How I dropped my nicotine addiction and why

There was a time when my username on my social media used be "shisha sheikh" and as a teen i though it was cool to be defined by my smoking skills or how quickly i could fix a hookah.

Growing up smoking shisha was not seen as a negative habit in fact in a country where drinking or partying doesn't really exist for women shisha was really the only point of rebellious behavior approved by the cool peers. Any ways, my cousins smoked, i smoked, my friends smoked, the only think we ever did with class mates after school was smoke shisha. Shisha lounges were everywhere and were the new trendy thing, the spot where everyone hungout.

I had one at home right when i turned 15. It was a bad habit but everyone viewed as the lesser of all evils, atleast we are not smoking cigarettes. We would smoke shisha the same way people have dessert after a meal....needless to say it was normalized.

The mix of nicotine and tobacco wasn't of concern to most parents because they simply didn't even know what was in the shisha.

When i moved to Canada, I had a difficult time navigating the first few months, I had basically emotionally blackmailed my mother to speak to us again after two years of abandonment, forced upon us by her husband. Then not being able to fit in with most immigrant families because well people from our circle simply didn't need to leave their countries and when they did they generally settled in the east...Alberta sounded weird and too far. I never really fit into any community from the very beginning of my life...mostly due to our family situations which were unique even in Pakistan but I always had my childhood friends to turn to, who understood me and my life and loved me for who i was with all my quirks. You remove that from the mix, I had no one.

I spent my lunch breaks at school watching Netflix and the only interaction I had socially was during my classes or when I volunteered.

Being removed from an abusive environment, the cultural shock, the isolation and starting from scratch was all hitting me at once. Then one day I found a shisha lounge and as my luck would have it, they were hiring. My job, that I loved very much became my safe haven, as a server i had a lot of extra money and spent all my time around people my age. I made friends and found a space where I felt like i was a good fit. It was mostly a comfort zone in a very difficult time in my life but it became my whole identity for the next three years. I would smoke shisha all day, and be around second hand smoke all day otherwise and when i got home from work, I'd smoke more because that was the lifestyle me and most the people i was around had. I had already moved out of my mum's place in the first few months of working at this place.

Now that i look back at it on December 28 11 years ago, the day I worked my first shift at the shisha lounge, I wish i could go back in time and tell my younger self how she needed to go back to healthier habits for comfort. While working there I quit swimming and any form of physical activity, i drank and partied all the time. I had no concern for my health and no concern for the environment i had put myself in, all i understood was that I wasn't alone.

In 2018 after losing two jobs and spending months not being able to find work in Edmonton I decided i was going to move back in my mom maybe for a few months....and lucky for me (i hated this at that point) the small town Peace River where she lived, did not have a shisha lounge. I took my own pipe but with no way to purchase tobacco for it i had to option but to switch to something else, so I bought the next worst thing, a vape.

For those of you who don't know it: smoking one bowl of a medium hookah is equivalent of smoking 100 cigarettes. Switching to a vape with minimal nicotine and no tobacco was a HUGE change for me. I started walking again for leisure, i was alone again but i was slowly working on myself. It took about 15 lbs of weight gain to kick the shisha habit, i was so used to having it, i almost couldn't focus without it. Vaping had replaced it, but it too soon started affecting me negatively but I have to say if it wasn't for the vape, i wouldn't have been able to quit shisha ever.

Vaping became an even worse habit, because i could just be smoking wherever and whenever, it never set any smoke alarms off, it tasted delicious and smelled amazing, it was also such an up and coming trend that wherever i went people wanted to try it. Everyone was now vaping and all news channels were reporting on the harms of it.

It wasn't until i got pregnant that I had to give up smoking entirely, i had to ask my husband to go hide my vape in a spot i will never find it.

So in September 2021 i took my last addictive puff. After i had my son, i did find the vape, i knew where it was hidden and i smoked it, but i had a moment of realization....this little thing had so much control over my mind, i knew where it was this whole time yet I didn't touch it because it would my harm my baby, but here i am putting this poison in my own body voluntarily.

I always made excuses, "i dont want to gain weight" yet i had gained the weight anyways. "It doesnt affect my stamina" but it had killed my good habits already. In that moment of reflection, i asked my husband to throw it out or give it away and he did. I never set foot in a vape shop ever again and I have since not picked up the habit. I will confess that I might smoke socially here and there when my friend brings her shisha out but even then I'll have a few puffs and leave it. I went from smoking consistently every single day to smoking maybe once every three months for a few moments.

This isn't about smoking being good or bad, but mainly about taking control away from something that harms us. The quitting wasn't easy. I gained weight but at this point three years later i have almost lost it too. I had mood swings and felt uncomfortable but that too was just temporary. I didn't grab any nicotine patches, or nicotine free vape juices, i simply became aware of the harm i was inflicting upon myself for comfort. Now when i am around smoke i dont force myself to not smoke or anything i just remind myself one simple thing "habits don't control me, i control myself, i can put down whatever i pick up."