Vaping? Or E Cigs? or whatever else they are called.

mattm wrote:

oldtin wrote: There are decently documented ways to quit. Talk to a pharmacist familiar with a smoking cessation program. Fwiw the physical addiction part only takes 24-48 hours to subside. The mental part takes longer.

Yes, you are correct. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the OP may have tried those methods and they may not have been as effective as advertised. A pharmacist is unlikely to recommend vaping which is specifically what the OP was referencing. Other countries are studying vaping while most of our states are trying to tax it as cigarettes. If you don't need it, don't use it; for some of us, it was our way out from under nicotine.

Quite true, and to be honest I have no need for nicotine, most of my liquids are 0, I have a need for the habit or I eat, or worse drink, more than usual, and usual is already a lot :) Vaping gives me that "something to do" that I was replacing with cigarettes and then snacks. I do run a low nic juice when driving because you don't realize until you quit how powerful a stimulant nicotine is. But without it I was passing out at the wheel on my 1.5 hour commute.

As stated, I have tried just about everything. I havebquit cold turkey a few times and eventually stumble back into smoking.

I would like to try gaping to see if it can get me "over the edge".

Thanks to those that are answering my question. Thank you to those who are concerned enough to help me quit entirely.

My uncle smoked for 20+ years, and decided to quit. Not because of health risks or seeing friends die, nope, he said when his carton topped sixty bucks it was too expensive and time to quit.

We work construction and for one week he asked a co worker for a cigarette after lunch. Only one he had that day. Five days of that and then none on Saturday, Sunday, and none that work week.

He's been nicotine free since February or March. No gum, pathes, vapers or anything of the like.

I never touched the stuff. I was young when the whole war on tobacco got started, and I'd say Tom Brokaw helped me not smoke more than anything else.

Good luck to you all.

Do or Do Not, there is no try.

There is no softer or easier way.

Dont be a Bob Costas.

I can say this because I quit cold turkey.

Just DO IT!

I was a 5 pack-a-dayer. Quitting was a bitch.

Everyone I know who was able to quit cold turkey is pretty much a shiny-happy-person on the subject. I couldn't do it, and most people can't.

It took me a long time. Years. I did everything I could, and really hated the process of quitting. I was ashamed of my addiction. This was before vaping.

I am going to avoid telling you how to do it, but do it. It's worth it.

Let me add one more thing... I used to work for a chemical company that made liquid vaping product for RJR. I REALLY don't trust vaping. The companies that make this stuff are the same companies that have made BILLIONS off killing people with chemicals in cigarettes- What possible motivation could they have to help anyone quit? The vaping liquids are just giving them the opportunity to deliver more potent and unregulated product to their addicts, while they are viewed as offering a "public service". It's a really dangerous position, and complete BS.

Some people have quit using eCigs. Bravo. Anything that works (I traded my cigarette addiction for other addictions while transitioning to being a non-smoker). But DO NOT believe you are being healthy if you just trade cigarettes for eCigs. It's a lie. In some ways you would be better off smoking- at least everyone around you hates it and is committed to making it difficult for you to continue.

SVreX wrote: Let me add one more thing... I used to work for a chemical company that made liquid vaping product for RJR. I REALLY don't trust vaping. The companies that make this stuff are the same companies that have made BILLIONS off killing people with chemicals in cigarettes- What possible motivation could they have to help anyone quit? The vaping liquids are just giving them the opportunity to deliver more potent and unregulated product to their addicts, while they are viewed as offering a "public service". It's a really dangerous position, and complete BS.

This is why I recommend finding a good vape shop that makes its own liquids. I know exactly what goes into my liquids because I watch them being made. All the flavorings are natural food grade flavorings. The base liquid is as noted before a either vegetable glycerine or propolene glycol or a blend and the nicotine, well thats the part that scares the hell out of me and why I don't just make my own liquid. Pure nicotine will kill, you need to know how to mix it properly. Most of the mass manufactured liquids are, as you noted, garbage.

