I began vaping in August 2017. I dual used for at least nine months. I realized pretty quickly that I was not going to be one of those who transition to vaping easily. I did begin to write down the time of every cigarette I smoked in a little pocket notebook before I lit up. I eliminated a lot of mindless cigarettes that way. By May of last year, I was down to 2 or 3 cigarettes per week. I finished my last pack of American Spirit and decided not to buy another. I had smoked 20/25 per day for over 40 years. I am now coming up on one year without smoking a cigarette. Good luck!
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Honestly, I don't think that Vaping is a direct replacement for smoking. I was a pack per day smoker, and I went from a pack per day to 3 per day overnight. Remember, nicotine is not the only addictive chemical in a cigarette. What I did, was use a high nicotine juice. the devices I use now are old by todays standards, so the nicotine levels might be different. I started with 18mg/ml and went from that to 12mg/ml. I still felt the urge to smoke, so I made a rule where I can vape indoors, but have to smoke outdoors. Challenge yourself to see how long you can go without a cigarette.
It took me like 3-6 months to fully quit. Last time I challenged myself to see how long I can go... that was like 6 years ago.
There are juices that have came out since I quit that might help as well. there is something called WTA juices, and I've heard others have gotten good results from those. I cannot say for sure since I haven't tried them though.
And lastly, don't look at dual using as a failure... Think of it more like a transitional period. It still takes effort to quit... but with vaping, that effort should be much easier.
I'm sure that most of the reason I could taper off and quit so easily was the 24mg juice. My 2PAD habit turned into 6 cigs a day the first week. As I said uptopic I could have probably quit completely in the first month, but I waited almost a year to drop the last 6 a day. Those 6 were my perceived crutch. As it turned out all I had to do was vape a little harder until my body lost the craving.
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What Neal said. Vaping takes the edge off tapering down on the cigs. If you feel the need to smoke, do it. As you progress into vaping make deals with yourself. This week I'll drop X number of smokes. Do it and vape a little harder if the craving hits. After all, quitting is as much mental as it is physical. Your brain still likes the smoke in the beginning and hasn't gotten used to the fact that the vapor looks and feels like smoke, but doesn't exactly taste like it. That will ease the farther into vaping you are and the farther away from all those smokes you get.
Once you get to the point where you can just smoke one with coffee in the AM and after meals, you have crossed the threshold toward a permanent cessation of smoking. One day you'll decide that this is the last pack you are going to buy. Vape heavy for a while and enjoy the fact that you are officially a non-smoker.
I spent about 9 months tapering down and hanging on to some of the smokes. When I finally didn't buy another pack, it wasn't a problem. I just vaped a little harder for a few days and never looked back. It's been 9 years since I lit a cigarette and I used the above strategy to get there. These days I consider my vape a lifelong hobby. I don't plan to quit vaping.
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I hear you, when I started that 24mg was definitely needed and I vaped it until I nicted out which made me not think of smoking to much. My wife was on 18mg and I just couldn't do it with that, so that extra 6mg was a big difference. It made me choke and cough a little , but fortunately it did it and dual using was short lived. I do think that some newbs today are reluctant to try regular high mg nic today, whether it's hard to find or people just think it's bad in a way because most are using much lower doses while vaping much of it....whatever works in the end is best, but it all should be tried at least. Imo these are what should be tried when trying to quit, mtl regular hi nic juice with mtl set up, regular mtl pod type device with hi nic salt, dtl sub device medium to high reg nic juice, and dtl sub ohm lower regular nic juice. That would be at least my personal recommendations and in that order.
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I just need to stop and have decided I will not buy any more smokes. I am done. Thanks for your help.
<<< See when I signed up....still smoking. At least us dual users are trying, and thats all that matters.
It is definitely a mental thing with me. I know I have everything I need to quit. And, I truly want to. I am not buying any more cigs. I have tried to taper for last year and a half and isn’t working. I just need to quit smoking and keep vaping. I know I would feel so much better. Thanks!
I used both for a long time. I got down to two cigarettes every morning and that went on for quite a while. One morning I realized that I hadn't had a cigarette in several days. I don't know exactly when I quit. I still had several packs but was never interested in smoking them. But, I'll bet my total time of using both cigarettes and vape was at least six months.
Count the ones you don't smoke and don't worry about those you do smoke.
Count the ones you don't smoke and don't worry about those you do smoke.
Good Lord! Of course. All of us. Why else are we here?
It's been years, I still struggle with the demon.
Count the ones you don't smoke, not the ones you do.
It's been years, I still struggle with the demon.
Count the ones you don't smoke, not the ones you do.
It was slow and painful for me. I'm not going to lie. But it's been 4 years, and I haven't really wanted to smoke for a couple of years.
The main thing to keep in mind is that you cannot switch from smoking to vaping just by vaping alone. That's not going to do it. You HAVE to want to quit smoking. It's just a part of it. I think a lot of people believe (I did) that vaping is going to just make your cigarette addiction go away. Nope. You still have to quit smoking. Vaping will make it easier, but it's not going to do it for you.
It's a complete lifestyle change. It's not easy. When smoking, you can smoke one and be good for a while before the next one. Vaping is not like that. Not at all. Vaping becomes a habit, but a different one.
You have to have it with you all the time. I was lucky in the sense that I work from home, so I was able to chain vape all day. That gave me an advantage. This was back when nic salts didn't exist. Freebase was all there was. Nic salts would have helped me TREMENDOUSLY. This will get you back into the "smoke one and you're good for a while" territory. I'm not going to mess with salts now though, since I'm good with freebase. I feel the salts would bring me closer to smoking again, and that's not what I want.
