Does decreasing nicotine level to quit work?

[BrotherBob]

For me (at zero nic and unflavored for 2 years), decreasing nicotine level to quit works. At the 1.25mg level, I filled my rba from one of 3 or 4 identical bottles (one bottle containing nic the 3 or 4 without nic) and just vaped them down.
Might like to read:
My Dependency on Vaping. It's not about the nicotine.

 

[Papa_Lazarou]

Just went through this process myself. It's only one point of data, but might be useful to you.

I found (sorry in advance to for the length of the post)...

1) The nic wasn't an issue.

I just cut down by halves month on month (12mg to 6 to 3 to 1). Stayed on 1mg mostly for the piece of mind (ie comfort of knowing I was getting nic) for a while (a few months?), but it turned out that was not really needed. With each concentration adjustment I would get a little light headed twice a day after lunch and dinner for about 4-5 days. This effect resolved on it's own in about 10 minutes. Within a week, I'd adjusted to the lower nic level... including the ultimate adjustment to zero.

One thing I did was pay attention to was juice volumes consumed. As has been pointed out above, you're gaming yourself if you half the nic and then double the volume vaped. I thought I would have to ration myself, but I just kept my same daily routines and the volume consumed kept constant.

I DIY juice so I increase the amount of koolada I put in a batch as the nic got weaker to compensate for throat hit. You DIY and use menthol, so same same - just up it a bit if/when your TH feels unfulfilling.

Once down to zero nic, I hung out there for a month and then switched to flavourless. I found this to be thoroughly bleh vape and after about a week just stopped. It had become uninteresting to me.

2) The physical habit gets dulled.

I bought a fidget spinner, some stress balls, and a hand exerciser (one of those things you squeeze to get Arnold hands). I was ready, by god.

Time spent using those things? Hmmm... about 20 minutes total. I found the best thing to do was just get up and walk for 5 minutes whenever I got a physical "nag". Just get up and walk around - anywhere, even in circles. Within 2 days the nags were half what they were at the outset and all but a slight murmur within 8 days or so. This was about 3 months ago now. High trigger contexts (eg drinks with friends who vape) don't get to me at all. Am I on the other side of it all? Who can say, but I do know that I have a mountain of vape gear and juice in the room with me as I write this and I haven't the slightest urge to use any of it.

tl;dr - it can definitely work, but it's part of a regime you'll prolly need to adopt

 

[BigPappa]

I started at 36mg 12 years ago... over time i was able to get myself down to 18mg doing it in 1mg increments every now and then. This last time i cut down from 20 to 18 and i noticed I was vaping more often, but after going through a liter between my wife and I the next liter I mixed is lasting the normal amount of time... my goal is to get down to 9mg over the next 5 years so my stash of 19.5 liters of 100mg will last me my lifetime... but if I really wanted to I could probably get down to 0 eventually, it would take awhile... but I just do not want to. Unlike smoking, I enjoy vaping.

 

[evan le'garde]

If you're going to reduce your nic incrementally in a effort to eventually quit vaping, then i'd suggest raising your vaping temperature, and using more Propylene Glycol in your e liquid to make up for the lack of throat hit. That's assuming a throat hit is what you crave !.

 

[stols001]

I think nic is probably less addictive, and I base that on my smoking quit it got ugly there for a while.

Also, IDK I don't got time for it right now and to think about it. But if it's busy I can go a few hours on some by then quite elderly snus and I use more (a bunch more) when I am like, not all busy and stuff.

My next base mix I am going to drop to 16 or 17 and see what happens, but like, I plan to try and not think about it very hard,

Focusing on it seems like a bad idea (to me,)

Although honestly I don't care if my nic consumption remains higher not with my lab and lung function.

Anna

 

[Joyce]

I may be an anomaly, but I was having major surgery and my surgeon insisted that I HAD to quit vaping. He said that the nicotine would make my organs "explode" in his hands. I was vaping 24 mg juice, and immediately went to 0 mg. He tested my blood to be sure that I wasn't lying, and he didn't believe that the company I was buying from was honestly selling me 0 mg juice. (I did.) Anyway, my blood came up clean, and I have never gone back to nicotine. I still vape, but apparently I am addicted to the act of vaping/smoking, and not the nicotine. I really didn't miss it.

 

[Eskie]

One thing is as you’re already DIYing your own juice, instead of diluting it down losing both flavor and throat hit from the menthol mix it up fresh so your flavor concentrations remain unchanged while the nic is lowered. Or mix up a batch of say higher and lower nic solutions with the same flavorings then mix together to titrations down but keep the flavor ratios the same. It’s less of a tip-off to your brain you changed the amount of nicotine as everything else remains the same. Now when you Vape diluted nic with diluted menthol you “know” it’s a lower dose and will pay more attention to any cravings. If all else is the same that may well be less of a problem.

 

[stols001]

Your surgeon said WHAT?????????????????????????????

