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Quitting smoking is hard enough without the added pressure of all-or-nothing thinking. Yet, most cold turkey and quitting methods—including 12-step programs—are built on the idea that one cigarette will inevitably lead back to full-blown addiction. They say, one is too many, and a thousand is never enough. This is not just an extreme stance—it’s a dangerous one. This kind of logic is a well-documented cognitive distortion: All-or-Nothing Thinking. It falsely claims that if you slip once, you’ve already lost, so you might as well give up entirely. But life doesn’t work that way. If you trip while running a race,...

This morning, I started weaker in will than I had hoped. I had three or four cigarettes right after waking up, but instead of beating myself up over it, I took a different approach. After my shower, I decided to space them out to 45 minutes apart, then gradually extended it to an hour and fifteen minutes before going to bed tonight. As the night goes on, I’ll stretch it to an hour between smokes, just in case I have trouble sleeping. This slow, intentional spacing has already taken me from three packs a day down to just one in...

So, I started my smoker’s journal the day after the first class. It consists of notes on every cigarette I have—time, location, who’s around, and anything else I notice. The first thing that jumped out at me? I was smoking every 15 minutes. Yeah, you read that right. That’s 3 packs a day. Seeing it in writing was a bit of a wake-up call. So, I pulled out my phone, checked the time, and decided to push it to every half hour. Just like that, I nearly cut my smoking in half. That was a solid start. But then I...

  In my younger years, I earned a degree in Business from Fullerton College. Through several economics courses, I developed a keen understanding of financial ethics. Yet, having spent my entire adult life within the mental health system, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the system prioritizes profit over people. Our government and politicians constantly assure us that funding mental health programs will help the poor and vulnerable. But the reality? Poverty is growing stronger while those funds seem to line the pockets of wealthy investors, middle-class graduates, and insurance companies running scams. What we’re told is meant to help us often...

In the whirlwind of life, it’s sometimes the people we call family who push us toward the greatest challenges—and sometimes, the greatest growth. For those who’ve followed my journey, it’s probably no surprise that my fanbase seems to have one recurring wish for me: to detach from the influence of my toxic family and take flight as an artist. Both goals are challenging, but both are possible. My family no longer speaks to me, and while this distance offers relief, it has also left a void—a need for something else to serve as my source of connection and grounding. In...