Do you know a lot of "non-smoker" vaporers?
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Fool, I understand the points you are making, and I agree that some people are predisposed to struggle with addictive behaviors.
I am also not suggesting that smoking is not addictive. Smoking, and nicotine, release dopamine in the brain, and is therefore in the list of behaviors that can become addictive.
Your arguments come from an individual's viewpoint, and mine come from the overall viewpoint of how smoking affects all people.
I restate: some people become addicted to smoking, and some people don't. Some people use cigarettes, and some people abuse them.
When I say "All people who decide to quit smoking succeed," what do I mean? I mean two ideas. The first is that most people quit smoking on their own, without outside help or NRT. I have seen statistics ranging from 80-95%.
Do we see these numbers among obese (not overweight) individuals? Do 90% of them achieve healthy eating habits and weight on their own? How about simply eating less on their own?
How about gambling addicts? Do we see 90% of them just stop gambling one day?
How about bulemics? Do they go 'cold turkey' when they realize they want to change their behavior? (Vomiting releases endorphins, it can literally become addictive)
What about sex addicts? Can they just 'will' themselves into healthy sexual behavior 90% of the time?
Hard drug abusers? ......., crack, ......, ....? Do they just walk away without help?
If smoking is addictive, surely it appears to be a weak addiction. Look, its cold turkey rates destroy most other common addictions. I will close the first idea with this- if you are addicted to smoking, that does not mean that most people are addicted, and certainly not all people. This is a real and documented fallacy. The number of ex-smokers in US currently outnumber the number of smokers.
The second idea I mean is that if you feel you are unable to quit smoking on your own, there are TONS and TONS and TONS of resources available to you. There are professionals, support groups, books, techniques, regimens, drugs, all types of resources, some of them free. Also, a growing number of workplaces offer a wide range of smoking cessation programs and resources to employees at no cost to them.
These two ideas are the basis for "all people who decide to quit smoking succeed."
However, I am a logical human with a good brain. Am I missing key points here?
I am also not suggesting that smoking is not addictive. Smoking, and nicotine, release dopamine in the brain, and is therefore in the list of behaviors that can become addictive.
Your arguments come from an individual's viewpoint, and mine come from the overall viewpoint of how smoking affects all people.
I restate: some people become addicted to smoking, and some people don't. Some people use cigarettes, and some people abuse them.
When I say "All people who decide to quit smoking succeed," what do I mean? I mean two ideas. The first is that most people quit smoking on their own, without outside help or NRT. I have seen statistics ranging from 80-95%.
Do we see these numbers among obese (not overweight) individuals? Do 90% of them achieve healthy eating habits and weight on their own? How about simply eating less on their own?
How about gambling addicts? Do we see 90% of them just stop gambling one day?
How about bulemics? Do they go 'cold turkey' when they realize they want to change their behavior? (Vomiting releases endorphins, it can literally become addictive)
What about sex addicts? Can they just 'will' themselves into healthy sexual behavior 90% of the time?
Hard drug abusers? ......., crack, ......, ....? Do they just walk away without help?
If smoking is addictive, surely it appears to be a weak addiction. Look, its cold turkey rates destroy most other common addictions. I will close the first idea with this- if you are addicted to smoking, that does not mean that most people are addicted, and certainly not all people. This is a real and documented fallacy. The number of ex-smokers in US currently outnumber the number of smokers.
The second idea I mean is that if you feel you are unable to quit smoking on your own, there are TONS and TONS and TONS of resources available to you. There are professionals, support groups, books, techniques, regimens, drugs, all types of resources, some of them free. Also, a growing number of workplaces offer a wide range of smoking cessation programs and resources to employees at no cost to them.
These two ideas are the basis for "all people who decide to quit smoking succeed."
However, I am a logical human with a good brain. Am I missing key points here?
Kryssi, you address an interesting point! Did you know, that what I call "the ritual of smoking," or the "habit" according to you, stimulates dopamine release on its own accord? Yes, this may be why it is hard to give up smoking, even with NRT.
Why is it that NRT has such dismal success rates? Surely we're getting enough nicotine. But intaking that nicotine becomes less pleasurable without "the ritual of smoking." Thus, it is an indication that the "habit" releases dopamine. Studies can easily be done on this with 0nic fluid.
Various activities we enjoy can release dopamine, including shopping! Perhaps we enjoy NONE of our favorite activites, only the dopamine!
