343: Quitting Smoking With Dr. Judy Rosenberg

343: Quitting Smoking With Dr. Judy Rosenberg

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety when nicotine is still hanging around in the background? This conversation on Soberful tackles smoking and vaping head-on, treating them as real addictions rather than harmless side habits. Host Veronica Valli chats with licensed clinical psychologist Dr Judy Rosenberg, who brings 40 years of experience in addiction, trauma, and emotional healing.

Together, they look at why quitting nicotine can feel harder than giving up alcohol, and why cigarettes often become someone’s "drug of choice". Dr Judy explains her idea of the “hole in the soul” – the emotional void created by childhood wounds such as neglect, abuse, smothering, or narcissistic parenting. Smoking, vaping, alcohol and other compulsive behaviours are described as attempts to self-soothe when self-regulation never got properly wired in early life.

As she bluntly puts it, "Every puff is a weakening of the self." You’ll hear about her three smoking personalities – comfort, control, and performance smokers – and how each links back to unmet childhood needs. She also highlights how nicotine cleverly hijacks the brain: it’s not the cigarette that relaxes you, it’s the deep breath of oxygen before the nicotine hits, yet the mind credits the cigarette and keeps the cycle going.

Veronica and Dr Judy blend humour with some hard truths about marketing, vaping culture, social “tribes” of smokers, and the illusion of being cool, in control or productive with a cigarette in hand. Rather than offering a quick fix, Dr Judy champions a deeper process: understanding your “big why”, facing old pain, and breaking out of what she calls “psychological prison”.

Anyone in alcohol recovery who still clings to nicotine, or worries about swapping one habit for another, is likely to feel seen here. Could it be time to look at what your cigarette, vape or craving is really trying to do for you?