anything goes with emma chamberlain - regression

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

[video available on spotify] for the last few years, i’ve been trying to quit nicotine. i know it sounds cliche, but it is one of the hardest things i’ve ever done in my life. unfortunately, i’m here today with the story of my relapse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the last few years, I've been trying to quit nicotine. And I know it sounds cliche, but it has been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Like, when they tell you in those anti-smoking, anti-vaping commercials that nicotine is incredibly addictive and incredibly challenging to quit, they are not exaggerating to prevent you from smoking or vaping, okay? It's true. It is 1000% true.

As a young person, when you become introduced to the concept of nicotine, you're like, how addicting can it really be? It can't be that addicting. No, it is. It is. And when you read the statistics that are like, quitting smoking is impossible, yeah, it makes sense it is. And when you read the statistics that are like, quitting smoking is impossible,

yeah, it makes sense, checks out. My experience is aligning with the data. It has been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. And I know some of you are familiar with my nicotine addiction because I've made quite a few podcast episodes on it. I haven't made one in a while,

and I was really hoping that the next episode I made about nicotine would be my story of successfully quitting. I wanted more than anything for this episode right now to be my story of quitting successfully, how I did it, how you can do it too. But unfortunately, I'm here today with a much less honorable story. And that is the story of my relapse. I briefly paused this episode of Anything Goes to let you know that this episode of Anything Goes is brought to you by ChatGPT.

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and workout schedules. ChatGPT Plus is a game changer and it's free for college students through May. Get it now at chatgpt.com slash students, restrictions apply. Now let's. Restrictions apply. Now let's get back to the episode. I was doing so good. I was so close.

And then boom, back to it. Vape in pocket. My vape is in my pocket right now. I'm back to square one. And it's so mortifying. I feel like a failure. I feel weak. I feel like a failure. I feel weak. I feel ashamed.

It sucks to sit here right now and tell this story. But I know from my experience trying to quit thus far that this is an important story because quitting anything is not linear. And to expect it to be linear is to be setting yourself up for disappointment. And I think my expectation for this experience to be linear is to be setting yourself up for disappointment. And I think my expectation for this experience to be linear led me to feeling the negative feelings that I'm feeling now. And I think they're a bit too harsh because I really thought this wouldn't happen again.

In a weird way, a perfect, gorgeous, beautiful story of quitting is less realistic. And I think for those of you out there who are trying to quit nicotine, I think it's comforting, I hope it's comforting to hear that the experience is not linear and that's okay and that's normal and you're not alone. Let me tell you how this happened. So I think in August of last year,

I made the decision, I'm done, okay? And at that time, I wasn't vaping. That wasn't my form of nicotine. I was using the Zin, which is the little, you know, nicotine pouches that you put under your lip. And I think what really inspired me to quit was in California, they banned the product. And I was like, all right, you know what?

This is the universe being like, Emma, it's time, stop playing around, it's time. What you've been using just got banned. That's not a great sign for your health and wellbeing. You should just be done altogether. And so I did it. I actually did it. I threw everything away.

I had no nicotine in the house and I just went cold turkey. Let me tell you, the first month was one of the darkest months of my life. It wasn't okay. Actually, it wasn't one of the darkest. I've had darker months, okay, but it was a dark, dark, dark month. For whatever reason reason for me, quitting nicotine is incredibly turbulent. And I envy my friends who have been able to wake up one day

and just quit and have like a little bit of discomfort, but ultimately get over it pretty quickly. That is not my experience. This first month was agony, pure agony. The nicotine withdrawals caused intense anxiety in dissociation. So like I was constantly in this state of borderline panic. Like I wasn't having panic attacks,

but I constantly felt like I was on the verge of having a panic attack. I felt dissociated, like disconnected from my brain and body, kinda spacey, almost like I was in a dream, which is incredibly uncomfortable. But in addition to that, it really triggered my depression. Like I just got depressed and I had been doing really well, not really experiencing a lot of depressive episodes.

So this was really tough. Like, didn't want to get out of bed, having mental breakdowns any time I had to go to a social event or do something social for work. My motivation was non-existent. I couldn't get any work done. I was incredibly irritable. I was being irritable with my loved ones.

They were struggling with that. They were confronting me about that. More so for like people who are not blood related to me. Like my family, like my parents, they get a little bit more of my grumpy side, I would say. But like friends or romantic relations, like all these types of people, they were seeing a new side of me, like, what is happening?