You know, they do emergency surgery on smokers all the time? I am so confused.
I am happy you are at zero nic and all that, very good for you (probably) but I remain deeply, deeply confused.

Slow healing maybe..... Maybe even DIFFICULTIES with the surgery but "your organs would literally explode in my hands?"

Like, was he worried about your organs or his hands or both? Where was the flame coming from was he gonna have to cauterize something???

I need to know.

Anna

 

[Eskie]

[QUOTE="stols001, post: 22434697, member: 309471]
Like, was he worried about your organs or his hands or both? Where was the flame coming from was he gonna have to cauterize something???

I need to know.

Anna[/QUOTE]

Nicotine is not flammable, so using a cautery isn’t a problem. Besides, he said they would explode, not catch fire, and nicotine isn’t explosive either. Never heard of a nicotine bomb, but who knows what they really do at Area 51.

I hope the surgery went well, surgeons prone to hysteria make me nervous.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Smoking/vaping addiction has at least 2 main facets to it...

• the nicotine addiction and
  
• the addiction to the actual act of smoking/vaping (aka habit)

So reducing nic until you get to 0 nic works for the first part, not the latter.

But IMHO, it's worth not worrying about the second part until you get rid of the first part. Then worry about getting rid of the second part. For some (I suspect many) the second mart is actually harder to curb than the first.

 

[ChelsB]

I haven’t quit and have no plans to ever stop vaping but I started at 24 mg nic strength and slowly decreased to 6 mg, where I’ve stayed for over a year (granted, my decrease was related to when I started to subohm so I needed less nic)

 

[Jebbn]

I havnt stopped vaping but I have reduced nic mgs from 18 and 24mg down to 2mg and 3mg.
It all happened by accident at first but then I just kinda went with it.
At first I wanted to see how long I could go without using nic. After about 7 days with no problem I hit the vape at 18mg and found it too strong so I cut down to 12mg or 9mg. I started taking nic free days every 10 to 14 days and pretty soon I was at 2mg.
I never used more ml's with every decrease. As my tolerance was lowered so was my consumption(ml's and mg's).
Ultimately I was searching for the point where I used the least amount of mg's a day and the least amount of ml's, but as I just said, lowering my tolerance seemed to take care of both the daily mg's used and the ml's consumed.
Started at about 8ml of 18-24mg a day and now use 2.6ml of 2-3mg a day.
During my nic free days I dont vape, vaping zero nic juice is like drinking decafe coffee or zero alcohol beer, pointless.

 

[pizza2me]

I am pretty sure that I could just quit but I do like the act of vaping. I was a chain smoker and am currently a chain vaper. I still go 5-10ml of ejuice per day. My wife only goes thru about 5ml a week with 0 nic and she doesn't want to quit either.

Ditto for me. Tired and didn't read replies after. Personally I don't care if I ever stop vaping. Started at 35mg WAY back. Currently at 6mg. Never planned or tried to stop. And I read a lot if Good info in the replies above ian91's post!

So I will add that I just spent 3 days in hospital. Couldn't go out to vape. Super surprisingly I did not miss it much! I think because I knew I couldn't leave the bed. Very few times I found myself staring to. reach for a mod. But quickly realized and didn't miss it! Blew me away as normally I have at least one in hand or very close

So yeah. Just the habit I'm hooked on. Not nic anymore. I think .. but don't really care We all know it's not "safe" to inhale anything but air but compared to what cigs did to my lungs n body. I'll never stress about quit vaping

My advice to all is do what feels right to you. We all know inhaling anything but air is not "safe" but compared to what cigs did to lungs n body we've added years to our lives! And could be "hit by a bus tomorrow"

(LOL. this was to be a short quick reply my vote is for the no stress route)


.

 

[VHRB2014]

6 years ago when I first started vaping I found that only 36mg helped keep the monkey off my back. As time went on I decressed my nicotine when I started getting nic sick from it, about every 6 to 10 months. This seemed to happen naturally although an argument could probably be made that as I moved on higher wattage delivery the actuall amount of delivery increased. However, for the last 3 years nothing much has changed in my devices as far as delivery efficiency, and yet the decrease has continued to occure in the same routine. Just this last month I stepped down from 10mg to 5mg, and there has been no ill effects except perhaps a slight increase in intake. This is where Im at after 6 years.

Im not even concerned with getting to zero at this point, never really was. Im not really convinced there is any benefit at all in getting to zero. I know I enjoy vaping immensely and may be vaping until I can no longer rebuild my own kit.

 

[phonedude]

It worked for me. Like many here I started vaping to stop smoking cigarettes. That went very good for me. And then over the years I continually but gradually lowered my e-liquid nicotine. Over several years I was at zero nicotine. But I continued to vape because I enjoyed it. Then several months ago I just decided to stop. And I really dont miss it at all.

I wish you the very best of luck.

 

[Joyce]

[QUOTE="stols001, post: 22434697, member: 309471]
Like, was he worried about your organs or his hands or both? Where was the flame coming from was he gonna have to cauterize something???

I need to know.

