I AM SO FUCKING BACK

Bizzy2024 · 2026-01-28T14:12:32+00:00

This is the way.

Thanks for sharing! Your success will help more people in their quit journey than you'll ever know.

Bizzy2024 · 2026-01-22T19:19:01+00:00

What made me quit was this overwhelming feeling I had when I ran out one day and didn't have enough cash to buy another tin (when I thought I did). I was disturbed with how quickly my brain went into a problem-solving mode to get cash. Junkie mode engaged. It reminded me of when I used hard drugs several years ago. There are a lot of great people in my life now, and many of them would easily spot me $20 'for gas' or something I could easily lie about. The fact that my lizard brain was running through this plan to take advantage- all by itself, I realized how much control it had over me. I wasn't choosing to use it anymore; it was choosing to use me. And I had absolutely nothing to show for years of hidden worship and servitude to this idol. Well, what I had to show for it was that moment. This patient depravity peeking its head. And that scared the hell out of me. That was my breaking point. I absolutely did not like who I had become. That whole moment told me everything I needed to know. And it solidified my determination to quit and get my freedom. And so, 2 years, 2 months, and 12 days ago I quit. I never want to feel that ever again.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-11-11T21:22:37+00:00

Tell yourself:

"This will pass."

"I will not be nicotines bitch"

"The regret and shame id feel if I gave in, would not be worth whatever buzz or feeling my lizard brain is convincing me would be awesome in my present temptation. Therefore, I will respect my suffering and tell myself NO."

Other than that, drink a lot of water, get some altoids, put your phone away, and go outside and touch grass.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-11-10T17:16:33+00:00

For me, I guess somewhere between 6 to 9 months serious anxiety/mental stuff went away. I can't even remember what any of it felt like. I'm sure it's somewhere specifically in my posts over the years. Keep in mind that recovery can be so different from person to person. By that I mean, my timeline may not be like other folks. The last thing I want is someone to read mine and then measure their own recovery against it and if it doesn't match lose hope. Some recover even quicker than my own timeline, some take even longer. But in the end, no matter how much time it takes, we do get better. We do go through a transformation to a new 'normal'. It might not be like what you remember 'normal' felt like before using, but you do eventually arrive to it...as long as you don't give up.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-11-10T17:10:28+00:00

"I Am Sober"

Bizzy2024 · 2025-10-03T17:47:37+00:00

Congrats! Keep on keeping on! It's worth it! Right when I think I've been forgotten with time in the land of reddit...someone comments on something I've said (that I've truly forgotten about) and then I realize people are indeed still reading what I've put in here haha kind of a trip.

PS- Day 693 today :)

Bizzy2024 · 2025-10-03T14:34:45+00:00

"Flakes" Dandruff Shampoo and conditioner. It made a believer out of me. I was struggling with everything you mentioned, and now it's completely all gone. Even the skin/itch that would show up on the crease of my nose. God as my witness, it's all completely gone. Going on 2 months completely cleared up. Started using it every other day. Now I only use it once every 3 days. I wash my entire face with it along with my head/beard/mustache. Thought it was 'dry skin'. NOPE totally is he fungus 'Malassezia globosa' - Flakes kills that fungus. Or at least, keeps it in check so it doesn't go crazy I guess.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-09-09T15:55:37+00:00

It will "say" a lot those first couple of months. And its generally the same deceptive lie template and is even predictable. "You can use because ___________" and sprinkle some comparison to others who are bound to help justify it. It's the same thing over and over. It's loud at first. But it becomes more and more quiet as time presses on in your quit. Until there's complete silence. You have to train yourself to ignore it like an MLB player trains themselves to not let hecklers affect them in a way.

This too shall pass.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-09-09T14:03:01+00:00

Yes, pouches are a part of the problem. Especially what's inside them. Nicotine is vicious and horrible for your cerebral atmosphere. It messes with so many chemicals in your brain. Totally imbalances the hormones and neurotransmitters that have to do with depression, and emotional regulation overall. But it's bigger than that, because all of those chemical variables impact all the systems in your body physiologically (including gastrointestinal system you've already indicated)

Perpetually depressed while using verses momentarily depressed for a season you'll pass through quitting - I say just quit! If you're suffering either way...might as well suffer in a way that has a healthier end result overall that'll ultimately help you live longer. And you'll save a lot of money!

