I've been thinking on why vaping with flavored eliquid is so effective at tobacco smoking cessation.
Smoking cigarettes was more than just a physical dependence for me, it also consisted of breaking the bad habits. I wanted to stop using tobacco, but there was more to quitting, and staying quit, than I first thought.
I tried nicotine gum, patches, chantix, etc. Nothing worked until I took up vaping. Here are my thoughts on why I think it worked, when nothing else did.
Physical needs
Tobacco contains several alkaloids and chemicals, in addition to nicotine, that change the effect nicotine has on our body and brain. Some of these alkaloids and chemicals likely have effects on their own. When changing from tobacco use to ecigarettes, I know that I initially experienced cravings that nicotine did not curb. If it was only nicotine I craved, vaping would have eliminated my cravings. This wouldn't happen for me until a little later on in vaping.
Behavior, eg. Habit
Repeating an action long enough creates a habit. Some habits can reinforce an addiction, or be a part of that addiction. Breaking those habits, in my experience, is more than half the battle when quitting.
One of the hardest habits for me to break was the ritual of smoking. It went something like this; Walk into the convenience store, buy a pack of smokes, pack them on my palm, open the cellophane, remove the top of the liner, smell that fresh pack of smokes. Take a cigarette out, light it up, smoke it, put it out. Repeat part two until your almost out, then go to the store and buy another pack.
In the beginning I had to avoid going in the store and just pay with a card at the pump. Over time this impulse has disappeared.
The act of smoking itself was the other major habit I had to change. I did this by replacement.
When I quit I found that mimicking the act of inhaling smoke, by inhaling vapor instead, helped me to satisfy the hand-to-mouth habit part of smoking. Raising my pv to my lips, taking a drag, then lowering it to my side is very similar to the way I used to smoke a cigarette. The feeling of drawing warm vapor into my mouth, then lungs, substituted for taking puffs on a cigarette.
So why are flavors so important then?
Even with the habit side of smoking more or less dealt with, I still felt I was missing something. The gnawing pull of a cigarette was still there. It only abated when I was actually vaping (and shortly after), even though I knew I had enough nic in my system.
What's going on then?
Flavors
I believe that adding flavors has a twofold benefit in successfully switching from tobacco to vaping.
When I enjoy a flavor, and I mean really enjoy it, my tastebuds and scent receptors light up in a flavorgasm. The thought of cigarettes gets pushed to the back of my mind, if only temporarily, as I focus on the sensations I'm experiencing with this vapor. That moment, and for a short time afterwards, I experience true relief from my cravings. When vaping a flavor I dislike, I don't feel as satisfied and vape more trying to fill that craving.
The two main processes that I believe are occuring to provide that relief are a shifting of focus (distraction), and pleasure.
Distraction & pleasure
Replacing an unpleasant stimulus with a pleasant one is a widely accepted method of behavior modification. Pleasure releases endorphins, sex & drugs release alot of endorphins for example. Taste & smell do this as well in smaller amounts.
I stated earlier that repeating an action long enough creates a habit. After vaping for a period of time, the association that vaping=pleasure became hardwired into my brain, and the longer that I vaped, the stronger the association grew. On the flip side the longer I avoided tobacco, the greater dissociation with the pleasure response became.
Today I don't even want to smoke, it's nasty.
Sometime later on my vape journey, heavily flavored vapor became unpleasant. I think that was after my tastebuds grew back more. I found that I used less and less flavor as time went by. Oversaturation of my tastebuds is unpleasant now.
I still enjoy flavors, but the percentages I use have been cut drastically. I regularly used 15-20% when I started, now I use from 1-5% on average. Also I started on 18-24 mg per mL of nicotine, and now use 6 mg.
I know that this stuff is common knowledge to most of y'all, same as me, but I haven't seen it presented this way in the same place before. Hopefully someone can get some good use out of this somehow.
This past week marks 5 years since I smoked a cigarette. It honestly doesn't seem that long, it seems like yesterday I was huddled out in the cold at work with the smokers. I had been a smoker for 28 years.
Unlike many I see posting here, I cannot say vaping helped me quit. I quit cold turkey, and never tried an ecig until about a year after I quit smoking. At that point I was still doing well as a non-smoker, I didn't physically crave smoking, but I missed the 28 year habit of lighting up, having something to fiddle with, and just the relaxing feeling of the inhale/exhale. I had been eating a lot more to make up for the void, and having been underweight all my life I started packing on pounds (too many!). I sorely needed a non-food substitute for the comfort I was missing, but wasn't about to go back to smoking.