Gambling can result in powerful addiction. However, it is not a physiological activity! Simply the act of risk-taking produces chemical effects in the brain, and such effects can become addictive! The "ritual of smoking" achieves this in the same way.
Dubd1c3...I do think you've over-simplified the action of quitting an analog addiction. My own example...I have smoked since I was 12. I've inhaled second hand smoke from birth. I am now 41 years old. In the last couple years, I have explored MANY different ways to quit. I've taken cessation classes, tried step-down methods, tried cold turkey, sucked on straws for days before caving in and picking up my analogs again. I DID want to quit, it wasn't just mind over matter here. Last year, on May 6, 2009, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. One of the surgeons that participated in my subsequent double mastectomy and reconstruction told me "no smoking for three weeks before and eight weeks after your surgery". He said smoking would contribute to the possibility of necrosis of the surgical sites. Now, you would think the thought of my surgery going bad because I have rotting, dead skin on my chest would deter, but it didn't. I kept on trying, kept on stepping down on my nicotine until I was smoking Marlboro ultra light 72's. Quitting was not happening, until the day I tried my neighbors e-cig. I ordered that evening, and 4 days later, I smoked my last analog, 30 minutes before I opened my e-cig kit.
The reason the e-cig works, is not only because you have nicotine replacement, it works because you replicate the hand to mouth, the warm feeling in your throat and lungs that replicates smoking so very well. It was such an easy transition to vaping, and I enjoy it more than I ever enjoyed smoking!
I would not suggest a person without the smoking/hand to mouth habit start vaping. Why would you want to give someone a NEW habit that is so hard to break? Like, would you suggest to a person that they start biting nails? Biting your nails is not harmful to others, and normally not harmful to the one doing it, but it's a very bad hand to mouth habit. And it's so very hard to stop, even though there are no chemicals present. vaping is very similar.
The reason the e-cig works, is not only because you have nicotine replacement, it works because you replicate the hand to mouth, the warm feeling in your throat and lungs that replicates smoking so very well. It was such an easy transition to vaping, and I enjoy it more than I ever enjoyed smoking!
I would not suggest a person without the smoking/hand to mouth habit start vaping. Why would you want to give someone a NEW habit that is so hard to break? Like, would you suggest to a person that they start biting nails? Biting your nails is not harmful to others, and normally not harmful to the one doing it, but it's a very bad hand to mouth habit. And it's so very hard to stop, even though there are no chemicals present. vaping is very similar.
It definitely can happen. My partner was able to quit analogs about two years ago, I never could stop until the PV came along. When I first started vaping, he thought the concept was cool from the technology aspect, and then with the wide variety of cool flavors and juices, he wanted to try a toot or two. I initially resisted him, but he started puffing mine when I wasn't looking and has re-ignited his addiction to nicotine. While he doesn't vape as much as I do, he has his own mod and independently purchases his own gear/juice/etc.
My fear is that this might be the achilles heel of greater social acceptance of vaping. There's really nothing "cool" about a traditional cigarette, but you must admit with the wide variety of mods, juices, flavors and techy type doodads associated with vaping, the possibility is there for non-addicts to more readily acquire a nicotine addiction with vaping as opposed to cigarettes. I'm not even going to go into the youth appeal of flavors like strawberry, caramel apple, cinnamon, etc..
Yes, there are zero-nic juices out there, but they are not nearly as ubiquitous as juices with nicotine.
My fear is that this might be the achilles heel of greater social acceptance of vaping. There's really nothing "cool" about a traditional cigarette, but you must admit with the wide variety of mods, juices, flavors and techy type doodads associated with vaping, the possibility is there for non-addicts to more readily acquire a nicotine addiction with vaping as opposed to cigarettes. I'm not even going to go into the youth appeal of flavors like strawberry, caramel apple, cinnamon, etc..
Yes, there are zero-nic juices out there, but they are not nearly as ubiquitous as juices with nicotine.
Motox, I think about this nightly. But there are a few knee-jerk responses I have to what you said.
1) You're, generally, quite correct. PVs are technological and SWEET.
2) Just because both cigarettes and PVs both contain nicotine, does not make them equally addictive! Do not suppose this! First, the nicotine contained per puff for PVs are on the order to one fifth to one tenth that of cigarette smoke. Secondly, the nature of absorption is very different for the two. Smoke is absorbed by the body so much more efficiently than vapor. This is why many vapers vape literally all day long.
3) All people should be free to engage in legal but risky behavior so long as they don't violate others' rights. But that's such a throwaway reason. Let's find some more real reasons.