Anna

Nicotine is not flammable, so using a cautery isn’t a problem. Besides, he said they would explode, not catch fire, and nicotine isn’t explosive either. Never heard of a nicotine bomb, but who knows what they really do at Area 51.

I hope the surgery went well, surgeons prone to hysteria make me nervous.[/QUOTE]

English is his second language, so he may have a different understanding of "explode" than I do, but the reading material that they gave me 2 months pre-op was very explicit about the use of nicotine, forbidding even nicotine patches and gum. And the surgery was a great success, he is one of the top in his field, so there's that. I am glad to be vaping 0 nic now.

 

[Eskie]

Nicotine is not flammable, so using a cautery isn’t a problem. Besides, he said they would explode, not catch fire, and nicotine isn’t explosive either. Never heard of a nicotine bomb, but who knows what they really do at Area 51.

I hope the surgery went well, surgeons prone to hysteria make me nervous.

English is his second language, so he may have a different understanding of "explode" than I do, but the reading material that they gave me 2 months pre-op was very explicit about the use of nicotine, forbidding even nicotine patches and gum. And the surgery was a great success, he is one of the top in his field, so there's that. I am glad to be vaping 0 nic now.

I’m glad the surgery turned out well for you. And if you’re happy vaping 0 mg nic then that’s a win for you too. Do you think you’ll ever stop vaping after going without the nicotine for a long time?

 

[Joyce]

English is his second language, so he may have a different understanding of "explode" than I do, but the reading material that they gave me 2 months pre-op was very explicit about the use of nicotine, forbidding even nicotine patches and gum. And the surgery was a great success, he is one of the top in his field, so there's that. I am glad to be vaping 0 nic now.

I’m glad the surgery turned out well for you. And if you’re happy vaping 0 mg nic then that’s a win for you too. Do you think you’ll ever stop vaping after going without the nicotine for a long time?[/QUOTE]

That's really something I'd have to think long and hard about. I don't vape at all during the work day, but I chain vape in the evening, and it's the first thing I reach for when I get up in the morning. And all bets are off on the weekends! But, yeah, I can see me eventually giving it up, since I can go without it without missing it during the work day.

I have recently stocked up on enough juice and hardware to last me a few years. So even if a vaping ban goes down, I'm good. I do plan to use up my supplies, though!

 

[dripster]

For many vapers a lot of the difficulty, or struggle to cut down the nicotine strength comes from an outdated conception of both nicotine and vaping. Vaping freebase nicotine causes the nicotine to cross the blood-brain barrier in a profoundly decelerated fashion when compared to smoking tobacco. When I switched from smoking to vaping, I soon found that I needed to vape several minutes in advance to be able to completely suppress cravings. From that moment on, I managed to successfully eliminate any and all tobacco-related cravings in full. I mean, I had a pad of normal cigarettes standing upright where I could see it, right next to my mod. The thought of grabbing a normal cigarette never even crossed my mind. Not once.

But I did experience the frequent urge to go into yet another chain vaping frenzy. So what I did was I counted drops from one bottle of 6mg juice that went into my RDA and I counted drops from a second bottle of 0mg juice that went straight on top of my coils, to prevent the vape from feeling harsh and to cut the nicotine strength further and further down during each chain vaping "session", thus preventing myself from getting nic sick. With decent handbuilt coils, using an RDA enabled me to keep continuing to chain vape for prolonged periods without it starting to overheat. My particular choice of RDA was a convenient one in the sense that it was easy to aim drops of juice straight above the coils.

My point being, if your plan is to cut down on nicotine spontaneously without the struggle typically associated with withdrawal symptons resulting from being an ex-smoker (which I am), then chances will be good you will need to focus on those vaping methods and techniques that give you the ability to take permanent control over all your symptoms all of the time. Sometimes the dosage strength needs to go up, sometimes it has to go down. It constantly varies all the time. Trying to cut down by simply vaping less, is a recipe for disaster. Trying to cut down by simply reducing the nicotine strength slowly in small steps and never temporarily increasing it back up, often tends to be a recipe for equal disaster. Because, people who quit smoking cold turkey in many cases still also suffer from withdrawal up to more than a whole decade after, or even multiple decades after. I would much, MUCH rather keep vaping 2.5mg-3mg for the rest of my life than needlessly suffer, or worse: face the risk of a relapse back to smoking cigarettes. Needlessly, because both the addictiveness and the harmfulness of vaping freebase nicotine in (non-pregnant) adults is, quite literally in fact, way overblown as all the scientific evidence very clearly suggests.

Read the paper titled "Nicotine Without Smoke" by the Royal College of Physicians, April 2016.

 

[Budgie45]

I smoked spliffs for 30 years daily lol
Quits the cigs last year still smoke and grow some weed,started off with 18mg then 12 then 6 nic
Got myself down to 3mg at the minute,I did have some cravings,I did find smoking a joint took the edge off it,

try break the habit of smoking first thing in the morning..little bit of will power can move mountains