I tried a junky convenience store ecig after that first year, and thought "if this was what they were like than forget it". I continued on not smoking, but still missing the habit. About two years after that I began seeing the new advanced products coming out, and did a lot of research. I bought my first starter kit in 2013, and slowly advanced up to bigger and better gear.
People ask why would start vaping after I had already kicked the cigarette habit, and I say, "Why not?". Other than nicotine I'm not getting any of the negative things I got with cigarettes. And in my opinion, there's really nothing wrong with a little nicotine. Nicotine is not what was killing me, it was the smoke that was delivering the nicotine that was killing me.
So I'm 5 years smoke free, I no longer hack in the mornings, my chest never hurts and my clothes, car and hair don't stink anymore.
I have no intentions on giving up vaping, as it has no negative impact on my life, and i enjoy it, so why stop?
I have since gotten my son, my step-son, and his wife to all trade vaping for smoking, so bonus points for saving all their lives too!
Hey guys,
I’m new to vaping. I have been a heavy 2 pack a day Marlboro light smoker for 20 years. I recently got into vaping and so far it has been an amazing journey!
I started with a small pod device (Caliburn) with 16MG nic salt. I found that I was still not able to quit smoking. I went back to my local Vape shop and got some 20mg nic salt juice, and that was too strong! It made me dizzy and confused and I just felt unwell. Even though @20mg I was getting a lot of nicotine I still wanted to smoke a cigarette.
On a whim I decided to give sub ohm vaping a try. I got myself a Lost Vape Thelema DNA 250c + a Freemax Mesh Pro 2 tank. I opted with 6MG freebase juice at 70/30. And sure enough it worked! I was able to quit smoking and have been smoke free for a week now!
My question though, is 6MG freebase nic @0.2 ohms (dual mesh), 70-80 watts too much? I feel fine for the most part and my cravings for cigarettes are under control. However from what I’ve read (and what the guy at my local Vape shop says) is that for sub ohm vaping you generally should stick to about 3mg of nicotine.
I know everyone is different, and you should do what works for you. But I’m just worried that with the large amount of Vapor I’m producing 6MG might just be a little risky.
I Vape quite a lot (200-250 puffs a day) and probably somewhere around 15-20ml of juice a day (at 0.2 ohms @ 70w the juice burns pretty quick). As mentioned above I generally feel fine. However sometimes I do feel a bit out of breath and like my chest is heavy. This could be gas (perhaps from inhaling so much air?). Or it could just be me adjusting from cigarettes to vaping. I don’t feel nauseous or have headaches.
Please let me know your opinions. Would really appreciate some advice from more experienced vapers!
Thanks!
I quit smoking to start vaping and have never once missed smoking. A little over a month ago I quit vaping all together after two years of slowly working my nicotine level down from 36mg to 0mg.
I quit vaping at zero milligrams of nicotine and never experienced nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
I guess these would all be good things except for the fact that I miss vaping. Multiple times a day since I quit the thought of having a vape pops in my head and just as soon as it does this weird feeling of loss follows as I realize I no longer vape. I would think by now these feeling would have subsided but they have not.
I wouldn't think much of it but since quitting I have gained 10lbs, have little to no energy, find myself easily frustrated and worst of all have found myself drinking a lot more than normal (which is probably why I gained 10lbs anyway). A huge part of me just wants to go back to vaping.
I guess my question is, Did anyone else quit vaping and experience weird side effects from quitting? If so, how long did it take you to feel normal again?
Hi All! Sorry if this is long. This place is a lifesaver. I was a 30 year PAD smoker. Tried all the recommendations to quit. Resigned to smoking forever. I heard of vaping in 2013 and found this site. The day my Ego arrived in the mail on April 15, 2013, I put down the cigs and haven’t had a puff since that day. (I still smoke in my dreams every night.) I started out at 18 mg, and went up to 24 for a while. I vaped way higher nicotine than my cigs had, and much more often. I even took my Ego pen to bed and put it under my pillow to use through the night. No matter how much Nicotine I inhaled, I still went through the same withdrawals that I did when quitting cold turkey, or the gum, or the patch, or setting a timer between smokes. It was obvious I wasn’t withdrawing from nicotine. It’s from whatever chemicals are in the cigarettes.
Over the last 7 years, I’ve gone down from 18mg, to 12, to 6, and now 3. Not by choice. I was happy at 18. I started getting lightheaded, so stepped down the nicotine in levels. Not because I wanted less nicotine, but because my body couldn’t handle it. I’m now at 3mg, and starting to getting lightheaded from it. Next step is 0mg. I’ve no problem going to no nicotine, but after so long, I can’t imagine not having the inhale/exhale/hand to mouth repetition.