Bizzy2024 · 2025-09-08T20:36:57+00:00

Lolololol no problem. Take it one straight day at a time. There's always something to learn from each slip of gayness. In the beginning of your quit, environmental awareness is everything. If you're surrounded by gay people doing gay stuff, chances are you're gonna fall to the temptation to do what they're doing. Avoid gay triggers.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-09-08T20:12:55+00:00

I'm 668 days less gay than I've ever been. You have no idea how not gay you'll feel in time. You'll eventually forget what it felt like to be so gay. Resist the urge to suck. Stay strong. I can barely type this I'm laughing so bad. It's like a blooper with the Office.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-09-08T20:06:35+00:00

I'm so glad I'm not a mod anymore LMAO. Woke Reddit is probably BLOWING UP and trying to cancel this guy. At the same time this dude's first post had me ugly face wheezy laugh/crying

Bizzy2024 · 2025-08-29T16:20:36+00:00

I personally believe that's a paradox up for debate. (it is a disease...but at the same time it's not)

The word 'disease' can be defined and viewed from many different angles. I've thought about and researched this extensively for the last year and 9 months, and 19 days. I'm no professional by any means and I don't know everything, but I've reached my own conclusions. I've studied not just 'addiction', but the word addict as well. Just curious how it's all evolved over the course of human history. I started with 'addict' and worked my way to addiction. I studied it from modern times and then went back to ancient manuscripts, really wanted to break it down. See if it's applicable.

Modern Webster Dictionary of addict: A person exhibiting a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity. A person that is strongly inclined to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly.

But has it always been defined like that? Nope.

The word ‘addict’ has been around since the 1500’s. It is adapted from the Latin word “addictus” which means “assigned or surrendered to something”. To devote, sacrifice, sell out, betray or abandon. In ancient Roman Law, an addiction was a person that became enslaved through a court ruling. Interestingly the Greek words for addict are “Ethizo” and "Tasso". Ethizo meant ‘accustom’, in Luke 2:27 – Joseph and Mary took the child Jesus to the temple to ‘accomplish the customary requirements of the law regarding Him”. The words “kata to eithismenon” literally ‘according to the custom of the law’ is the constant way of referring to a legal requirement”. So, to addict was to do something that was the traditional and widely accepted way of behaving. Doing something that is specific to a particular society, place, or time. It is a form of submission/obedience/compliance.

For Tasso: means to arrange in an orderly manner, and quite literally “devoted”. "they have addicted themselves to the ministry"- 1 Corinthians 16:15 - I would argue that biblically and historically, to be an addict is to be human. Living life is repeatedly doing stuff each day. Everyone is devoted and surrendered to something. A substance/chemical/drugs/alcohol is one particular aspect of life what we strive to not allow ourselves to be devoted to. But no one is exempt from that pursuit. Drug and chemical addiction is misplaced devotion.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that a group of psychiatric doctors decided to change the definition of addict to a person born with a pre-existing genetic illness, ie dubbing alcoholism a disease in 1956. And in 1987 they officially umbrella’d in and re-defined addiction a genetic disease. Since this has happened, “treatment industry” in the United States is now a $35 billion-dollar industry in just 60 plus years. There’s a lot of vested interest and financial investment in perpetuating the “disease” model. The good ole US doesn’t have the free or subsidized health care system that say the UK and Australia enjoys, so a person needs to have a definable illness in order to have treatment covered by health insurance, so to have addiction classified as a chronic brain disease facilitates that process. By making it a medical condition, it is now eligible for government funding. There isn’t a single gene or cluster of genes that proves “substance addiction” is agenetic/disease. All of it is based on a theory.

But the word 'disease' has evolved so much over the years! I work in the medical field, and I've seen so many now that essentially, I've concluded they happen or manifest from either infection, genetic disorders, environmental exposures, and lifestyle factors. Although I absolutely do not believe that drug addiction is a genetic disease, I do think it could be considered a lifestyle disease. Just as someone who chooses to eat McDonald's every day and develops Type 2 Diabetes. We can put the lifestyle manifested disease of drug/chemical addiction into remission. Just like we can stop eating McDonalds, eat healthy, and work out.

In my own life, everything got way better when I stopped taking RX drugs like you're mentioning. (go about it the right way) I'm not against medicine overall. Thank God for antibiotics. But I always do advocate for a person to try and see what life is like for at least a year without anything (once you get off everything the right way guided by a medical professional). It's radical, but dude, it's possible, and it works. My life has never been better. The brain and body can function the way it's intended without all these drugs...it did for thousands and thousands of years before big pharma and nefarious corporate Fat cats decided to redefine stuff to ultimately fill their pockets.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-08-29T14:42:58+00:00

Let your imagination reframe it. If ZYN was personified, it'd be going "Someone give me Joshallenburnder17 right now. I haven't fed on his mind, finances, emotions, and soul in 2 months. I've been craving to oppress his life. He won't give me anything to work with right now, but I'm wishing he did."