Like Emma's so grumpy. And I wasn't being like mean or harmful, but I just was irritable. I was irritable. And I explained this to everybody in my life, like, and they totally got it. And they were on my team and they were patient my team, and they were patient with me, but they were also like, you're not doing well.

You're irritable, you're grumpy. This is definitely impacting you. They were noticing. It was really, really, really brutal. And the only thing that got me through was replacing the oral fixation. Obviously, the vape, the zin, all of these things satisfy my oral fixation and I couldn't lose that

element. Like, withdrawing from nicotine was enough. I had to replace the oral fixation. So I started with chewing a lot of gum. A lot of gum. Wow, I was chewing a lot of gum. All day. was chewing a lot of gum all day. From the time I woke up to the time I went to bed, chewing gum, just normal gum, not nicotine gum. But that started to really impact my stomach negatively. There's artificial sweeteners in chewing gum, and that started to give me serious stomach pain,

like unbelievable stomach pain. If I chew like one or two pieces of gum over the course of a day, I'm not gonna have a problem, but the amount of gum I was chewing, 20, 30 pieces a day, that amount of aspartame, you know, artificial sugar, was really, really hard on my stomach, and I started to have severe stomach pain to the point where I was like,

okay, I guess I have to quit the gum. But luckily for me, I found aspartame free gum. And so I was on that for a bit. And that was really helping me for a while. But then I started to get jaw pain from how much gum I was chewing. And I was like, okay, we need to try something else again. So, and I also think that that gum was also giving me gas.

It wasn't like severe stomach pain because it was a bit more natural, but it was still, I think, giving me gas. I think anytime you're consuming a large amount of artificial sweetener, or really a large amount of anything at all, you're gonna pay a price for that.

And I definitely did. So then I moved on to mints, okay? Because the jaw pain was getting out of control. And actually I was chewing so much gum that I was having facial swelling. Okay, my face was swelling up a little bit because I was chewing so much gum and my jaw was inflamed. So it was like making my masseter muscles look huge and puffy and it just, my face didn't look cute.

And I was like, okay, that's where we draw the line. Honestly, I think this sounds so fucked up, but I think the fact that it was making my face visibly puffy was more upsetting to me than the jaw pain. If it was just the jaw pain, I would have pushed through. But I was like, I don't need the cheeks puffing out. You know, I'm good on that. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats.

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So then I moved to mints, and I was sucking on these aspartame free mints, same brand as the gum that I was chewing prior. And that worked for a bit. And then I got introduced to the concept of menthol, minty toothpicks. And then I started sort of switching between those. So I'd have a toothpick for a bit,

and then I'd have some mints. Then I started to realize that the mints were giving me gas to a point that was actually becoming painful. And I was like, why are all these things giving me gas? Like, this is insane. It was so frustrating to me because I was doing so well. At this point, it had been a few months

since I had had nicotine. And I was successfully off of it, you know? Obviously, I was replacing it in a very extreme way, but technically I was off of it. I'm doing so well, can the universe just give me something? Like I'm, please, like I'm doing well. Why am I being punished? You know, it just felt so unfair.

In this industry, I think in all industries, but I think the entertainment industry in particular, there's a lot of nicotine around. Like, if I'm on set for something, like shooting a project, it could be an editorial shoot or like commercial, it doesn't matter. There is a vape somewhere. There's someone with a pack of cigarettes somewhere. Luckily, I don't get tempted by cigarettes, so that's never a temptation, but there's always a vape somewhere. There's someone with a Zin somewhere. There is a lot of nicotine around. When I was working at home,

it was pretty easy to resist temptation, but in certain working environments, it was kind of tough. We're all adults, and when we have like a 10-hour shoot day, there's something kind of nice about having a little nicotine during the little off moments. I don't know. It was hard to resist in these environments, but also even in social environments, right? So many young people are addicted to nicotine and it's pretty

easy to be like, hey, can I have a little bit of that? You know? So there was a lot of temptation around. At first, I was really good at resisting temptation. Like when I'd gotten to a point where I wasn't really craving it anymore, I kind of missed it but like it wasn't ruling my world anymore. At that point, I was pretty good at resisting temptation. I was also becoming aware of how good I felt without nicotine in my system. You know, my anxiety was lower, my mood was better, I was thinking clearer, like I just was experiencing