Has anyone gotten to 0mg and still vapes, or have you broken the habit?
Some of y'all may remember me, some not so fondly, but that's okay. I used to be a very frequent and outspoken contributor here.
I haven't posted in awhile. Mainly because I fell off the wagon big time after 5 years of vaping and felt like a hypocrite posting on these forums.
I've tried new vaping products in the interim and just haven't been able to stay away from the cancer sticks.
That changed for me yesterday after trying the Iqos device.
I tried one, bought one and haven't had an analog since.
For those wondering about these, especially those who are looking for that missing something with nicotine salts, WTA etc, give these a try.
They are basically a miniature dry herb vaporizer for tobacco.
You get that same instant rush from a cigarette, those same missing chemicals, and a very similar hand and mouth feel.
No harshness or coughing like from vaping either. And the taste is PHENOMENAL. I'm not a fan of tobacco flavors....have never smoked for the taste.... but this is the fullest, cleanest tobacco flavor I've ever experienced.
And the best part is, since nothing is burning like a cigarette, there's a big reduction in tar and harmful chemicals.
I will try to post a video review in the next few days if anyone is interested.
This is a game changer for me, even bigger than that first kr808 I tried over a decade ago....and if keeps someone else off of cigarettes, I think it's worth posting here
Hello fellow vapers.
Here is a topic I was thinking of lately and I wanted to ask your opinion/plans.
Generally speaking, e-cigs were invented in order to help smokers switch from smoking regular cigs to something much less harmful and eventually help people quit this (one of the worst) habit of smoking / adding nicotine to your system.
Ideal plan was to give a smoker something similar (as a process) with enough nicotine to satisfy his needs but without all that sh@t that cigs contain.
After some time this ex-smoker was suppose to start lowering amounts of nicotine in his e-juice up until he is OK with 0 mg. nic vaping.
And eventually quit vaping as well, eliminating the habit.
In reality, I'd say about 80% of ex-smokers who became vapers don't even plan to quit vaping, they have their preferred nic. level and they keep on vaping it year after year being happy about it.
So what's your opinion on that? Do you also plan to keep on vaping or you might quit it in the future?
THERE ARE ONLY 116 COMMENTS POSTED ABOUT THE PMTA ON THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE
Here is the link: Premarket Tobacco Product Applications and Recordkeeping Requirementsv
and here is the post I made to the FDA:
Smoking costs millions and millions of lives across the globe annually, and people suffer through their addiction to cigarette tobacco, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco. They suffer hideously disabling and disfiguring diseases and even still, many smokers are stuck chained to the yoke of that addiction until the day they die, and sometimes they unwittingly take loved ones and even their pets with them through continuous exposure to second hand smoke and the residues it leaves behind for children to play on. It was a horrible, horrible thought to realize that anyone in close proximity to MY cigarette was being exposed to toxic waste.
I discovered vaping after I had exhausted every other avenue that I could find in my efforts to quit smoking for good. I was determined. I gave my word to my father as he was dying of lung cancer. That is what he asked me to do the last time I saw him alive. He was a wonderful, witty man who enjoyed cross-country skiing and horseback riding and had never been sick a day in his life until he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
The day my father passed away I was taking Wellbutrin, and I was suffering hideous side effects from the drug. Wellbutrin was one of many, many medications and products that I had tried, and failed, to quit with. Of course, big tobacco companies were banking on that, which is why they invested so much of their marketing strategy on enticing people when they were very, very young.
This device that I have in my hand right now is what saved me from carrying on with that relentless cycle of failure that I had become so used to. It is the device itself and the flavored juices that I use with it which made that possible and made cigarettes obsolete. I can do things with my vape that I could never do with a cigarette, and because my device is so vastly superior to fire at the end of a stick which tastes like rotten sewage mixed with car exhaust when inhaled, quitting was actually quite enjoyable. I control the temperature of my vapor and the strength of the nicotine I inhale. I can decide if I want to feel the vapor in my throat, or not.
Nothing soothed my irritated throat and lungs the way vape did when I first quit. It also soothed my nerves because while I did still had access to nicotine, I was also withdrawing from the many other alkaloids that these tobacco companies had incorporated into their products which enhanced the addicting effects of the nicotine. But cigarettes had finally met their match with this wonderful device because I simply woke up one day and realized that I hadn't smoked in quite some time and furthermore, I had no desire to whatsoever. Wow. Just wow.
It gave me back the control that I had been denied for over three decades of my life, and I am no longer a slave to an outrageously priced killer bent on decimating my wallet while inflicting a very long and slow death sentence on me.
