have you tried vaping? quiting smoking is the intended purpose, and maybe it will help level out the anxiety while you ween yourself off. Or try healthier snacks, popcorn is fairly cheap and if you don't load it down is far healthier than chips. lots of things you can try for incremental improvements, to help you reach your end goal.

Turn to YouTube or books for therapy. Some psychologists etc have things posted on YouTube. You have to find a way to take care of your mental health. No one else can do that for you.

The nicotine in cigarettes is an appetite suppressant, which is part of why you’re suddenly more hungry. Try nicotine gum to trick your brain that you’re *totally* eating something yep sure am getting those calories, and slooowly weaning off that by switching to regular gum, then getting rid of the regular gum.

You should go back to smoking. You seem miserable, so do you want to live like that for a very long time?

state insurance covered me for Chantix, see if you can get it too. I couldn't have done it either way

DBT and CBT have helped a lot for me. Don’t food shame yourself. Work on what helps you feel healthy. Look up fun healthier versions of foods you like, such as sweet potatoes in light olive oil and chili with sea salt.

There's three types of smokers: social smokers smoke because the people around them do and they join in, habit smokers they have the need to smoke or have something to fiddle with, and then there's addiction smokers. The first two can be stopped replacing the activity with something else, the addiction smokers usually end up comfort eating as they find it difficult to substitute cigarette rush with other stress relief activities. My best advice is to identify yourself what it is about smoking you like, you don't like and what makes you light a cigarette, for me it was working in customer service, everytime I met a difficult employee or customer instead of telling I lit the cigarette, but I didn't smoke outside of the work or at home or on time off. It became really clear that the job was killing me, so I changed the industry my smoking has stopped and I haven't replaced it with comfort eating because I don't have the same triggers in life anymore. On a sidenote: Vaping damages young lungs, smokers lungs are weak and can cause even worse issues then just smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes have decades of research and risks identified, compared to vaping (which are weakly regulated, in some places not tested at all, have less than a decade of promoting research). Google scholar is a great place to start. If you're going to stop then don't go cold turkey, but cut it down step by step. ( Some find it easier to carry with them 2-4 cigarettes with them, and smoke it when you feel you need it, but get comfort knowing you could if you wanted to or no smoking on days off) start slowly work yourself down to one cigarette a day, one cigarette a week, one cigarette left in purse. Or Nicorette chewing gum if you feel your body demanding food to replace cigarettes

The lung cancer you may get much later from smoking will make up for it… I understand that nicotine addiction is tough to break. Some people can quit “cold turkey” without assistance. Some use nicotine patches, gum, or vapes to get off smoking - But you will still be using nicotine, but it may enable you to taper off… I’m no doctor, but I understand that it’s mostly the tars in tobacco smoke that cause lung cancer. If I recall correctly from a poster in one of my doctor’s office, the nicotine however affects your chances of heart attack and stroke however as long as you are using it in any form. So if you want to be healthy long term you probably need to gradually step down the nicotine until you’re not using any… The cost of a pack of cigarettes should be the least of your worries long term if you are a smoker.