I started smoking in high school and got turned onto dip by someone I ran cross country with that was on the wrestling team (very common for them to use for weight loss). The dip was really intense and I got a huge buzz from it, but after taking some magic mushrooms around my age 16 I tried to quit it all at once and really thought I was going insane. It was an incredibly potent nootropic though and was easy to hide for taking tests. I felt incredible taking the ACT. I switched back to smoking most of the time because most people think dip is disgusting, but eventually I tired of going outside in the cold and having to the fund the addiction, so I quit. It really wasn’t all that hard in the grand scheme of things, but took a couple of tries. It’s not something you want to undertake without planning or research and you are going to gain some weight and be out of it for a couple weeks. Years later I’d miss it and get back into the occasional cig or e-cigs or nicotine lozenges. Any time I did though they eventually just make me kind of lazy to where I just want to lay around and I realized I was better off going for walks or exercising. I don’t think it’s so bad to quit but it can mess up your stomach and you might lose a night of sleep so it’s not the funnest thing in the world. The last time I did this it was at night, I had an interview the next morning, and my stomach hurt from constipation so I gave up and put in a lozenge for a minute which unstopped me, but then couldn’t sleep due to the stimulation, had a horrible interview the next day and then went through with quitting.
If you can find the right dose/form then it really does have a boost to your brain, but my experience with this sort of thing is sort of like putting NOS in your fuel, it doesn’t matter if you can accelerate fast most of the time, because most of life is about driving safely and consistently at a steady speed and sometimes you can get ahead by speeding up and going through a yellow light to avoid a red, which the NOS can help with but usually burning NOS all the time is just an unnecessary expense. And you don’t want to have something like nicotine withdrawals slowing you down when you’re hitting a yellow like my interview which was a disaster. Having quit amphetamines, coffee, and nicotine multiple times, it’s not that bad, but it’s still a hassle and there’s never a good time and you’re better off eliminating as many hassles as you can from your life imo.
I definitely think the more addictive than heroin line is likely not accurate for nicotine itself but I’ve never been addicted to heroin so idk. I actually still think about starting it up again sometimes even though it’s been 15 years since I quit, maybe 3 since my last lozenge, but overall this experiment for me is concluded and nicotine is something I’m better off living without.