Looking back on my own experience, some things that I think would help vapers quit smoking much easier is -
1.) Go with nic salts, at least at first. This is going to give you a smoother transition and keep your cravings at bay.
2.) Find a few flavors that you like, and stick with those for a while. Don't keep experimenting with flavors. Focus on quitting smoking.
3.) Same with equipment. Find something that you like and focus on that. I think people spend too much time getting into the gadgetry of vaping and not focusing on the main goal of quitting smoking. All of the experimentation can happen later, once you feel you have control of the smoking.
With all of that said, to this day, I use a lot of the same equipment I did 4 years ago. I'm JUST NOW looking into newer stuff.
You can do this!
One of the things I noticed: if you’re smoking 2 1/2 packs a day, there must be someplace (your home) where you can smoke. The only people I know who still smoke two or more packs of cigarettes? Over the road trucker‘s who own their own rig! You might decide to only smoke cigarettes outside your home or in the garage/patio etc.
Do all your Vaping where ever you want… Excluding places where it’s not allowed. It might help. I have Parkinson’s and it’s difficult for me to go outside, so vaping inside was kind of a treat. Above all, every cigarette you don't smoke is A step in the right direction. You’ll get there!
I started vaping after 42 years a cigs. Quit smoking the day i bought my first vape. No cigs at all for the first 3 or 4 months. Then came deer camp. And i took one pack of cigs for some unknown reason with me. Truth is, they were nasty. I wont go back to cigs. I do admit that high stress, dead battery with no back up or a bad coil that cant be replaced immediately will cause me to have an occasional cig but smoking as a habit is no longer in my vocabulary. Even the occasional cig or two taste so bad that its like how did i ever like these before? Start with high nic, vape til ya puke ( not literally) every time you want a cig and you will beat it. Be persistent. You are replacing cigs. Thats the mindset.....replacement. My first vape store even took my cigs from me and gave me a 15% discount on my first purchace. Yeah i went to the vape store with cigs in my pocket. Didnt know about or expect the discount, but it was an added plus. I was determined to quit though giving a new pack of smokes to a stranger only to watch him crush them up an toss em in the trash was kinda weird for me for a minute or two.
My transition was pretty quick. I smoked for 20 years, smoked about 2-2 1/2 packs per day. I got my vape and dual used for 7-10 days and stopped smoking. I had all the nic I needed (ran 3mg in a DL setup) with my vape, but the cigarette cravings were still there. It is a craving for the other stuff in cigs, because you get addicted to much more than just nicotine with tobacco products.
I just made my mind up and quit smoking. It was rough for a few days, but I just considered that was the price to pay for my poor decision to start smoking, and also the price to pay to increase the quality of the life I have left. I still have a mostly full pack of cigs on my night stand as a reminder. I quit about 1 1/2 years ago.
I just made my mind up and quit smoking. It was rough for a few days, but I just considered that was the price to pay for my poor decision to start smoking, and also the price to pay to increase the quality of the life I have left. I still have a mostly full pack of cigs on my night stand as a reminder. I quit about 1 1/2 years ago.
I started vaping in the summer of '17. It took a week of dual use to completely stop smoking. After a month I dropped to 6 nicotine and been there since. It's not that hard if you make up your mind and decide to really give vaping a chance.
I started vaping with a Que device a couple of years ago but went back to smoking until I ended up in the hospital, on life support, and the doc told my wife I was not going to live. I had smoked for 50 years, but I came back to life amazingly, and after I got out late late in '17 I bought cigs again! My wife brought out the Que again so I used it but it was expensive so I went and bought a Juul and used that for a few months before buying my present vape, a Lost Vape DNA Go. My wife convinced me (after 2 more trips to the ER for breathing problems) that if I smoked I'd die so that week I mixed vaping and smoking and when I ran out of cigs just vaped and here I am 6 months later not missing cigs at all. It was life or death for me and I feel like I'm winning now! Good luck to you!
Hey,
I've failed multiple times, I think its not just to do with the nicotine and the mental choice to want to stop but the habit in general.
I really enjoy taking those 5 minute smoking breaks, clears my mind and I link it to relaxation.
Maybe don't start off with a big device which feels so different to smoking, try smaller ones which are so familiar. And you don't have to cut the nicotine down so quickly, remember the nicotine itself is just part of the addiction.
Good luck and keep trying
Hope this helps.
Penny
I've failed multiple times, I think its not just to do with the nicotine and the mental choice to want to stop but the habit in general.
I really enjoy taking those 5 minute smoking breaks, clears my mind and I link it to relaxation.
Maybe don't start off with a big device which feels so different to smoking, try smaller ones which are so familiar. And you don't have to cut the nicotine down so quickly, remember the nicotine itself is just part of the addiction.
Good luck and keep trying
Hope this helps. Penny
Hi GPJoe - thank you for posting this - my story is almost a dead on match to yours.
It really made me smile! same here, 45+ PAD, Dual user for years, but almost a year now cigarette free thanks to Juul. Unfortunately, being diagnosed with COPD was my wake up call. Huge improvements since I went cigarette free!
To the OP - keep trying, trust me the alternative is absolutely terrible.
Think of the worse cold you ever had during your life and think about it never going away and you'll be close to the impact emphysema has on your life.
Excellent thread with fantastic posts - I'm really happy to see so many others here vaping for the same reason I am. The biggest surprise for me has been the smell of smoking. I can smell a cigarette from across a parking lot, I can smell the smoke on a person immediately. As a long term smoker I never even noticed it, now I can't stand the smell of it. It amazes me still.
Do what I did g high nic juice I'm at 20mg nic a CIG does nothing for me .... give me a headache
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