Tobacco and Mushrooms: How I Learned to Care About Myself and Become My Own Authority

Quitting tobacco was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. The number of times I tried to quit and failed is too high to even guess at. There were times when I decided to quit when I left work, only to buy a pack when I got home.

My use of tobacco shifted at times. When I began, it was cigarettes. I eventually tried chewing tobacco, and during college that was my preferred way of consuming it. For 13 years, it was a fixture in my life. I even picked up vaping for about a year.

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 16 years old, for reasons that only recently became clear to me. It was a way for me to have an identity that was created by me, not projected upon me. Quickly, it became embedded into who I thought I was. Even after I was caught smoking by my parents multiple times, the habit always returned.

Throughout my 20s, I smoked about half a pack per day. I enjoyed a cigarette with my morning coffee, an evening beverage, and everything in between.

If I had $20 left to my name, I would have spent $5 on gas, $5 on gas station food, and $10 on a pack of cigarettes. It was a very different time in my life.

Phasing it out was a slow drip. I took steps forward and steps back along the way. I thought I could have it in my life in small quantities, clinging to the part of myself who identified with being a smoker.

Phase 1

When I began a new relationship in 2016, I lied about the fact that I smoked tobacco. I told her I didn’t smoke when asked directly about it. I panicked. I imagined she wouldn’t want to date me. I justified the lie by telling myself that I would quit before she found out.

I’m sure you know where this was going. Lying was something I did quite a bit growing up, and this relationship was one of the last times I kept secrets. She discovered another secret I had kept - that I had not 1 but 2 DWIs on my record - through some clever sleuthing (stories coming soon).

When she confronted me about the hidden DWI, I felt afraid. I thought I had ruined the best relationship I would ever have. She asked me point blank, “What else are you hiding from me, Andy?”

And so I laid everything out there. I told her I smoke cigarettes. That I had lied to her about that too. I had nothing to say for myself. There was no justifying my actions, and I wasn’t going to bother trying. I felt ashamed and regretful.

The honesty brought us closer together, and she asked me, “Well you’re going to quit right now, aren’t you?”

What else could I say?

“Yeah.”

I had been using a vape for a bit at this point and decided to quit cigarettes and supplement with the vape.

I experienced intense withdrawals, even while using the vape. My body had become accustomed to its semi-hourly dose of not just nicotine, but Tar and a whole host of other chemicals. I got sick with flu-like symptoms. I couldn’t sleep well for a week, food tasted bland for a month, and life seemed a little duller as I adjusted to life without tobacco.

The physical symptoms were more than I expected, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I hadn’t fully kicked nicotine yet, but it was a start and a win.

Phase 2

I puffed on that vape for about a year after that. I would blow giant clouds of fruity-smelling vapor anywhere I could. In many ways, vaping became even more embedded than smoking, because I could vape practically anywhere.

I could sit on the couch watching TV and vape. I didn’t have to go outside. The smell was much less offensive to others and less obvious. I could buy vape liquid with less and less nicotine, so it felt like I was weening off. But I had that vape with me wherever I went.

I had to make sure the batteries were charged, that I had my vape filled with liquid, and that I might even want to have spare liquid with me for almost any outing.

My vape was in my pocket wherever I went, and making sure that I had access to it was a chore.

Still, I was happy to have moved away from tobacco. In February 2018, I quit vaping too. It was time, and I needed to prove to myself and my partner that I could do it. Physically, I experienced few symptoms this time around.

Mentally, quitting was way harder than moving from tobacco to vape. Because I had grown to associate everything that I did with vaping, everything made me want to. The first 3 weeks were a massive challenge. I had to stay very active in order to keep my mind from wandering toward the desire to vape.

In the end, though, I felt more free. I felt healthier and like I was in control.

I realized how sick I was of “needing something” to “do anything”. If I wanted to go somewhere, I needed my vape. Quitting lightened my load and increased my agility.

Phase 3

When the relationship ended in August 2018, I returned to tobacco. I would hand roll a cigarette with loose tobacco, often mixing it with THC or CBD. Off and on for the next year or so, I smoked.

I liked it. I would have these little moments with myself or a friend. Many times, I regretted smoking and many times I didn’t.

I gave myself grace and tried to be gentle with myself. I took weeks or even a month away and then return. I bought fancy tobacco. Rolling it and creating the perfect space for smoking it became an art form, a way to appreciate the present moment, to soak up the good life.

At this point, the mental impact was greater than the physical impact. We know smoking is bad for our lungs, heart, etc. The volume was so minuscule. People would always tell me it’s okay, such negligible use isn’t that big a deal.

It didn’t feel that way to me though. They didn’t see the mental battle, the promises broken to myself. The countless times I told myself I wouldn’t smoke one day, only to cave. Even if it was just one, it eroded my trust in myself, and it took up way too much mental space.

