The bad acid trip that made Doja Cat quit cigarettes: “It’s unbearable to smoke one”
Breakthroughs are often made as a result of drugs. People have cited certain trips as enlightening experiences, causing them to make major changes to their lives. Doja Cat once took acid, which led her to put down cigarettes once and for all. It was an unexpected change, but one she welcomed with open arms.
The 29-year-old rapper/singer has been open about her addiction to cigarettes. As someone who has a career based on her vocals, this is an obvious problem. It got to a point where she would be smoking cigarettes back to back, not only affecting her vocal chords, but also the way she was feeling in general.
“The only challenge I ever had was addiction,” she told Billboard. “Alcohol and cigarettes were my thing and weed was my thing. I would smoke and smoke and smoke and I’d be chain-smoking and it would mess with my voice, it would mess with my energy.”
However, the addiction didn’t last for long. Doja went through a stage of taking acid, which was an experience she thoroughly enjoyed, for the most part. She’d only had positive encounters with the drug until she confronted a bad trip that changed everything.
The trip scarred her so much that it actually had a positive effect on her daily life. Bizarrely, she can no longer pick up a cigarette due to the bad memories she has of her last acid experience. Because of this, she was able to quit cigarettes completely.
“Acid was a wonderful experience for me, but I felt I didn’t need it after a while,” she admitted in a Rolling Stone interview. “My last trip was a bad trip, but it made me quit a lot of my habits. I’m a very habitual person. I was smoking lots of cigarettes. But I quit smoking because of the acid I took. I haven’t been able to smoke a cigarette since then. It’s unbearable to smoke one. It’s very interesting how that worked.”
Doja released a song called ‘I Don’t Do Drugs’ in 2021, which was a collaboration with Ariana Grande off her Planet Her album. She sings on the chorus, “Love got me fucked up/ Got me on stuck, chasin’ that rush/ Had to give in, couldn’t give up/ I just want you, but I don’t do drugs.”
In 2023, she confirmed that she was still staying clear of cigarettes, instead using nicotine-free vapes to help her remain cold turkey. “I’m nicotine-free,” she told Interview Magazine. “And I love nicotine-free vapes. Any zero-nicotine vape doesn’t hit, it just feels like you’re breathing, and it’s like, ‘What is this?’ It feels pointless. But this thing really feels… It hits, it has the same effect.”
That’s not all. She also had hypnotherapy to help quit cigarettes. “I did it and then just didn’t smoke after that, forever,” she said. Despite all of her claims, Doja was spotted smoking in London in 2024, begging the question whether her bad trip and therapy had eventually worn off.