all of these incredible things from not having nicotine in my system. And so it made it easier to resist temptation. But at a certain point I started to cave. You know, here and there, I'd be like, Hey, can I hit the vape? Hey, you mind letting me hit that? Hey. And I started having occasional little stints of having it, but I did not have my own. Absolutely did not have my own. That was unthinkable at that point. I was fully quit. But see, this was

the slippery slope, right? Because one day of, you know, hitting someone's vape and you're kind of back in it, you know, you're kind of back in it. Like, I would leave the person who had the vape and I'd be craving it. It would hurt a little bit. And for the next 24 hours, I felt a little bit off. It was almost like I was going through withdrawals again. Luckily, the withdrawal period would be shorter. It wasn't like a month long instead. It was almost like I was going through withdrawals again. Luckily, the withdrawal period would be shorter. It wasn't like a month long. Instead, it was like a day or two long. But I was still having that withdrawal period

and it was uncomfortable. And it made me crave it more to the point where next time I had one available to me, I was like, ooh, I really want it. It was almost like I was slowly becoming addicted again. And like every time I'd have some, it would get a little bit harder to let it go at the end of the day when I wasn't around

that person anymore who had it. There wasn't a specific person at this point. It was just like whoever had one around me, right? It would get harder and harder to say goodbye to the vape, right? But I was doing well and I was dealing with the repercussions. You know, it would give me brain fog, it would make me irritable, but I was so aware of how it impacted me emotionally

that I was able to sort of cover it up. Because I had experienced those feelings so vividly a few months prior when I quit, I knew that they would pass. I actually kind of felt like, oh, I'm doing pretty good. Like, even though there's negative consequences, I'm actually handling the negative consequences super well. And it's almost like the nicotine was convincing me, like, you're good, you can have as much as you want,

you know how to handle yourself. You're not getting addicted again fully, you know? You're just having a little bit here and there. It's no problem. There's like something sinister about the way nicotine and in anything addicting will convince you that it's okay that you can have it. You can have a little bit and not fully get addicted again. Or at times even an addiction will sort of convince you that it's okay to be addicted. I've really experienced that with this nicotine addiction. Like when I was fully addicted,

not even planning on quitting, you know, I used to tell myself, everyone smokes, like so many people smoke, like fuck it, like I don't care. Like, you know, by the way, this is harmful mentality, okay? But this is how I was thinking. I was like, it's normal. Like, yeah, it's not good for you, but like it's normal.

So many people do it. And like, I'm like, I'm a good person and I don't do a lot of bad things for my body. Like I exercise and I eat well and I don't drink too much. Like I don't drink a lot of alcohol, all these different things. So I was like, I can have a little something, come on. And so that sort of started,

that little voice started to creep back in as I'm starting to have more vape in my life. I briefly pause this episode to let you know that this episode is brought to you by hotels.com. I love to travel and I love staying at hotels. There's nothing I love more than walking into a fresh, clean hotel room and just absolutely exploding in it. Okay. Putting all my skincare in the bathroom, hanging all my clothes up in the closet and really making myself feel at home. I also love going down in the morning for a buffet breakfast.

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who I see more frequently, got addicted, okay? That's when it all went to shit. All went to shit. If there is somebody in your close vicinity who's addicted to something that you're trying to quit, it's tough. It's really tough. And I'll give myself credit.

For the first few months of this experience of having somebody in my life close to me being addicted, who I see frequently, at first it was like, I can do this. I will not let this ruin my progress. But it just got harder and harder. And over the course of a few months, I eventually was fully addicted again. And I ended up getting my own

and I felt disgusting about it. But the reason why I got my own was because whenever I'd be around this person, I would use theirs, and then they wouldn't be around anymore, and I would have severe withdrawals. And then at a certain point, I'd see them again, I would feel better, because I would have it, and then I would withdraw again.

So I was almost constantly in a state of withdrawal. And that was just impossible for me emotionally. It was like every week I was starting again and stopping again. And it was just too much. And it was getting in the way of things that I just, I couldn't, I was like, I can't live like this. And so I ultimately relapsed.

