Day 5; Went back to the analogs :-(

[RedNBlack]

jingo,
You did not cave in, the "stinky monkey" is heck to shake off your back.
You did not say how long you had been smoking analogs...

12 mg nic (as in the above posts) may be a little on the low side.
bump up the nic level for those times you feel the monkey trying to take control.
I still have days when 24 mg is the only way to control that monkey.
Try to take it one day at a time.
I don't think there is a time limit for the "vape ride",
you get on, ride while you can, get off if you have to,
but when you get back on,
the monkey is sitting in the seat behind you........

 

[StephN1966]

I had to chime in as a 2.5-3 a day smoker I NEVER imagined I would quit. I started with 24mg niicotine, I needed it, it got me through. I also NEEDED to get away from tobacco tasting products. I did sooooo much better when I stopped chasing the exact taste of my favorite cig and decided to try fruit and bakery flavors. Only one short month later I am vaping 12mg nicotine. Yesterday I forgot to bring a replacement battery to work with me and found myself in trouble when I was without my vape at noon!!! I bought a pack of analogs and I couldn't get half way through a single one! Stop beating yourself up, take the time to find what works for you!!

 

[Tealady12]

Hi Everyone

I have been lurking for about 1.5 months. I have not posted up until now but Jingo's post really touched me. Jingo, this is your quit, don't be so hard on yourself, keep trying. At one point in your you mentioned maybe craving the extra chemicals in the cigarettes, it is true that commercial cig makers do add stuff to their tobacco to get you hooked on their brand. I had been rolling my own with a no additive organically grown tobacco for about a year before I found ecigs. I smoked for about 38 years. 20 of those 2 to3 packs a day, always Marlboro red. The other tobacco weaned me off the other chemicals. Maybe switch to a tobacco like this for a week to get the other chemicals out. Hope this is not taken as offensive or giving the wrong advice, it is just an idea. I have not had a cigarette in 1 month. Got my gear and juice and have not had one since.

 

[cags]

you might want to visit this thread

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/pay-forward-pif/405553-yes-i-still-smoke-cigarettes-i-am-addicted-smoking-habit-support-chat-thread.html

 

[Chas F.]

Repeat after me: Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.


Er, VAPING! Honestly, don't let a relapse break your will. Just keep on keeping on. Many vapors still use analogs when they make the transition. Not a big deal or deal breaker.

 

[Ex30YearAnalog]

Don't feel bad about picking up analogs. I got my 1st ecig 5/30/13 & was doing both vaping & analogs since then. I now have 1 analog left which I plan to leave alone for as long as I can. I think it's mind over matter & everyone has their own way of being smoke free. I am not being hard on myself but actually patting myself on my own back since 1 pack has lasted me more than 3 months - the longest in over 30 years! In your own time, you will feel what is right.

 

[mkbilbo]

Hi,

i'm really annoyed i caved in.
but my anxiety has been unbearable for the last 5 days since quitting..

i have been craving cigarettes soo much. My anxiety has peaked severely {i have multiple anxiety disorders}
and i fought it and fought it.. but @ about 10.30 pm tonight i just couldn't bear it.
i went and bought a packet of cigarettes..

i'm really angry at myself..

Stop. Right. There.

So you slipped? So flipping what? Who told you that you had to perform miracles?

Not everybody quits the first day.

Took me six weeks. I didn't even "fight". I just tried stunts like making the smokes inconvenient and keeping the vape stuff handy. Like I would let myself have one pack of cigs and one pack only in the house at a time. And they stayed in a kitchen cabinet. No handy, easy to reach ashtrays and lighters and packs nearby. I had to go get a cig out and an ashtray out and a lighter and smoke one. Then go back to whatever I was doing.

It wasn't long before I found I could "coast along" with maybe... three cigs in a day? The vaping took the place of the other 37 (I smoked two packs a day before vaping came along). I asked, what if I was stuck there? At 3 a day instead of 40+? Would that be so bad?

No, no it'd be pretty damn good.

It was a good month into vaping that I started forgetting to smoke. Just... forgetting. I remember one week, not being sure if I'd had a cig at all in two or three days. Had I? Hadn't I? I literally wasn't sure. It was a bit of an eerie feeling.

Just look at your habits, find all those "convenient" things you do, that all smokers do (like me with the ashtray that used to live to the immediate left of the computer keyboard). Swap it out. Make the vaping convenient. Make the cigs INconvenient.

And if you break down and have a cig here and there, don't beat yourself up. Especially not with an anxiety disorder. You'll really mess with your own head that way.

(I have some degree of PTSD. You may have seen on the news about New Orleans and Katrina? Well, see, I was living there when that happened. Yipee. And let's skip over the fire storm of 2011 we had here. I'm still wondering if there's a quota limit to how many "historic" disasters one has to get through in a single lifetime. I'm pretty sure I'm due a refund. Anyway, I sympathize when it comes to anxiety disorders. Oh yes. Very much so.)

Five days is simply not enough time. You are just getting started. You haven't had time to get settled in, find your liquids, figure out "inhales" nor a whole host of other things. So maybe you "dual use" a while? So what? Lot of people do. If your smoking is down, that's good. Less smoking is good. Less can become zero. It just might take you a while. And what if it does? This ain't a race ya know?

 

[Susan W.]

The thing is don't get down on yourself. It's hard breaking a long time habit. I never thought I'd stop smoking and had no intention to when I started vaping. I just thought that I could "save" money vaping and not having to go outside at work to smoke. And more and more places, such as hotels are now all non-smoking and it's not always convenient to leave to go outside to smoke. But what happened was I found myself vaping more than smoking and it wasn't until then that I realized I might have a chance. It's now been 5 months without an analog. It was more like an evolution than forcing it.

You do have to give yourself more time.

 

[bigmaaark]

dont beat yourself up over it. i started vaping in june, and i didnt quit analogs right away. i always kept the vape handy. i work at a car dealership so analogs are in abundance over here lol. so i would vape until i couldnt take it anymore and would bum a smoke from a co-worker. and i found that i was doing the less and less and eventually the thought of smoking a cig over vaping kinda grossed me out and made me feel sick. its not going to happen over night, but the key is to keep trying!keep your head up! if you want to quit bad enough, you will figure out a way and it will be YOUR way. not a single persons story on how they quit successfully will be the same, each one of us that made the switch had our own speed bumps to deal with and you are no different. good luck to you!

 

[dianeofarcadia]

Given your initial post was several days ago, just wanted to pop in and say HI and hope things are doing well. As mentioned, maybe the nic level needs to up'ed. I was still smoking a couple each day in the beginning and once I got the right flavor juice and nic level, everything went much smoother, it certainly made the anxiety easier to handle.

hang in there, hope things are getting easier.