But now I and thousands and perhaps millions of others are faced with these sweeping and draconian PMTA regulations and flavor bans because you want to take that control away, demolish the entire vaping industry and hand the wreckage of what's left over back to big tobacco so they they can reconstitute 'vaping' into a cigarette styled device filled with cigarette flavored liquid because they're addicts - they will have to take what we force-feed them.
By doing this, you will be destroying the lives of all of those people who put their heart and souls into creating and developing and producing these devices and the juices that we buy. You are taking away my right to read the safety data sheets that many of these companies freely provide because they are well aware that a lot of us want to know exactly what we are buying and putting into our bodies. We have trust issues, you see.
You are depriving people who have not yet made the switch the opportunity to do so, and you are trying to take the very thing that saved, not only my life, by my sense of self and self worth right out of my hands and the hands of everybody else who successfully QUIT their deadly addiction to toxic smoke, while telling us that what is good for us is to have a dubious fluid produced by even more dubious companies inserted into a cigarette like device that tastes like cigarettes. And let's face it, that will cause thousands of people to go back to the habit they thought they had given up for good -- or turn to a black market source in order to continue doing what they were doing before their supply was cut off.
That would be an unbelievable tragedy and all the more tragic because an agency of the government is what would force them to do it. These regulations are a slap in the face to any logical argument about the safety of inhaling my flavored vapor as opposed to smoke. I am happy and proud that I was finally able to accomplish the promise that I made to a dying man. What was your promise?
I was thinking the whole situation in many countries that vaping is straight up banned or illegal....and also countries like USA that is not that extreme but still many regulations going on and anyways we all know the big tobacco companies and what they try to do.
I am sure tho that vaping won't be stoped...u can't stop vaping and all the big tobacco do is to try buy some more time for them cause they know that cigarettes are in their end..
I don't know how long this will last but I am sure vaping will make cigarette smoking obselete and it will go very big...
Europe claims they have a plan to end tobacco use until 2032 or something like that for example....maybe that happens and it would be good cause it's for everyone's good.... but u can't just fight vaping and let smoking still exist...
Vaping will be back and for good....the people slowly start accept it and learn it cause honestly imagine how many smokers are out there and how many vapers...while vaping is much more enjoyable objectively...
We the people didn't support vaping enough...
ok maybe we the vapers did but I mean the majority out there don't......people are scared and they don't like to change their habits easy....even if it's for their own good.
I know politics are corrupted and all that....but some of us live in democracies maybe not perfect but still....if all people wanted to stop smoking and switch into vaping to make their life better then they couldn't stop us...
Worst case they would do it to get votes like they usually do with everything they do... not that they care for us...
So yeah vaping will go very big the next year's..
So here's the issue. After about 5 or 6 years of bouncing back and forth between vaping and smoking, something has to give.
Now I don't need advice on thich gear to buy or which juice to buy because I have all that and and am usually equipped with my DNA mods, various RDA's and Breeze disposables. But my problem is that I live with and am i. A relationship with a smoker who has no desire to quit.
I usually do fine when I'm at work and can manage not to smoke with my vaping products. But when I come home and sit with her when she's chain smoking, I need a cigarette. I'll start by taking a smoke or two from her to buying my own pack sometimes and not vapimg again until the next day. Has anyone experienced this or have any tips to break the cycle? I definitely smoke a lot less than I used to but need to be done with the cigarettes for good.
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I've been trying to get my dad to quit smoking for two years now. He wanted to quit using an e-cig. However, he just can't seem to stick with it. He has been smoking for 30+ years. He smokes almost two packs a day.
I think the problem really is that he hasn't -tried-. As soon as he wants a real smoke, he lights one up. He only uses his e-cig is places he can't smoke.
He says he wants something that taste like tobacco. I've tried buying him numerous tobacco e-liquids. The closest was one from Ahlusion, but he still says it isn't like tobacco. He keeps saying he'll quit, but then he doesn't.
He has an ego with a mini protank, he seems fine with that. He isn't very amused by my mech mods and RTAs. lol.
I'm just lost as to what to do. A lot of people say to just stop telling him to do so and let him do it on his own. It is hard to just sit and watch him smoke though, esp when my mom had lung cancer just over a year ago (luckily, she did quit smoking with an e-cig and went into remission after radiation treatment). When I switched, I had only just started to smoke again (I smoked 3 years, quit, then started smoking again for about 4 months, then to an e-cig). I didn't like tobacco flavors when I started and almost immediately went to fruit flavors. He's tried those too, doesn't have much interest in them.
So my question to you ex long term smokers, what helped you make the switch? I feel like I just can't relate to smoking 30 something years.