But here's the thing that's complicated, right? It's like, I am an adult, okay? I cannot ask the people in my life to quit things for my own benefit. I can't. You know, I can ask people to not do things around me, maybe, or find a way to, but see, here's the problem. I didn't even wanna do that because I was like,

deep down, I want to have the vape. You know what I mean? Like I want to have a little moment with the vape. So I don't want to say, hey, can you not do that around me? Because then that means I don't get to have it anymore. That's my own battle. It is not anyone else's responsibility in this world

to protect me from my own addiction. The truest test of the effectiveness really of your quitting is being around it and seeing if you can handle it. And it's very clear that I couldn't, but I allowed myself to be around it because deep down I think I wanted it. And so this was my own fault.

This is not the fault of anyone who had a vape around me at all. And we can all have different opinions about that. You know, some people might say, if you know that somebody quit nicotine, you should then hide your nicotine from them. I'm sorry. I don't want people to be walking on eggshells around me.

I want people to be able to be free. If they want to fucking hit their vape and blow it in my face, they should. I want to be at a place with nicotine where I can resist temptation. I am not asking people to behave differently. Listen, again, if somebody were to come to me and say, I'm quitting nicotine, I'm really, whenever I see it, it really makes me want it.

Do you mind not doing it around me? I'd be like, duh, 1000%. I have no problem with doing that for other people. There is nothing wrong with others finding that that's the most effective way for them to quit. For me, I want to quit in a way where I can be around it. No one needs to change their behavior. That's what I'm striving for.

Clearly, it didn't work for me, okay, because here I am, vape in pocket. Now here's where I'm at now, right? I'm dealing with a lot of negative emotions towards myself. I feel discouraged. It's hard in moments like this not to feel like a lost cause. Like why even try to quit? You know, what's the point if I'm ultimately just doomed for relapse?

Like, why even try? I've been experiencing that. I've been experiencing low self-esteem because I sort of see myself as a failure. I feel ashamed of my lack of discipline. I catch myself looking down upon myself a lot. I've also experienced a lot of fear of karma in a way. And this is sort of irrational, I think, and not actually necessarily healthy, but I'm

just being completely transparent about the way I've been feeling. I think part of me feels like having this nicotine addiction is wrong. It's going to give me sort of a bad karma. But I think that that's rooted in some issues that I have with perfectionism and being the most morally perfect person so that nothing bad can happen to me. I have issues with that. So I think that's sort of more of an Emma problem than something that maybe you might experience if you're going through the same thing.

But I've experienced a lot of negative emotional responses as a result. But I also am fully like addicted to the substance again. Like I there's no you know the reason why I became addicted to it in the first place is because, you know, it makes me feel good in a weird way. It also can make me feel sort of anxious. It can also make me feel sort of dissociated. But this time around, I've, you know, chosen a specific vape product that has less nicotine in it. It's a lower percentage by probably about 50%.

And so I'm experiencing less anxiety, less dissociation and stuff like that. And my addiction is a bit weaker, you know, as a result, but it's still there. It's like, if it felt, if it made me feel completely horrible, I wouldn't be addicted again. So it does sort of make me feel good in a weird way. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad feel good in a weird way. Download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. I come to you now at this place where it's in my pocket. Like I can't lie to you and say, well, but today's day one, I threw the thing in the trash. I didn't, I didn't. And the experience of quitting last time was so exhausting

that to be completely transparent with you, I'm dreading doing it again. I know I will be doing it again. I know I need to get back on the horse, but it's tough. Morale is kind of low. I think the first time you quit, you have this sort of hope in a way, you're excited. You're like, this is the last time I quit, you have this sort of hope in a way. You're excited.

You're like, this is the last time I'm ever going to do this. And when it's not, it's discouraging and it makes you feel like, well, why would I even try this again? Why would I go through that grief all over again if I'm so prone to relapsing? And that's sort of where I'm at now is this really uncomfortable place of knowing that at some point I'm going to need to begin this journey again, ideally as soon as possible. But I'm also feeling discouraged and like I don't know how to make this time different. And I'm stuck with that of like, how do I make this time different? And maybe the answer is telling everybody, hey, I'm sorry, I'm

quitting. I need a year or two without vapes around me, without any nicotine around me. Like, you know, maybe that's the answer. I'm thinking about it. I don't necessarily want that to be the answer, but it might be. You know, the answer might be, unfortunately, you just have to do the same thing over again

and next time just be more disciplined about not hating people's vapes. You know what I mean? I don't know what the answer is. And so I'm sitting here now thinking about it and trying to figure out how to make next time different. But I really think what the moral of this story is, is quitting isn't linear.

