicals | NOAA
NICOTINE TARTRATE is a salt of an alkaloid produced from tobacco. This material is combustible, highly toxic. When heated to decomposition it emits very toxic fumes of carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen. Belongs to the Following Reactive Group (s) Salts, Acidic Potentially Incompatible Absorbents No information available.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

If we stand together, we'll never fall. We can make a difference and answer the call.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Well, hi there, and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Monday, June 20th, 2022, and this is episode number 373 of a show that provides insight and tools to build the life and homestead of our dreams. And today's episode is titled I'm a Liar and an Addict. Yeah. So, as many of you know, I've been actively changing some habits. And some of these habits people refer to as addiction. And in today's show, I'm going to share with you my thoughts on addiction and why I think it's better to refer to addiction as habits. And in this case, I'm going to talk about how I've changed my tobacco habit and why I learned that I was wrong. And maybe I'm not so much of a liar, but I was definitely wrong. Alright, you see, in the past, I did a couple of episodes on my journey, if you will, on getting off of tobacco. And this started back in February with episode number 283, titled Tobacco Withdrawal Day One. And that was on February 11th, 2022. And I followed up with that on February 24th with an episode titled Addiction and a tobacco withdrawal update on day 13. Alright, so before we dive into this topic any further, I want to take a look at the word addiction. Alright? So if you just type addiction into your internet browser of choice, you will read something from Wikipedia that says, addiction is an involuntary neuropsychological disorder characterized by persistent use of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use often alters brain function in ways that perpetuate craving and weakens self-control. Well, no shit. Right? And I know that this is a very broad paintbrush statement about addiction. I know that Wikipedia isn't the greatest resource for information, but for the purposes of this podcast, it's it's it's gonna work. Alright? I know that this that I know that addiction is a complex topic. And I know that some people might find the way that that I just referred to it by pulling off Wikipedia. Some people might find that offensive. And you know what? That's okay. Because I've been in 12-step programs before. I know how they work. I've seen addicts use the program as a crutch, much in the same way that they use their drug of choice. And it was precisely this reason why I left those rooms and chose to walk my own path to freedom. And I did that a long time ago. And it's worked well for me since. There's been some challenges, and I'm not gonna say, and I'm not gonna sit here and deny that my experiences with and in the rooms of the program uh were not helpful because they certainly were. But I think that it's important to understand that this this this addiction, right, is again, let's look at that. It's a disorder. Repetitive drug use alters brain function in ways that perpetuate craving and weaken self-control. It's a disorder characterized by persistent use of a drug, or persistent use of a program, or persistent use of something that inhibits your own ability to think for yourself. Alright, so I'm just gonna stop there. Alright, because I'm not here to talk down on 12-step programs. I understand the value of them, they've helped me in the past, and if you are struggling with addiction, then by all means explore those programs, but keep this in mind, it is not a cure, at least it wasn't for me. If it works for some people and it works for them in the long run, then good, by all means, continue going down that road. Because inevitably, the rooms and the paths that are outlined in these 12-step programs are chances are, you know, if you incorporate that in your life without whatever it is that you're trying to escape from, chances are you're gonna be in a better place than if you were without the rooms and with that shit that you're trying to escape from, right? So, anyways, moving forward. Now, over the past year, I've taken some big steps towards changing some habits in my life, many of which you might consider addictions, some of which were food, some of which were drugs, some of which were whatever. Let's just say food and drugs, alcohol, nicotine, whatever, food and drugs. Okay, and we can go so far as to call them addictions, call it what you want. I don't really care. At the end of the day, I was engaging in behaviors that I wanted to change. So back in February, when I gave up smoking, I began chewing nicotine gum, right? Same way I've used uh I've quit smoking in the past. You see, see that? Same way I've quit smoking in the past. Well, if I quit smoking in the past, why am I quitting it again now? Ineffective. Alright. So, regardless, it worked before I found myself in situations in the past where I started smoking again. Nevertheless, I decided I want to stop, so I began chewing the nicotine gum. Shortly thereafter, though, I discovered these cool little nicotine pouches. Alright, and there's all sorts of them out there. Zin, on, um, a number of different brands. I preferred the on-brand nicotine pouches, and man, did I get hooked on those? I'd been consuming them like crazy because well, they're cheap and they were healthier. Or were they? I don't know. So, you know, if we go back February, March, April, May, June, this is like four months I've been rocking these things. Like daily. A lot. And then, so here's where this is going, right? After developing some irritation in my gum line from a repeat usage of these things, my curiosity got the best of me, and I wondered, what's in this stuff and where does this nicotine come from, anyways? So I decided to start looking into this a little bit. And I pulled some articles up and I pulled some information. I want to link to this in the show notes. And there's an article titled Design, Formulation, and Evaluation of Nicotine Chewing Gum. This comes from the National Library of Medicine, the National Center for Biotechnology Information from PubMed Central. Linked to in the show notes, and I'll just read the background of this. Nicotine replacement therapy can help smokers to quit smoking. Nicotine Chewing Gum has attracted the attention from pharmaceutical industries to offer it to consumers as an easily accessible NRT or nicotine replacement therapy product. However, the bitter taste of such gums may compromise their acceptability by patients. This study, therefore, designed to develop two and four milligram nicotine chewing gums of pleasant taste, which satisfy the consumers the most. Alright, so this gave me some information on the nicotine chewing gum, and then also some information that I was able to glean and transfer towards these uh nicotine pouches, these any of them for that matter. So, what what is the nicotine in these pouches? What is the nicotine in this gum? It is called nicotine hydrogen tartrate. Okay, and this nicotine tartrate appears as a reddish-white crystalline solid. It is combustible and it is toxic by inhalation, dust, etc. Now, this is the this is the stuff that is in these pouches, in the gum. It is a biodegradable polymer of chytosan, and uh it's considered to be more stable than nicotine. Alright. Now, this stuff, this nicotine tartrate, is a salt of an alkaloid produced from tobacco. Like I said, it's combustible, highly toxic. So how is this any better than smoking? Well, I guess I'm not lighting the stuff on fire and combusting it and inhaling it into my lungs. So that's better. But at the end of the day, I'm not tobacco free. Because all I'm doing is taking a derivative of tobacco and consuming it in a different format. Am I consuming less? Probably, but I don't know. Because quite frankly, guys, um these these these sores in my gums are mildly disturbing, and um I stopped buying them. Alright, I've still got some nicotine gum floating around here, and I'm going through that not near as much as I used to, and it's making me kind of antsy. But this is because I'm going through withdrawals, right? And when you're addicted to something and you're trying to get off of something, withdrawals are part of the deal. Whether it's sugar, whether it's alcohol, whether it's nicotine, whether it's caffeine, whatever the case may be, if you're consuming too much of it and you consume less of it, you are going to experience withdrawals. Okay? And unless we're talking about some kind of serious withdrawals, like some kind of opiate withdrawal, here's the suggestion for you. If you're dealing with withdrawal symptoms outside of anything beyond opiates, here's what you do: grow a pair of balls, man up, and deal with it. Right? I don't know what else to tell you. Like, that's it. So, you know, when I thought about that, when I look back at these past episodes, and you know, hey guys, I'm tobacco free. Look at me, look at me talking about this. Well, I I have not been tobacco free all this time. Nicotine derived from tobacco, but I felt better about it since it wasn't smoking. But whatever. Tomato, tomato. I've been consuming all this time, I'm a fucking liar. So what to do, what what to do about it, right? Like I said, no more pouches. I'll chew that gum, but only rarely. I'll chew it till I run out. But in the meantime, I've got this uh dentine fire, right? Here let me show you here. Feel that? Hear that?