4) If you try ONE CIGARETTE between the ages of 12 and 17, there is a 31% chance you will become a regular smoker. Assuming "all smokers are addicts" (ridiculous) and also that "vaping is equally addictive to smoking" (false) the MAXIMUM chance you will become "addicted" is 31%. That number approaches zero very rapidly as soon as you start considering facts and research.
so, dubd1c3, you are going to maintain that MOST smokers are NOT addicted to smoking, and that MOST smokers quit smoking without any type of help...if that were the case, MOST of us wouldn't be here! Big tobacco wouldn't be making the money they do, because MOST of us could decide to stop at any given time.
I think there is a reality here that you are missing. MOST smokers do need help to quit, MOST addicts don't just say "I'm done" and put down their addictive habits. Those that can, good on them...but that is the minority, not the majority of people.
I think there is a reality here that you are missing. MOST smokers do need help to quit, MOST addicts don't just say "I'm done" and put down their addictive habits. Those that can, good on them...but that is the minority, not the majority of people.
You lost me right there. I`m sure due to age and my situation I`ve had far more exposure to addiction than you. You have your ideas based on your experience which I can appreciate, however I would point to you as the exception rather than the rule.
Open mindedness and the ability to see beyond ones own experience is beneficial.
They say if you take a baby elephant and chain it to a tree when it`s young, that when it`s old you can take a piece of twine and tie it too a sapling and light the forest on fire around it, and that elephant will burn because the idea that it can`t get free is so embedded in it`s brain.
Edit to add.
I would point to alcohol as an example of addiction with much higher cold turkey success rates, even without AA
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I know that my experience is anecdotal, but after my ex-smoking partner picked up vaping, he keeps his PV with him all the time. Last week he left for work and forgot it, so he turned around halfway to work to pick it up. Maybe that's not an addiction and maybe it's just because he "enjoys the flavor" - but I really doubt it.
Dub, I believe the statistic you are referring to when you say that most people quit smoking without aid is that most people who succeed at quitting, quit without aid. It is a fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless. A large percentage of people who try to quit without aid don't succeed.
I do agree that if someone is dead set on quitting, and has it in their mind that they no longer like cigarettes and don't want them any more ever they will quit straight up. But honestly...I don't know how that would work. Nicotine is so nice...even in all my quit attempts I doubt I would ever have found a way to succeed because I just enjoyed the calm it gives me WAY too much. I can't fathom someone having such a solid dislike for cigarettes that every bit of their mind wants them to stop.
I do agree that if someone is dead set on quitting, and has it in their mind that they no longer like cigarettes and don't want them any more ever they will quit straight up. But honestly...I don't know how that would work. Nicotine is so nice...even in all my quit attempts I doubt I would ever have found a way to succeed because I just enjoyed the calm it gives me WAY too much. I can't fathom someone having such a solid dislike for cigarettes that every bit of their mind wants them to stop.
Israfil,
I understand what you're saying and I am aware of the distinction. The statistic suggests the same thing that its converse does. One can look at the issue both ways. In one sense, cold turkey is unsuccessful because the ABSOLUTE success rate is only about 10% (alcoholism, 20-25%). On the other hand, cold turkey could be viewed as successful since they occupy 90% market share of "successful" quit attempts. If most successful quits required outside assistance, surely that would suggest something else entirely. Although I fully see your point.
Another subpoint I was making earlier was that society, doctors, and family impose their wishes on smokers to quit so adamantly that it floods the market with 'flimsy' quit attempts, people just trying to make others happy. I theorize that people generally don't like being told what to do, especially smokers, since they continue to smoke even though everyone constantly tells them that they shouldn't.
On that note, I believe that many quit attempts are made when the smoker is not ready, either imposed by an external factor or their own guilt or what have you. Even if you think you're ready, you might not be ready. If I may look at it simply, (which perhaps I may not) if being a smoker for the next five years is in the cards for you, you will struggle with quitting pretty much no matter what. I believe it's not all physiological (brain/body).
If you are simply not ready to go to college, your college attempts will fail or flounder until such time that you are ready. When you are ready to do the work necessary to achieve your goals, you will succeed. From this perspective, the addiction aspect appears to be minimized. Quitting smoking can be hard, or perhaps very hard, or perhaps very very hard. But when you are willing to do what is necessary, you will succeed. It appears to be a simple idea.
The rebuttals to this idea might be, "it's not that easy, because quitting smoking is very very hard." To which I would say, "yeah, I just said that?" What are the other rebuttals? Why would these ideas not be logical?