Nothing in life is linear. And I'm not trying to put a positive spin on this to make an excuse for my relapse, if you will. Like I'm not trying to make excuses. I'm not trying to like put a little cute bow on it and say, it's totally fine. Like this is good. It's because it's not, it's not good, but it's also normal.

It's complicated with something like this because on one hand, you know you don't want to almost be so gentle with yourself that you let yourself fall back into it and You're so gentle with yourself that you're like, you know what? It's okay. Like I don't need to quit again Like you should feel a level of frustration with yourself I think when you fail right you need to feel a level of frustration with yourself, I think, when you fail, right? You need to feel a little bit of negative emotion, but you don't need to feel so much negative emotion that it's like impacting your self-esteem and it's impacting the way you see the world.

It's like making you pessimistic. It's like making you depressed. It's like, you know, that is not good. You should feel just enough negative emotion that you're like, okay, I want to do better next time. I want to better myself. I want, I don't want like, does that make sense? Like you don't want to be so chill with yourself that then you have no reason to quit because

you're just, you're cool with what you're doing. You know what I mean? But you also don't want to be so self-deprecating that you're destroying your mental state. So all of that to say, like, I'm not trying to present this in like a sweet, overly sensitive way. That's not the moral of the story. The moral of the story is not like,

it's totally okay to vape, we should all do it. Like, that's not the moral of the story. The moral of the story is not like, it's totally okay to vape, we should all do it. Like that's not the moral of the story. The moral of the story is that for better or for worse, quitting, healing, all of these different things are not linear experiences. We should strive to have the trajectory of our quitting be upward, but on that trajectory, there are gonna be little dips and valleys, okay?

And that's just inevitable. And what I'm trying to teach myself right now is like, this is an opportunity to prove to myself that I can do it, that getting back up and trying again, even when I feel completely discouraged, can lead to success. Like, failing a few times doesn't mean failure forever. I'm trying to get there, but it's tough.

I'm trying to accept that this experience is not going to be linear, but it's tough. But I'm not giving up. This journey, it'll last the rest of my fucking life if it has to, but I'm never gonna stop trying to quit. Me being like, it is in my pocket, but I promise. I promise that I'm quitting. It's really hard, it's really hard.

It's really fucking hard. And anyone who's ever been addicted to nicotine in a big way understands. It's no joke, It's no joke. It's no joke. I feel like as a kid, I just scoffed at the anti-vaping, anti-smoking infomercials about how addicting it is, how hard it is to quit,

how it can cause a lifelong addiction that is impossible to quit. Like, I always was like, fuck off. Like, how addicting can it really be? You know? The kids need to be listening to those infomercials. I swear. Someone needs to create anti-vaping infomercials

that don't cause kids to rebel. As a kid, I would see shit like that, and I'd be like, shut the fuck up. Which is douchey and rude. But as like a teenager, I don't know. Like, you're rebellious, you know? It's like the infomercials are not effective for young people, which is such a bummer

because man, I'd love to not be in this situation. If you haven't ever ingested nicotine in your life, I tell you, don't do it. Don't do it. It's, oh my God, it sounded like a wheeze. It wasn't? Well, maybe it was. Anyway, don't do it, okay?

Don't do it. Don't try it. Don't do it. Anyway, y'all, I really wish I had like a really beautiful conclusion, but this is what I learned, and this is what you should do at home, and this is what we can all do

to make the world a better place, and to stop consuming nicotine. You all wake up people. We can do this. I wish that was the conclusion. But here I am back at square one confused and discouraged. But I hope that the next time we talk about this, maybe I have quit for good that time.

All right. Thank you all for listening and hanging out. As always, it's a pleasure. And there's new episodes of Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday. So if you had fun, come back, come hang out. Anything Goes is on social media, at Anything Goes, I'm on social media, at Emma Chamberlain, and my coffee company

can be found anywhere at Chamberlain Coffee. Not like anywhere, we're not like in every store, but like anywhere you could like find a coffee company like on the internet or whatever, Chamberlain Coffee. I love you all, I appreciate you all. We have fun together and I'll have fun with you again in a few days. All right, I'll talk to you then, bye.