Need encouragement - just gave up the "stinkies"

[Atchafalaya]

HOw long were you cut down to 6 cigs per day? That makes a huge difference.
What brand/kind/strength of cigs were you smoking?

I mistakenly started out with high nic as newbie, I was miserable and anxious and turns out my nic was TOO HIGH.

So I never assume people need high or higher nic, sometimes it is actually the opposite.

I was finally able to "relax" and enjoy vaping when a veteran helped me realize I needed about 14mg instead of 18 or 24

Was down to 6 for about a month.

 

[Hill]

Yea, your doing good congrats. One thing I discovered early on that helped me was I would get these intense urges to smoke I mean really strong urges but I vaped instead and the urges went away.
What I realized was my body wanted nicotine and since it always got its nicotine from smoking the urge feels like you want a smoke. After I realized this it became mentally easier just vape and the urge WILL go away it may take a few seconds longer but your tough you can hang.
Now that I have trained myself to vaping when my body wants nicotine it says hey lets have a vape and I say sounds good to me.

 

[Hill]

NET = Naturally Extracted Tobacco.

 

[DetraMental]

Atchafalaya I'm wishing you the best. I know it seems tough but so is smoking 40 cigs a day. I smoked like that for 33 years and had to quit. When I first started I bought a carton of my cigs while waiting on my starter kit which came in quickly afterwards. I smoked while vaping. When I decided not to buy another carton once that one took me over 2 weeks to smoke, unheard of, I bought one pack to keep. It was my security blanket for the firsts 3-4 months of my vaping experience. I didn't smoke it I just had it there. It made me feel less anxious. After month 3-4 I was able to give it away and feel safe in just vaping. What I'm going on about is the anxiety leaving cigs behind can cause. I needed that pack of smokes around me to keep from freaking out. I never opened it. It really helped. As posted above going from 40 to 6 cigs is a great accomplishment. Another person mentioned putting each cig on a time limit, I'll have a smoke at 12 noon and again at 8pm, then no more for the day. It's good advice. Good luck to you I know you can do it! Happy Vaping!

 

[BigCatDaddy]

This is just like me. I've vaped for 6 months now and went from almost 40 to 6 per day. This past weekend, I decided to just stop. I couldn't get past that 6, so I just stopped completely.

From 40 down to 6 is doing great. That's 34 a day you are NOT having. Maybe cut down 1 more every couple of days instead of just cutting them off completely.
I saw where you are having trouble because you can't vape at work. Why not just take a restroom break and take a few stealth tokes in the stall? I'm sure no one will smell it in there!! I would get a little Ego and maybe a Protank mini for a discrete work rig.

 

[Atchafalaya]

NET = Naturally Extracted Tobacco.

Thanks Hill!

 

[Atchafalaya]

From 40 down to 6 is doing great. That's 34 a day you are NOT having. Maybe cut down 1 more every couple of days instead of just cutting them off completely.
I saw where you are having trouble because you can't vape at work. Why not just take a restroom break and take a few stealth tokes in the stall? I'm sure no one will smell it in there!! I would get a little Ego and maybe a Protank mini for a discrete work rig.

My boss caught me in there once and threatened to write me up. So, I'm too scared to try.

 

[Atchafalaya]

Thanks to all for all the encouragement and advice. I'll be re-reading these throughout the next few weeks.

 

[macaroni]

Ok so this is day 2 without an analog and I feel like I'm going nuts. I'm so anxiety ridden. Still vaping my 24 WTA and it's helping a lot but I'm still having a hard time. I smoked almost 2 packs a day, for 32 years and started vaping 6 months ago. Cut down to 6 per day and decided to quit this past weekend. Please tell me it gets better. I see a lot of people here making the transition with no issues, wish I was the same........

This may sound counter intuative .... but do NOT quit smoking, just start vaping. Replace your smoking rituals with vaping rituals, and most importantly tell yourself that you are big, smoking is legal, and if you really want one you can have one ... even go as far as having a pack sitting on your dresser (or wherever you normally keep your ciggies) ... the only restriction you should put on yourself is when you decide you MUST have a ciggie, you have to sit down .... vape a little bit .... and rethink if you really want to have a smoke, and if you do, by all means have a smoke.

Someone once told me a while back that the number of cigarettes we had wasn't important, the number of cigarettes we DIDN'T have was ... keep that in mind.

IMHO one of the things that make "quitting" so difficult is the stress we put on ourself because we are either going to succeed or fail in our quest to quit .... so don't try and quit .... don't even try to cut down ... become a vaper, and deal with each desire for a cigarette one at a time. You will be surprised at how soon you stop craving a smoke.

 

[Bunnykiller]

My boss caught me in there once and threatened to write me up. So, I'm too scared to try.