unknown 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

That's a blister pack. Alright. I'm gonna put in a fresh piece right now.

unknown 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Mmm. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Dentine fire, spicy cinnamon. Mmm. 60 minutes of fresh breath. Mmm. I actually don't like cinnamon gum. But the reality is I bought this cinnamon uh this this cinnamon nicotine gum because the cinnamon on pouches gave me that familiar burn in my lip that reminded me of chewing tobacco. Alright, so I would do that. I'd chew the gum, I'd chew this the cinnamon nicotine gum. I had that whole cinnamon thing going on. But because the cinnamon ones were the ones that were the most um aggravating, if you will, to my gums, I stopped using those ones. And subsequently stopped chewing this gum. And then went to the other ones, coffee. Oh boy. When I discovered the coffee uh on nicotine pouches, that was dangerous because what happened was, well, I started drinking coffee. I hadn't been drinking much coffee lately. Alright, so all of a sudden, not only am I consuming more nicotine, but I'm finding excuses to drink coffee and then compound it with nicotine. So I'm back to getting fucking jacked, right? Bad news, baby. That led to more caffeine, more caffeine led to more nicotine, more nicotine led to more caffeine. The cycle continues, and then I start seeking that burn, and then all of a sudden I've got sores in my mouth because I'm a fucking junkie and I can't control myself. Alright. So here we are. Past week or so, I've kind of really been thinking about this, thinking about some other things as I'm trying to eliminate more things from my diet, really trying to clear myself up. You know, for those of you who have been listening, I'm going through this 48 days application guide. I I really want to focus on this. I don't want to be distracted. I want to put time, effort, and energy into this plan because I'm at a big point of transition in my life. Quit my job last month, been working full-time with dad, been working on some side hustles, side gigs, did one today. Um, I gotta make changes. And um, well, I don't have to make changes, I'm making changes, but if I want to be consistent with the progress and the success that I want, or if I want to achieve success during this time of transition, I need to be consistent with positive behavior changes. So how do I do that? Alright? Well, I'll continue modifying my habits, largely keeping them the same. And eventually I'll just wean off this nicotine gum and eventually decrease my my use of the chewing gum as well, because quite frankly, it it it's the gum just keeps my mouth busy, and that's that's okay for now. Um over time I won't need to chew this gum like uh like I I I don't know what like, but but you know that's how I feel a lot of times because I'm I'm grinding through this right now, right? So here's the deal though. As I thought about this, my analogy for this whole nicotine replacement therapy bit is uh kind of like when I hear people talk about doing keto, right? Because so many people that do keto just do dirty keto. And you know what dirty keto is? Dirty keto is bullshit, dirty keto is lazy. Alright, so the change that people, you know, people do dirty keto because they want to, quote, change the habits that they have. They expect different results. But the reality is when we do things like dirty keto and nicotine replacement therapy, we're really not changing a damn thing. And then we wonder why we struggle and then fall back into our old patterns of behavior. All right, think about that. It's all the same. What we really need to do is we need to understand the nature of the things we consume. We need to understand how they impact us, we need to understand how the things we consume impact us, how they impact our brains, our bodies, our minds, and ultimately our habits. And we need to understand that we can change. But you know what? Change is hard. But you know what else? You will change if you really want to. Because at the end of the day, we all make choices. And remember, you are exactly where you are because you choose to be there. So if you want change, and if you want to change, stop making excuses and change. Because you can do it and you are worth it. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

What did I do?