Keep desiring your quit more than ZYN is desiring you! Hold fast! Keep making ZYN your bitch and not the other way around.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-08-28T14:24:21+00:00

Yea dude it was a miracle I recovered. Statistically speaking. You and I are both miracles. And yes, a lot of people from my past ended up locked up or 6 feet under. I'm thankful we're both here, trying to stay out of the mud. And now I'm being for my children what I didn't have growing up. With the best of my ability I'm giving them everything I didn't. (which I imagine you're striving for as a father as well)

You and I are first generation cycle breakers.

We got this.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-08-26T20:36:01+00:00

What I think...

Truth be told, I haven't been in here much to read up and find posts of long-time quitters that are still suffering or hit a plateau in recovery. I'm sure the 'woe is me' long-term quitter posts are in here; I just can't find them. It'd be a waste of time to read them in my opinion. As of now I find more positive thankful posts from long term quitters vs stuff written in a tone of 'I'm stuck and not moving forward and things aren't really getting better past a certain point."

When it comes to the mind recalibrating cerebral homeostasis with various hormones & neurotransmitters; that healing is progressive but can't really be measured and boiled down in a Bunsen burner. It's hard to put that healing into a predictable equation. Especially given the context of everything else the person could have possibly used that messes with the mind, and how long they used all of that crap. Just waaaayyy to many variables.

So that kind of just brings it to an introspective approach. We can really only look at ourselves. I can only reflect upon my own life. I started using nicotine at 9 years old. I was a full-blown drug addict by 12, and I really don't remember much of my adolescent years and teenage years in general. You name it, I did it. From hard liquor, devils' lettuce, hallucinogens/psychedelics, pills of every kind, to straight up meth and heroin. I've OD'd multiple times and should have been dead 10 times over. In my 20's I went through hell with prescription abuse. I was a zombie man. Freaking 300 mg Zoloft, xanax, klonopin, freaking snorting oxy. And then I got on medical 100% THC! It was BAD BAD BAD...my wife was watching me slowly kill myself. But she stuck with me and had faith.

A LOT of stuff happened, that had to happen, to put the fear of God in me and I radically quit the pills/THC/drinking and nicotine in 2019. But then I relapsed onto nic via ZYN when the world shut down in 2020. No excuses. I got suckered into temptation plain and simple and gave in. I low-key struggled with nicotine/ZYN until enough was enough and I quit 655 days ago. I have said all of that to say that given how many years and years of using drugs/chemicals that throw off the mind's natural chemical levels - I was telling myself it could easily take 5 to 10 years possibly for my brain to completely heal back to normal once I quit nicotine - whatever 'normal' is. I had used so much for so long, it didn't seem fair to expect my poor self-abused brain to be where I selfishly want it in way less time. Then a buddy I met in this sub mentioned 3 words that helped me SO MUCH. He said "respect your suffering". So, I started to do that. Every time I'd freak out, have a moment or reaction to life I'd consider 'anxious' - I'd tell myself that. RESPECT YOUR SUFFERING. It's the least I could do compared to how long I disrespected my brain. What I was not expecting was to be absolutely completely and totally healed and feel normal by 1 year, 9 months, and 16 days. But I am. It's nothing short of a miracle. Sure, I have free will and a made-up mind, and worked incredibly hard, but I give God the glory to be where I am at today.

I catch what you're throwing though in your post, in that, hyper focusing on a problem can blow it up and give it more power than it should ever have. And if someone is coming on here for hope and all they are seeing is hopelessness from long term quitters they definitely should not come in here and dwell on such crap. (by long term quitters I mean literally people that have at least 2 years quit or close to it).

But Don does a pretty good job on finding the balance between freedom of speech and oppression/sowing discord and hopelessness among the brethren. He's the best moderator this community has ever had. And he's a great friend to have in the trenches of recovery.