Sure, I only smoked for about 5 minutes per day. Sometimes, more.

I thought about smoking far more than that.

And because it was an option, it was always a potential activity. And because just one wouldn’t really hurt anything, what was the harm? Why not light one up? The feedback I had from the people around me was supportive.

I was the only person it bothered. Was that enough?

The Mushroom Teacher

In May 2020, I did an Ayurvedic Spring Cleanse, which I did the year before. It consists of systematically cutting things out of your diet over the course of 4-6 weeks, then gradually reintroducing them.

During the “Peak” of the cleanse, all you eat is Khichari, an Indian dish that is very easily digestible, consisting of Basmati rice, Lentils, fresh ground spices, ghee, and some veggies.

I was feeling great. The Cleanse brought a lot of clarity, and I had gone over a month without tobacco. I had a mushroom journey planned for the New Moon during the peak of the cleanse.

I consciously chose to abstain from tobacco for as long as I could going into the journey because I didn’t want to talk about them with the mushrooms. I wanted to go deep, and I knew that if tobacco was on my mind, it could dominate the trip.

I ate about 3.33 grams of Golden Teachers which I made into a chocolate. The journey was spectacular. There were vivid colors, relaxing imagery, and a sense that I was moving in exactly the right direction.

I felt like I connected to a primordial teacher of mine, someone familiar but emergent. There was a noticeable back and forth, a dialogue between me and the mushrooms.

As Terrence McKenna once quipped, “Psilocybin pulls up a chair, kicks her feet up, and joins you on your front porch like an old friend”.

I asked the teaching presence of the mushrooms, “Can you take me where I need to go?

They replied, “Yes, as long as you stay away from tobacco”.

This was big for me because it now felt like I had someone to listen to, and someone outside myself to keep me accountable. I continued journeying with Psilocybin for about 6 months and faltered a couple of times before the code cracked inside of me in August.

The Breakthrough

During the summer of 2020, I was doing the Gene Keys Deep Dive into Genius Retreat, which I described in a previous post.

The story of the retreat was in the pathways, the links between the spheres. Between the Evolution and Sphere of Radiance, is the Pathway of Breakthrough. Richard recorded beautiful visualizations for these pathways, and I participated in a synchronized meditation one day with people around the world.

I was sitting under the pyramid in my home, alone as I visualized myself as a mountain. The music was evocative and moving. He was guiding us on a journey that was bringing us deeper and deeper into our unconscious.

And all I could think about was smoking tobacco.

My mind was screaming at me for 40 minutes: “It’s tobacco stupid!!”

I didn’t need an elaborate spiritual meditation to tell me what I already knew. I needed to quit smoking all tobacco forever. No vape, no nothing. I needed to close that door and never open it again.

It became very clear to me just how much mental space it took up in my life, and how thinking about tobacco was preventing me from thinking about other problems.

It was here that I began to understand how to apply the concept of opportunity cost to my mind. If I was constantly wrestling with the problem of tobacco, I wasn’t wrestling with the other problems in my life.

Quitting tobacco was a prerequisite, a needle’s eye I had to pass through in order to access my potential.

It was during this meditation, as I contended with my own unconscious, that I made the decision, with every cell of my being, that I was done smoking forever.

And I’ve never smoked since.

Closing the Door

With that door closed, I have been free to think about the kinds of things I want to be thinking about (for the most part). I don’t have to use my finite willpower throughout my day on something trivial.

I began to realize that by opening the door to tobacco, I was also opening the door to so much more.

Similarly, by closing the door, I began to see the other doors for what they were, and I was able to focus more clearly on the path in front of me.

I still used Rapé for about 9 months after that. Eventually, that too fizzled away. I liked it, but in exactly the same way, I would build my days around it. As soon as I would get done, I counted the hours or days until the next time I used it.

It took up space. And I needed to reclaim that space.

Becoming My Own Authority

The Pathway of Breakthrough led me to the Sphere of Radiance, which for me is the 21st Gene Key, Line 1. The shadow is Control, and the repressive nature of this shadow is one that forfeits their authority to the world around them or even “the universe”. Essentially, I was waiting for the universe to tell me, or for someone else to make the decision to quit for me.

I was shirking responsibility for my own habits. I needed to make the decision for myself.

This is the Gift of the 21st, Authority. I had to become the author. I had to be willing to make the decision. Part of me was afraid that if I closed myself off from tobacco, I would miss out on something.

I was allowing this fear to cripple my decision-making capacity. Tobacco, for me, carried too much karma for that door to even be an option.

It sounds silly now.

I had to trust that what was good for me, was best for me.

The wisdom of that lesson is still revealing itself. No one else could make this choice for me.

I chose myself, for myself, and that choice rippled.

Share