I started smoking in January of 2005. My parents vocalized their concern only once in my five year bout with smoking. They were concerned about me becoming addicted, struggling with an unnecessary problem I could avoid through prevention. These were my words, half jokingly-
"Mom, in five years it's going to be 2010. It's going to be the future. By then, I'm sure there will be some future-science alternative to smoking that will be so awesome I won't even want to smoke anymore."
And lo, so it was.
I understand what you're saying and I am aware of the distinction. The statistic suggests the same thing that its converse does. One can look at the issue both ways. In one sense, cold turkey is unsuccessful because the ABSOLUTE success rate is only about 10% (alcoholism, 20-25%). On the other hand, cold turkey could be viewed as successful since they occupy 90% market share of "successful" quit attempts. If most successful quits required outside assistance, surely that would suggest something else entirely. Although I fully see your point.
Another subpoint I was making earlier was that society, doctors, and family impose their wishes on smokers to quit so adamantly that it floods the market with 'flimsy' quit attempts, people just trying to make others happy. I theorize that people generally don't like being told what to do, especially smokers, since they continue to smoke even though everyone constantly tells them that they shouldn't.
On that note, I believe that many quit attempts are made when the smoker is not ready, either imposed by an external factor or their own guilt or what have you. Even if you think you're ready, you might not be ready. If I may look at it simply, (which perhaps I may not) if being a smoker for the next five years is in the cards for you, you will struggle with quitting pretty much no matter what. I believe it's not all physiological (brain/body).
If you are simply not ready to go to college, your college attempts will fail or flounder until such time that you are ready. When you are ready to do the work necessary to achieve your goals, you will succeed. From this perspective, the addiction aspect appears to be minimized. Quitting smoking can be hard, or perhaps very hard, or perhaps very very hard. But when you are willing to do what is necessary, you will succeed. It appears to be a simple idea.
The rebuttals to this idea might be, "it's not that easy, because quitting smoking is very very hard." To which I would say, "yeah, I just said that?" What are the other rebuttals? Why would these ideas not be logical?
I started smoking in January of 2005. My parents vocalized their concern only once in my five year bout with smoking. They were concerned about me becoming addicted, struggling with an unnecessary problem I could avoid through prevention. These were my words, half jokingly-
"Mom, in five years it's going to be 2010. It's going to be the future. By then, I'm sure there will be some future-science alternative to smoking that will be so awesome I won't even want to smoke anymore."
And lo, so it was.
Heh, way to go Nostradamus. ^_^
Because the "market" is flooded with said flimsy quit attempts, I would posit that the very statistic is tainted, however, I do agree with what I take your meaning to be.
In a sense, I would suggest that the statistic of the quit attempts should either include all quit attempts, to have a more realistic reflection of the percentage chance that a statistic (not an individual) will succeed at quitting. Individuals may possess more or less willpower than average. Considering that the average amount of people who succeed at quitting are only 10 percent, and that 90% of those successes are via the cold turkey/solid will method, I would suggest that 9% of people who try to quit will succeed cold turkey.
Since electronic cigarettes are new technology and the number of people who try to quit with them is around 80-85% (last I checked) it can be taken logically that ecigs are far superior to cold turkey. ^_^
Just my observations. ^_^
Because the "market" is flooded with said flimsy quit attempts, I would posit that the very statistic is tainted, however, I do agree with what I take your meaning to be.
In a sense, I would suggest that the statistic of the quit attempts should either include all quit attempts, to have a more realistic reflection of the percentage chance that a statistic (not an individual) will succeed at quitting. Individuals may possess more or less willpower than average. Considering that the average amount of people who succeed at quitting are only 10 percent, and that 90% of those successes are via the cold turkey/solid will method, I would suggest that 9% of people who try to quit will succeed cold turkey.
Since electronic cigarettes are new technology and the number of people who try to quit with them is around 80-85% (last I checked) it can be taken logically that ecigs are far superior to cold turkey. ^_^
Just my observations. ^_^
Heh! But I agree with what you're saying Israfil, I agree with it all- I will have to incorporate those concepts into my thinking...
I have a friend who has never smoked Cigarettes in her life. I did however sell her my Blu pack and stuff because she liked the way it smelled and enjoyed chillin' on the couch smokin' (she used to smoke pot and this kinda gives her the sensation of blowing smoke)
She uses fruity 0 nic prefilled carts and I see not problem with it!
She uses fruity 0 nic prefilled carts and I see not problem with it!
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