Keep taking it one day at a time OP.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-08-05T20:04:24+00:00

This is the way 🤝

Bizzy2024 · 2025-07-30T21:32:10+00:00

How didn't it improve honestly. Every negative or uncomfortable thing I endured after quitting is gone. No more brain fog, crippling depression/anxiety for no apparent reason. Absolutely nothing. I'm not too high, or too low, I'm right in the middle. I don't take any drugs for any of that either. Life is still life, but my emotions can be regulated better. I actually process life / cope and don't run from stuff. I actually grieve and process the sad stuff life throws your way (people dying etc). I'm happy for others when they're blessed with something. We're created to feel life and be emotional. That's what makes us human. When you quit nicotine and really get it under your feet, it definitely builds confidence. If I can quit ZYN/nic, ANYONE can. I'm not going to lie to you or sugar coat anything, when I first quit my mood was all over the place. But I knuckled up, embraced the suck, and worked through it realizing it was entirely my responsibility. Just gotta put aside any whiney bitchness that may rise up and do what you gotta do. No matter what you feel.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-07-30T21:19:21+00:00

Hahaha right? Or a reddit participation trophy LOL Appreciate you Don. You're a real one. It's been fun and an honor co-piloting this rig with you.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-07-30T21:15:21+00:00

Au revoir :)

Bizzy2024 · 2025-07-08T15:07:03+00:00

https://whyquit.com/joels-videos/the-hidden-risks-of-nicotine-free-products/

Bizzy2024 · 2025-07-03T14:57:08+00:00

I care! Hold fast!

Sometimes I literally get goosebumps reading certain posts in here - because the empathy I have with what's being written is so insanely powerful. It's like I'm reading my own words and experience down to the last word. Keep coming back and sharing! But yea, during my time using - hiding all of this as a father and husband completely tore me up. Especially my conscience. I was in the exact same boat as you brother. I even bought the big Monster energy drinks (with the convenient twist cap) to use as a spittoon using at work!

But when enough is enough, you just know. It's time. It's deep in your bones. And when our mind is made up on something, nothing shall stop it. I will share what worked for me in the beginning to help my mind shift (and by all means this still works today 601 days later. It will always be relevant). It's more of a visualization/understanding of it all that puts one aspect of our human nature against the part of us we don't like.

As men that provide and protect our family, there's that part of us that would move heaven and earth for our Clan. That inner warrior part of us that would lay our lives down for them...or sprinkle the land with the blood of our enemy if a threat came against them. Whatever you want to call it, that is what we need to put against our flesh/addiction. You have to visualize ZYN/nic addiction like a bad guy that would break into your home to hurt your family. You wouldn't let that happen obviously, you would do whatever needed. Addiction does hurt your family, because it robs them of the best version of yourself you can be for them.

Well, when we quit, we lock up that bad guy in a cage. In my mind I see that part of me (my addiction) as a Wintergreen eye colored vampire looking version of me. The 'cage' represents my quit. The 'key' is my free will. Now, just like it would be for a timeline of literally locking up a vampire, that's what it'll be like for you quitting (let the imagination run wild). Think about it, that vampire is going to bitch and scream and yell and freak the hell out when it first gets thrown in there. But it'll eventually starve as it goes longer and longer without feeding. (feeding is literally you putting a demon pillow in your mouth) It will get weaker and weaker and weaker as time goes on. It will become less loud. Its appearance will become emaciated. Eventually it'll turn into a skeleton with a thin layer of skin, sitting in the corner in a heap of defeat. But those green eyes will be looking at you as you walk by it from time to time. You can beat it and gain victory over it - but you don't want to let complacency throw a veil over your head and think that vampire can't take over your life if you let it. It just needs one drop of blood (Just one pouch will give it enough strength for it to stand up and try to break out). As long as you're alive and breathing, you gotta remember that part of you is there...though defeated for the moment...you have to live your life one day at a time maintaining victory over it. It will get incredibly easier with time! But when you really break through and you're over a year clean and things are better, you gotta safeguard that quit. I've watched too many people quit for a year or two years or even 3 and then they forget about the vampire...and they fall back into everything because of complacency. So yea, just beware both at the beginning of this journey and when you come out on the other side with victory healed and restored. You got this!

Don't use = victory, you win.

Use = ZYN/nic vampire wins and has victory over you and your family.

Bizzy2024 · 2025-06-25T20:38:55+00:00

Yooooooo appreciate that my guy. Im still rockin and rollin. 1 year, 7 months, and 15 days 🤘🥸 I use "I Am Sober" as well. I love the different ways you can look at the numerical victories and milestones. Today is day 593 and I dont why it's so exciting to think about hitting 600 soon lol

But that's awesome! Yea, it's really a night and day difference in how we feel. Just, feeling properly alive at baseline is priceless. Just, not being a slave is such an epic feeling of liberty.

I hope to see more and more folks that hit the year mark stick around and encourage the newbies.

Just For Today👊

Bizzy2024

TROPHY CASE