Food grade flavorings are not the same thing once they've been vaporized.

It's still an unregulated market. Proceed with caution. (I'm no expert, but I know what it took in the chemical plant. BTW- that was all "food grade" too- it was even Kosher!)

SVreX wrote: Food grade flavorings are not the same thing once they've been vaporized. It's still an unregulated market. Proceed with caution. (I'm no expert, but I know what it took in the chemical plant. BTW- that was all "food grade" too- it was even Kosher!)

Oh, agreed, there is a degree of risk, but I'd still rather get juice that I see made in front of me than that produced by the tobacco companies.

Everything is out to kill me...I'm surprisingly ok with it.

I am amazed that people are OK inhaling propylene glycol vapors. You wouldn't drink it, why breathe it?

Another cold turkey guy here. Started chewing socially, up to a tin a day of grizzly wintergreen and more on weekends in a year, one day my tin ran out and I threw it in the trash and just didn't buy another. 2 years in January. Talking about it/watching others chew makes me still want it, I just don't give in. But I am a stubborn SOB.

In reply to SVreX:

Funny stuff might happen when you get those flavor compounds hot but there is no way it's anywhere near as carcinogenic/generally unhealthy as mass produced cigarette smoke, like probably not even 1% thereof.

Almost 20 years later I have smoking dreams and I dream I'm smoking - kinda wierd.

I love to smoke. I really miss it, and it's been 11 years since I've had one. I miss it so much I still call myself a smoker, I just haven't had one in a while. It's true your over the physical addiction quick, but it feels like I'll never be over the mental part. When I quit I used the Nicotrol inhaler for a week, but realized I was hooked on that so I stopped that as well.

Joey

Geez, some of you guys are hard core.

If this was a thread about the best bourbon or best cigar, I don't think it would have these posts saying to not drink alcohol or stop smoking cigars.

I guess not many people on this forum vape.

Thanks for your input Jim. Thanks to those offering vaping advice.

In reply to wvumtnbkr:

I apologize if I came across negative as some posters pointed out.

Your first post said you were trying to quit smoking and were looking at vaping as a method. I interpreted that to mean you wanted to quit as the goal. As a former smoker I gave the same advice that was given to me. It sucked, but it worked. It seems to have worked for others as well.

For me the hardest part was breaking the habits associated with smoking. I see vaping as something that continues many of those things that feed the addiction. For some people vaping seems to have worked. Whatever it takes to stop is what you need to do, If stopping is the goal.

If this was a thread about the best bourbon and you started it by asking "Im an alcoholic and I want to cut down on my tequila consumption, whats the best bourbon to do that?" I would imagine you would have people say you should quit drinking. There would likely be people telling you about overcoming their addiction.

Again, sorry if I came off as rude. I never offer advice on quitting smoking unless somebody asks and I thought that is what you were asking. I hated it when people tried to convince me to stop when I wasnt ready.

Good luck in whatever you decide to do. Its worth it in the end.

At the end of the day we all do stupid things that are going to kill us. If we'd all spend less time worrying about how we are going to die and start focusing on how we live we'd be better off.

wv, feel free to hit me up here or via email (jim at misfittoysracing dot com) if I can offer any more input.

I want to add another note to help those who want to abstain from smoking. One of the biggest hurdles for myself, and others I spoke to, was the fact that we DO enjoy smoking. And to think that we will NEVER get to do that again if we quit makes it seem insurmountable. So for myself, I still smoke, I just limited it. I can smoke....when Im in Vegas. I go to Vegas about once a year, sometimes every other year, but when Im there I can grab a cigar, or a pack of smoke and just enjoy it. But I leave it there. Fire up 3 packs in two days if I want, but leave it there. My last trip I didn't even smoke, but just knowing I could, knowing that I have that one rare occasion when I can still enjoy something I enjoyed for so long, made the quitting easier for me. YMMV

In reply to JThw8: That's exactly why I still consider myself a smoker! It's just been 11 years since I've had one!

