HEADACHES

Quitting nicotine with the best album of 2025...

I recently decided to completely cut nicotine out of my daily diet. Been a bit of a bumpy ride! Like most who find themselves addicted to the stuff, I started smoking in earnest at 13 and was a fully fledged convert to the caustic cause by 15 or 16.

I’m only approaching the three-week mark as I write this (so very early days) but I’m extremely determined to see it through this time, after one or two half-hearted and ultimately failed attempts to cut down and quit over the years.

I originally started smoking cigarettes because I’d be buying ten decks of Lambert & Butler (£1.50, and amazing advertising billboards at the time) with my school lunch money to rip apart and sprinkle into soap bar three-skinner joints. “Illegal Regals” as my friends and I fondly called them at the time. Then after a short while I’d just end up smoking the cigarettes too, since they were burning a hole in my pocket, so to speak.

I was fairly impressionable as a young teenager and fairly rebellious too - the perfect recalcitrant recipe to be seduced by the stuff. My dad smoked when I was growing up (Hamlet cigars - also great ads at the time) as did my older brother (Marlboro Lights). My older sister dabbled I think but wasn’t quite as dedicated as my brother and me once I got started. All my older mates smoked (both legal and illegal Regals) as did all my musical and film heroes. There was no escaping it really.

After that initial High School period came about ten years of smoking ‘straights’, followed by more than a decade of roll-ups. Over the last two years (almost to the day) I’d moved onto vaping, thinking it was a healthier alternative and a step in the right direction. Subconsciously telling myself I’d quit completely at some point. Recently discovered though that my vape intake over those two years equated to about 30–40 fags a day. Pretty wild, especially since I’d gradually reduced to around five rollies a day before the switch. Quite an escalation!

Vaping seems healthier - no smoke, no stink, less tar and carbon monoxide - but the flip side is how easy it becomes to just vape everywhere: gigs, football matches, the house, the pub, the car, even in bed! Given that convenient ease, you end up constantly topping up instead of going outside for a cigarette’s worth a few times a day and leaving it at that.

Easy to see how the addiction can strengthen quickly without you noticing, or suffering much in the way of side effects, apart from that underlying sense you could be a bit healthier and less enslaved to something so ultimately unfulfilling.

Suffice to say, quitting hasn’t been easy. It’s a very strong drug and at those levels it’s hard to shake the physical and psychological pangs. I do feel like I’m getting there though and hope I’m over the worst, I might even be out of the woods in a week or two.

Weirdly, after making a proper vow to myself about this, I haven’t felt the urge to go buy a vape or tobacco, just the occasional borderline-mania-inducing symptoms. Not much fun!

The first week was actually easier than I’d anticipated, a doddle comparatively. Maybe it was the novelty or the early excitement carrying me through (on fumes)… Weeks two to three though have been testing. Thought it might be worth sharing the experience here.

Similarly to part of my rationale for chatting to my kids about it, writing it down and putting it out there might help keep me accountable in the long run.

In terms of side effects, I’ve had some pretty awful, consistent insomnia (now improving), an almost impossible time concentrating (also improving), edginess, jumpiness, grumpiness and pounding headaches for days on end. All from the two week point onwards. And all simmering a bit in recent days.

Coincidentaly and ironically though - a band called Headache have been a saving grace through all this. As with most of life’s trials and tribulations, music has helped hugely.

Thank You For Almost Everything, the second album from Headache, has been on constant rotation since its release, coinciding nicely with this newfound abstinence. It’s absolutely exceptional - every track’s a winner. My favourite album of 2025 so far, barring any major surprises in the next month or so. Their 2023 debut The Head Hurts But The Heart Knows The Truth was absolutely brilliant too, but this new one tops it.

They’ve got this amazing, distinctive, life-affirming electronic sound - sometimes dancey, sometimes more chilled - with surreal, often silly yet poignant and profound lyrics with allegorical dream-like streams of subconsciousness.

It all makes perfect (non)sense.

They’re hard to pigeonhole but I’d say they sound a little like Arab Strap meets Original Pirate Material meets Chris Morris (while candy flipping). In a good way!

Not much is out there by way of promotional info. Produced by the revered (but underground and under-the-radar) electronic producer Vegyn, with lyrics by Francis Hornsby Clark. I think there’s some clever and progressive AI involvement too, though I might be wrong about that.

A strong recommend if you haven’t yet listened.

Might fire up some Top Tens of other things (musical and otherwise) I’ve been enjoying in 2025 over the next month or so.

Pretty sure binning the vape will prove to be the number one achievement.

Wish me luck.