Chan
Another Leaf on the Vine
Greetings all
It's that time of year, and I thought I'd share my experiences quitting cigarettes, with a little help from a relatively-unknown plant ally. Obviously, by definition, all quit attempts are "work in progress" and I will faithfully update this thread should I return to the dark side.
B/G: Pack a day smoker for about 20 years, three previous quit attempts, each good for ~12 months, before hubristic relapse aka "One won't hurt!" Lengthy period of e-cig use, but that only led back to the cellophane hell. So, determined to make good on my promises to the Universe, self & others.
Having finally started working with salvia properly, I was puzzled to find myself daydreaming about laburnum, of all things. WikiP soon cleared things up: the alkaloid it contains, cytisine, has been used extensively throughout former Soviet countries as a quitting-therapy. Truly, salvia's reputation as a "master plant" is richly deserved!
Laburnum is surprisingly hard-to-find these days, it was common when I was a kid, but successions of risk-averse parents must have chopped them all down. In any event, I doubt safe, non-lethal extraction is an option for a ghetto-chemist.
A Bulgarian company still manufacture the tablets under the name Tabex. The idea is you flood with 6 tablets for the first few days, then taper down to 1/day over the course of a month. Cytisine is an acetylcholine agonist, and has strong binding affinity for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, more so even than nicotine. You continue to smoke when you feel like it for the first few days of treatment, becoming progressively less drawn to nicotine as you do so. For me, it worked. Basically, as the cytisine takes hold, you find yourself thinking less about cigarettes. The itch subsides, you can power through the first few hours of the day without lighting up, and you might permit yourself one at say, lunchtime. But this first cigarette feels like the tenth of a chain-smoking binge. No relief/joy, just a very dry mouth and lips, and mild nausea. You extinguish it about halfway though, and you say, dang, that was nasty, I won't be in a hurry to have another.
My daily consumption dropped pretty exponentially: 20-14-8-4-2-0-0-0.... without any sense of acute withdrawal.
Essentially, it seems to make cigarettes taste and feel like they did the very first time you ever tried one i.e. not very nice at all. This is kinda exciting, because it hopefully means that I won't be carrying any happy cigarette memories around when someone eventually offers me one again. I have my final part-used pack, on which I've written my final perceptions in marker: "Does nothing, feels horrible!"
NB. I have not noticed any adverse interactions between cytisine and cannabis or changa.
Thanks to Gaia, Salvia & Laburnum :d
It's that time of year, and I thought I'd share my experiences quitting cigarettes, with a little help from a relatively-unknown plant ally. Obviously, by definition, all quit attempts are "work in progress" and I will faithfully update this thread should I return to the dark side.
B/G: Pack a day smoker for about 20 years, three previous quit attempts, each good for ~12 months, before hubristic relapse aka "One won't hurt!" Lengthy period of e-cig use, but that only led back to the cellophane hell. So, determined to make good on my promises to the Universe, self & others.
Having finally started working with salvia properly, I was puzzled to find myself daydreaming about laburnum, of all things. WikiP soon cleared things up: the alkaloid it contains, cytisine, has been used extensively throughout former Soviet countries as a quitting-therapy. Truly, salvia's reputation as a "master plant" is richly deserved!
Laburnum is surprisingly hard-to-find these days, it was common when I was a kid, but successions of risk-averse parents must have chopped them all down. In any event, I doubt safe, non-lethal extraction is an option for a ghetto-chemist.
A Bulgarian company still manufacture the tablets under the name Tabex. The idea is you flood with 6 tablets for the first few days, then taper down to 1/day over the course of a month. Cytisine is an acetylcholine agonist, and has strong binding affinity for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, more so even than nicotine. You continue to smoke when you feel like it for the first few days of treatment, becoming progressively less drawn to nicotine as you do so. For me, it worked. Basically, as the cytisine takes hold, you find yourself thinking less about cigarettes. The itch subsides, you can power through the first few hours of the day without lighting up, and you might permit yourself one at say, lunchtime. But this first cigarette feels like the tenth of a chain-smoking binge. No relief/joy, just a very dry mouth and lips, and mild nausea. You extinguish it about halfway though, and you say, dang, that was nasty, I won't be in a hurry to have another.
My daily consumption dropped pretty exponentially: 20-14-8-4-2-0-0-0.... without any sense of acute withdrawal.
Essentially, it seems to make cigarettes taste and feel like they did the very first time you ever tried one i.e. not very nice at all. This is kinda exciting, because it hopefully means that I won't be carrying any happy cigarette memories around when someone eventually offers me one again. I have my final part-used pack, on which I've written my final perceptions in marker: "Does nothing, feels horrible!"
NB. I have not noticed any adverse interactions between cytisine and cannabis or changa.
Thanks to Gaia, Salvia & Laburnum :d