Joey

JThw8 wrote: The base liquid is as noted before a either vegetable glycerine or propolene glycol or a blend and the nicotine, well thats the part that scares the hell out of me

For Berks sake why would you wan to add nicotine to vape juice?

It is not nicotine you are addicted to, it's the crap the tobacco companies put in their stuff that binds you to their products.

If you smokers don't believe me do this. You want to quit, so buy something you don't like to smoke and certainly from a different MFGR. This will cause withdrawals from chemicals other than nicotine. And to be certain, you will experience withdrawals, even though you are still smoking. This will be the withdrawals associated with the chemicals in the smokes, not nicotine. Now switch brands again to a different MFGR and something you also dont like and get lights or ultra lights. This will break any new dependencies and taper you off nicotine. DO NOT SMOKE ANY BRANDS YOU LIKE! This is critical to break the addictive bonds. For your last step switch to cigars or Sherman's (Supposedly all natural ingredients), do not smoke the whole thing and inhale as little as possible. At this point you should have broken all but a very light nicotine dependency (if there is such a thing). Now if you are serious it will be easy to leave smoking behind.

Using this method you will see that you are addicted to a certain brand and also find that other brands dont satisfy. This is due to your dependency on the different combination of addictive compounds in different brands. This realization really pissed me off and helped motivate me to quit.

bentwrench wrote: For Berks sake why would you wan to add nicotine to vape juice?

Because it's a pretty great stimulant?

You do have an interesting point under that though. To add an anecdote, when I was smoking on any sort of regular basis, back in college, I never really found it all that addictive. But I was smoking American Spirits, hand rolling drum, or putting pipe tobacco in a tube injector, all very high nicotine but minimal to no additives, just tobacco. I only do it every couple months now, mostly on long drives or when out drinking.

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

bentwrench wrote: For Berks sake why would you wan to add nicotine to vape juice?

Because it's a pretty great stimulant? You do have an interesting point under that though. To add an anecdote, when I was smoking on any sort of regular basis, back in college, I never really found it all that addictive. But I was smoking American Spirits, hand rolling drum, or putting pipe tobacco in a tube injector, all very high nicotine but minimal to no additives, just tobacco. I only do it every couple months now, mostly on long drives or when out drinking.

That's an interesting thought there. About a year before I quit I switched to roll your own smokes to save money. I was buying burly pipe tobacco, tubes and using an injector to make my own smokes. I wonder if that actually made it easier to quit?

In reply to Toyman01:

With all the random crap added to most mass produced cigarettes, I wouldn't doubt it. The really interesting thing was how many guys standing next to me smoking a marlboro, camel filters, etc. really didn't like the additive free stuff, "tastes like dirt", "too much kick", etc. Whereas I thought those all tasted like chemicals and I could feel the reduced lung function after a couple days of them, which I never got with my preferred stuff. Even when I was on some hell week bender in which I'd find myself smoking 4-5 american spirits a day, with the filter ripped off. I would still take the stairs with no noticeable change and could immediately taper back down to .5-1 a day or stop entirely without much trouble, just to prove to myself I could.

I quit smoking cold turkey. I battled another, more serious addiction for 25 years. After trying softer, easier ways, I quit that cold turkey as well.
I'm going to back logdog on this one. The original post was, basically, asking for help stopping an addictive behavior. If it was just stopping an addiction to a substance and transitioning to another one, his advice is crappy.

DrBoost wrote: If it was just stopping an addiction to a substance and transitioning to another one, his advice is crappy.

That depends how you look at it, that is, why quit? Because it's unhealthy or just because it's an addiction? While the absolute safety has yet to be quantified, vaping is definitely a very valid harm reduction method, should you stick with it rather than use it as some stepping stone. Nicotine in and of itself isn't terribly unhealthy. There's no way you're worse of for trading smoking for vaping.

