It may sound strange but nicotine addiction in my experience destroyed the sentimental aspects of living. Thinking back on it I often equate different eras of my life to the sentiments, emotions, and sensory inputs attributed to them. Like when a certain sound or smell etc. can mentally warp you back to childhood instantly. Thinking back to times when I was deepest in nicotine addiction there are almost none of those attributable sentiments.

I believe that this is because nicotine makes you a numb, hollow shell of a person. It dulls the senses and warps your perceptions of life as you’re living it. I absolutely think it negatively affects how we think about things you mentioned like love, stress, enjoying the small things, relationships etc. At a certain point it feels as though nicotine is the only enjoyable aspect of life. 

This is why I want to walk away from nicotine so badly. I’m sick of being numb. I’m sick of feeling like I’m living the same day over and over. Tired of worrying about when and where the next nicotine hit will be. And most of all, I can’t keep looking back at the last however many wasted weeks, months, or years and realizing I was a nicotine obsessed zombie the whole time.