How many times have you clicked your prayer beads? (Semi repost).

[larcat]

That is a very interesting alternate perspective. The deepest attraction to e-cigarettes for a smoker is rather difficult to quantify into a scientific study like that released by the FDA. How do you "prove" to a non-smoker that the reason that most smoking cessation programs don't work is the little things like the feeling you get from holding something between your fingers, the calm that ministers directly to your soul as you watch little white swirls float in front of your face, the intimate tickle at the back of your throat, and all the other nuances in the ritual of smoking that are mimiced faithfully by personal vaporizers, but leave people attempting to use any of the the NRTs feeling like they are still missing something? The FDA study doesn't say a word about how difficult it is psychologically to abandon smoking completely and for eternity, and how that fear is alleviated by knowing that by use of a PV you DON'T have to give up the things you like about smoking but can still give up most of the horrendous health hazards.

You have touched on the something that is always dismissed by non smokers here.

I think it is deeper than anyone realizes.

15 drags per cig. 30 cigs a day, 365 days a year for 15 years of my life. I have taken two million four hundred and sixty three thousand, seven hundred and fifty drags on cigarettes.

Imagine a Catholic priest with a rosary. Everytime he is in a stressful situation, he clicks through the prayer beads, and it brings him peace. Endorphins flood his brain and the action is reinforced.

Imagine a concert pianist. Everytime time he hits a note on a piano he is at peace, and the endorphins in his brain reinforce the action.

We KNOW that repetitive fine motor movements blaze self-reinforcing pathways in our brains (you can google that stuff yourself). Add in a HIGHLY addictive stimulant that aids in concentration, and you have yourself a nuclear bomb of an addiction. Only HALF of it is the nicotine.

I've sat there and clicked my prayer beads-dipped in addiction juice two million four hundred and sixty three thousand, seven hundred and fifty times. I'm 28 years old. How many times have you done it?

-Larcat

 

[SLDS181]

20 cigs, same age, 12 years. Doing the math at midnight probably wouldn't work out well.....

 

[talmadgemonroe]

Three Million Sixty Six Thousand

 

[Moonflame]

Three million, Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight Thousand.

 

[wrecktangle]

Thirty-five years at a pack a day...umm... I don't have a calculator that goes that high...

 

[vjnnc]

Based on that criteria; eight million, seven hundred sixty thousand. But - 30 drags on one cigarette? I'd have to say it's closer to 10, maybe even 7 or 8.

 

[QueenInNC]

That's quite an analogy.

One million, six hundred eighty six thousand, three hundred

 

[SLDS181]

1,314,000

Based on that criteria; eight million, seven hundred sixty thousand. But - 30 drags on one cigarette? I'd have to say it's closer to 10, maybe even 7 or 8.

He went with 15, not 30.

 

[vjnnc]

That's what I get for reading (well apparently not reading) and responding before I had any coffee. Thanks for catching that.

My revision based on the REAL criteria:

Four million, three hundred eighty thousand.

Based on my personal criteria:

Two million nine hundred twenty thousand.

 

[artguybri]

2,403,000. God thats a lot of drags. Just started on vaping, not even wanted to pick up an Analogue yet. Four days in and after 18 years of 25+ a day.Nothing else worked. I think that my 901 has saved my life. and now i see i can get Red Bull juice, it may even help me stop my 3 cans a day habit of that killer as well.

 

[DrSarcasmo]

Good God, it's 5.5 million for me! I never thought about it that way before.

Dickie

 

[larcat]

Good God, it's 5.5 million for me! I never thought about it that way before.

Dickie

I hadn't either, but when I did the other night, it quickly explained why I have always thought that the physicality of smoking was as important for me as the nic addiction is.

How long have you smoked for?

-Larcat

 

[moonlight]

I've quit smoking lots of times before and used just about every NRT there was...and what always did me in was the *grieving* it did for my cigarettes. THAT never seemed to go away, even the time I quit for 3 years. It's something that just can't be explained to a non-smoker.

But when I got my PV, I didn't need to grieve and for the first time in my life, HAPPILY gave up cigarettes! This still amazes me.

 

[Moonflame]

I've decided that it must be part of our genetic code to have an urge to suck on things (ok, insert rude comments here ). There are tons of pics of unborn children sucking their thumbs and most babies either use thumb sucking or pacifiers as a self soothing method. It makes sense that it's coded into our genetics to encourage sucking/feeding since it's the only way for mammals to get nutrients. I think that urge continues into adulthood. Think about how many people smoke, chew gum, chew pens, chew toothpicks, eat hard candies, bite their fingernails, etc. If you add up all of those habits I'm willing to bet it would be a large percentage of the population.

So add up the reinforcement of muscle memory from doing the same motion millions of times, an addictive substance, and a genetic urge and it's no wonder other methods of quiting smoking don't work for most of us.

 

[yknotagain]

20,202,750 - dang!

 

[h8isgr8]

20,202,750 - dang!

You win (or lose depending on how you look at it)!!!! 8-o

 

[larcat]

20,202,750 - dang!

4-5 packs a day for 41 years. Vaping since 4/30/09. Analog free since 8PM CST 5/18/09


My deepest congratulations.

This technology, assuming it is 20% as safe as we think it is, will SAVE LIVES.

Again, my congrats. If I had smoked that much for that long, I don't know that anything would have done it for me.

-Larcat

 

[annah]

963,600 here. Didn't quite make it to 1 million.

 

[larcat]

963,600 here. Didn't quite make it to 1 million.

Pretty sure it isn't a race

Congrats on quitting

 

[Kent C]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thulium
That is a very interesting alternate perspective. The deepest attraction to e-cigarettes for a smoker is rather difficult to quantify into a scientific study like that released by the FDA. How do you "prove" to a non-smoker that the reason that most smoking cessation programs don't work is the little things like the feeling you get from holding something between your fingers, the calm that ministers directly to your soul as you watch little white swirls float in front of your face, the intimate tickle at the back of your throat, and all the other nuances in the ritual of smoking that are mimiced faithfully by personal vaporizers, but leave people attempting to use any of the the NRTs feeling like they are still missing something? The FDA study doesn't say a word about how difficult it is psychologically to abandon smoking completely and for eternity, and how that fear is alleviated by knowing that by use of a PV you DON'T have to give up the things you like about smoking but can still give up most of the horrendous health hazards.

Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his finger tips still pressed together, his legs strtched out in front of him and his gaze directed upwards to the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe , which was to him as a counsellor, and, having it, he leaned back in his chair , with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face. (IDEN)

- It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes - (REDH)

Or, we can remember the case in which Holmes needed a pound of the strongest shag tobacco to resolve the problem and started alone all the day smoking, and Watson founded him in a sort of trance, in a room that "was so filled with the smoke that the light of the lamp upon the table was blurred by it "and my first impression as I opened the door was that a fire has broken out". (HOUN)

http://associazioni.comune.firenze.it/holmes/inglese/ing_pipa.htm