"Prepare to stop smoking by keeping a journal," proclaims conventional wisdom. Would-be tobacco-dumpers are advised to jot it down every time we smoke, what we were doing, the occasions and activities that "trigger" our desire to smoke, rate each urge to smoke on a scale, blah blah.
If you smoke continuously from the time you wake up till the time you go to sleep, that's not really practical. Your desire to smoke is triggered by being conscious and breathing.
So let's tweak that into a journal that can tell us something we don't know - an e-smoking journal that begins with our e-cigarette deflowering.
They make them in cherry flavor for a reason, right?
As you're getting acquainted with your e-cigarette, if you want a tobacco one, don't worry about your feelings or what's happening in your life.
Instead ask yourself - what is it you're wanting?
Is it a physical thing, as if you'd been in a meeting or a non-smoker's car, and couldn't smoke for a while?
Is it the difference in weight, taste, sensation in your throat, on your lips, in your hand, the amount of visible "smoke," what? Is it just the custom of lighting something?
Write all THAT down - along with the flavor and nicotine level of the e-cigarette you were smoking, and go have a tobacco cigarette.
WHAT!?!
♫ Uh-huh, I said it. ♫
If you sit there puffing your e-cigarette and wanting something else, you're not going to be making a transition, you're going to be adding stress to the experience, getting nasty unpleasant associations all over your nice clean New Thing neural pathways, and you might be messing with your nicotine level.
So smoke a tobacco one. If you find you want a whole bunch of them, more than you would usually have smoked in the amount of time you were practicing with your e-cigarette, in my opinion, that would seem to point the accusing finger at a nicotine issue.
Up that just a smoosh next time you e-smoke, and see if you obtain a different result.
By "up that a smoosh," I don't necessarily mean use a different cartomizer or juice. The device we're using may be new to us, but the action we're performing may go back as far as our childhood, so deep in our muscle memory that for all practical purposes, it's a voluntary action in name only.
The amount of nicotine we get from an e-cigarette has a very different, and it seems to me, a much closer relationship, with the minutiae of how we puff and inhale, than tobacco cigarettes ever did.
You'd think that after doing something every few seconds for half a century, especially something as simple as puffing a cigarette, I'd be pretty good at it. An expert, even.
Having read so much about the difference in "how to smoke" e-cigarettes, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could indeed puff it just like I was used to doing with a Marlboro.
However, as so many of you warned me, the devil is in the details.
It turns out I'm not exactly an expert on those yet.
I can use the same basic technique, and I can obtain the exact same sensation, but making B happen on a consistent basis is contingent on perfecting A.
It's only fitting that the story of Goldilocks is where we find the syllabus for Puffing 101, because if I puff too hard on my e-cigarette, it's a trip down memory lane - back to those first stolen cigarettes of childhood. {{Cough cough}}
Puff too gently, and nothing happens. No "throat hit," no vapor, nothing.
But hit the Goldilocks Golden Mean, and Whoomp! There it is! Juuust Right! The exact same sensation I get from tobacco cigarettes!
I've never had to think about the nuances of puffing before, but the last few days, I've thought of little else.
First I've got to learn to achieve that Juuust Right! puff consistently.
Then I'll have to learn to achieve it consistently without thinking about it.
We all have our own unique way of smoking, how hard we puff, how much air we take in with the smoke, how deeply we inhale it, blah blah.
What that half-century of puffing DID do is hard-wire my unique puffing style in a half dozen or so parts of my brain.
Re-programming all those neural pathways isn't going to happen overnight, and if you tire as easily as I do, you'll need to plan for a lot of extra rest time to compensate for the extra coughing.
The good news is - I'm smoking fewer tobacco cigarettes even when I'm NOT practicing with my electric hookah-doodle, because I spend more time taking copious notes about HOW I'm smoking the Marlboro than actually smoking it!
If you smoke continuously from the time you wake up till the time you go to sleep, that's not really practical. Your desire to smoke is triggered by being conscious and breathing.
So let's tweak that into a journal that can tell us something we don't know - an e-smoking journal that begins with our e-cigarette deflowering.
They make them in cherry flavor for a reason, right?
As you're getting acquainted with your e-cigarette, if you want a tobacco one, don't worry about your feelings or what's happening in your life.
Instead ask yourself - what is it you're wanting?
Is it a physical thing, as if you'd been in a meeting or a non-smoker's car, and couldn't smoke for a while?
Is it the difference in weight, taste, sensation in your throat, on your lips, in your hand, the amount of visible "smoke," what? Is it just the custom of lighting something?
Write all THAT down - along with the flavor and nicotine level of the e-cigarette you were smoking, and go have a tobacco cigarette.
WHAT!?!
♫ Uh-huh, I said it. ♫
If you sit there puffing your e-cigarette and wanting something else, you're not going to be making a transition, you're going to be adding stress to the experience, getting nasty unpleasant associations all over your nice clean New Thing neural pathways, and you might be messing with your nicotine level.
So smoke a tobacco one. If you find you want a whole bunch of them, more than you would usually have smoked in the amount of time you were practicing with your e-cigarette, in my opinion, that would seem to point the accusing finger at a nicotine issue.
Up that just a smoosh next time you e-smoke, and see if you obtain a different result.
By "up that a smoosh," I don't necessarily mean use a different cartomizer or juice. The device we're using may be new to us, but the action we're performing may go back as far as our childhood, so deep in our muscle memory that for all practical purposes, it's a voluntary action in name only.
The amount of nicotine we get from an e-cigarette has a very different, and it seems to me, a much closer relationship, with the minutiae of how we puff and inhale, than tobacco cigarettes ever did.
You'd think that after doing something every few seconds for half a century, especially something as simple as puffing a cigarette, I'd be pretty good at it. An expert, even.
Having read so much about the difference in "how to smoke" e-cigarettes, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could indeed puff it just like I was used to doing with a Marlboro.
However, as so many of you warned me, the devil is in the details.
It turns out I'm not exactly an expert on those yet.
I can use the same basic technique, and I can obtain the exact same sensation, but making B happen on a consistent basis is contingent on perfecting A.
It's only fitting that the story of Goldilocks is where we find the syllabus for Puffing 101, because if I puff too hard on my e-cigarette, it's a trip down memory lane - back to those first stolen cigarettes of childhood. {{Cough cough}}
Puff too gently, and nothing happens. No "throat hit," no vapor, nothing.
But hit the Goldilocks Golden Mean, and Whoomp! There it is! Juuust Right! The exact same sensation I get from tobacco cigarettes!
I've never had to think about the nuances of puffing before, but the last few days, I've thought of little else.
First I've got to learn to achieve that Juuust Right! puff consistently.
Then I'll have to learn to achieve it consistently without thinking about it.
We all have our own unique way of smoking, how hard we puff, how much air we take in with the smoke, how deeply we inhale it, blah blah.
What that half-century of puffing DID do is hard-wire my unique puffing style in a half dozen or so parts of my brain.
Re-programming all those neural pathways isn't going to happen overnight, and if you tire as easily as I do, you'll need to plan for a lot of extra rest time to compensate for the extra coughing.
The good news is - I'm smoking fewer tobacco cigarettes even when I'm NOT practicing with my electric hookah-doodle, because I spend more time taking copious notes about HOW I'm smoking the Marlboro than actually smoking it!