I will echo the vaping caution, but I think for the most part it is from people who overuse it.

There was a story on NPR (still a somewhat reputable source) that talked about a woman dying from vaping. She way overdid it, of course, but the oily droplets of the flavored oil coated her lungs enough that she suffocated. An acquaintence of mine at the local bar was briefly hospitalized for a lung infection he blames on his vaping. He said he kept coughing up strawberry-flavored phlegm. But he was a hardcore vaper. He worked at a vape shop and modified his vaping thing to make more vapor. His big thing at the bar was blowing huge clouds of vapor to "impress" people I guess. Obvious over-user.

But, if you have a few drags every hour to curb a craving, I would suspect that it is likely better than tobacco.

There are a few addictions associated with smoking; simple habit, dependence on nicotine, muscle memory, etc. Mine is very strongly the addiction to nicotine. I would LOVE to not smoke. There are times at work when I don't have time to step out and I get wicked cravings. I would much rather not "have" to take the time out of my day to smoke. I'm also trying to land a dame. Not too many gals want to kiss an ashtray mouth. For the reason of nicotine dependency, vaping and ecigs didn't help me a bit. I either got the kind that didn't have nicotine and it just sucked, or I got the kind with nicotine and it just perpetuated the habit. I still had the cravings, now it just required a messy bottle, a bulky vaping unit, a charger, wadding, replaceable heating element. I usually said screw it and bought a pack of smokes.

The one time I did quit, it was just straight up commitment. No pills or patches or gum. Just cold turkey. It sucked. But my motivation was intense. My marriage was falling apart and I knew that she didn't like my smoking. So I eliminated it as a factor. Not long after that we divorced and I was able to keep up the non-smoking for about 9 months, but I went back.

Find what works for you. I wish I could say that I knew how to help, but the process of quitting is no different than anything else unique to humans in how they can best accomplish things.

I'm a little late to this party, I know.

I'm a cigar smoker and I don't smoke often. Never smoked anything else in my life. Not addicted to anything by any means. I've tasted vapes before just to know what my friends were puffing in. When I was doing my radio show, the vape shop was a huge sponsor, so there was a lot of vaping going on.

I've seen mixed results from it. I've seen people be able to wean themselves down with the help of the vaporizers, but I've also seen friends become completely dependent on the vaporizers instead of the cigarettes. In fact at times it seemed worse because vaping was so easy to do in environments you can't smoke in.

Using the vaporizer as a tool to wean yourself off nicotine is worth the try and worth looking silly. If you have the will to quit, the vaporizer can help.

I was looking for the old I quit thread to tell you guys that I had FINALLY gave up cigs. I did it with the help of a vape. Still use it, but it's getting longer and longer between refills, and I'm mixing my own juice and the nic level in the juice is going down and down.

I have to agree with the advice given earlier in this thread. Go to a shop, keep trying different setups. I found one that I though worked for me. And I mostly quit using cigs with it. I was still smoking the car with my wife, (she's still smoking) or if the battery went dead, I was still reaching for a cig. I got one of the higher end, variable voltage setups, that has a replaceable battery and haven't looked back. I was up to 2 packs a day when I said enough is enough! Seriously, since mid march the only time I've touched a cig was to light one for my wife being nice one night. NOPE, won't do that again, holy crap I can't believe I used to enjoy that.

Even went "cloud chasing" for a few weeks, but blowing big clouds when you're my age, is kinda like playing with yourself. Gets old real quick. Still have the cloud blowing setup, but it rarely comes out, and when it does it's never in public.

I've found that while it doesn't have the "smell" factor of cigs, there is still an odor, it's not to everyone's taste. Just don't do it where you wouldn't normally smoke.

EDIT - And those "blue" e-cig analogs sold in gas stations are made by the big tobacco companies, and have nicotine levels that will blow your mind. Crazy high levels of nic, they don't want you buying them.