There is one other way to "vape" ( get a nicfix) without vaping when in a situation that absolutely denies you the ability to actually vape, ( I do it when I have to) and that is to keep a sample size bottle with you and squeeze out 1 TINY drop and lick it up... One quick blast of nic and it curbs the crave.... no worse than a spitting tank

 

[Gobotron]

I was a pack and a half a day smoker! I'm vaping 24mg nic juice and I quit in 3 days! I use a Provari mini v2.5 and just got my Mig cig in the mail yesterday! I must say there was a learning curve that I had to learn with the Provari IE: using the proper watts for your coil. With the Mig cig it was plug and play. So noob friendly that I wish I got the mig cig first to learn with. Stick with it man! way better for your health.

 

[Gobotron]

Some more tips that worked for me. 1: Leave your smokes in the car! 2: If you wish to have a analogue force yourself to smoke outside! In Canada I bet we can all agree having to smoke outside sucks! 3: Every time you have the urge to smoke analogue Have a vape and drink a glass of water.

 

[BCRich2204]

This may sound counter intuative .... but do NOT quit smoking, just start vaping. Replace your smoking rituals with vaping rituals, and most importantly tell yourself that you are big, smoking is legal, and if you really want one you can have one ...

Don't forget, all the cool kids are doing it.

This is good advice & has helped me a lot..... I know it's only been 3 days, but I feel I've come a long way in 3 days. I didn't believe I'd ever drive to & from work & not even think about a cigarette, but yesterday morning I reached for my cigs & thought, "You know what, I'll have a quick vape first, then the Pall Mall."

After taking a few hits on the pipe, I didn't even think about the Pall Mall.

I've been to work & back twice now without even thinking about a cigarette.

I've got a pack in my bag still..... didn't even think about it 'till you mentioned keeping a pack on the dresser. If need be, I can grab a Pall Mall & blissfully smoke my anxieties away. However, I keep reading posts here & I'm almost scared about how bad that cigarette is going to taste.

 

[Requiem33]

I'm in the same boat of still smoking and vaping but my smoking is decreasing. Today I'll have to full time vape... snowed in and no analogs... guess that's a good thing, force me to quit the analogs. Several years ago I quit analogs completely with vaping so that's why I'm back. It was a gradual process but as people have said the urge for an analog goes away as your body detoxes.

Side topic I like the username and avatar. I have a warlock w/ widow head what's your's?

 

[Gobotron]

not sure if this is against forum policy but this gives me encouragement! ECCR Xtra: Tobacco Smoke vs. Vapor - YouTube

 

[HSKeaton]

It gets better. Much better! Especially when you start to really think of all the benefits of having totally quit the analogs.

On Nov. 14, 2013, I got ...... because the store I dealt with was out of my analogs. I went to another store and looked at the e-cigs and wound up buying the Blu starter kit. I haven't looked back. Not to say there aren't times I crave an analog. When I do, I just hit the Camel juice, 24mg, real hard. Then a little RY4 to top it off. Then it's back to total enjoyment.

Happy Vaping,
S.

PS: I'm 65 and started stealing my parents cigs when I was 8. I was a 3 pack a day at times. Now, I have a heart problem and COPD. I couldn't smell or taste hardly anything. Since I've started Vaping I haven't had to use the inhaler, my taste and smell are returning, and my doctors are happy.

S.

 

[Schwiggiddy]

WTA doesn't contain tar - WTA is e-liquid with a more representative spread of the alkaloids contained in tobacco smoke.

E-Cigarette Forum - DVap - Blogs

Tar is partially combusted organic matter, so I guess (I'm not a chemist) that if anything, NETs could produce *some* tar, insofar as they're full of a lot more gunk than the highly purified WTA. Even if that is the case, the amount would be basically insignificant.

Thanks for this, I certainly don't intend to spread misinformation.

 

[Arenz]

Man, I love vaping! Analogs taste terrible and make me sick. I was a pack a day smoker up until 3 months ago. Yes your body goes thru changes, good changes that feel awful, but give it time and vape on!

 

[Just Me]

I will be 63 this year in May. I smoked about 46 years, two packs a day for a long time. When I decided to quit last year, besides the starter kit and juice, I also bought two boxes of Nicorette gum to help get me through some of the tough times and also to use in places where I couldn't vape (like the doctor's office I'm headed to in a couple of hours). I haven't used the gum much at all, but it has been there if I needed it. A couple of months after I quit, I was having a particularly hard day for no apparent reason. I went out and bought some Red Man Golden Blend chewing tobacco. Just a tiny bit between my cheek and gum helped a lot. Have only used that 2-3 times.

I haven't read any posts about this subject, but I noticed right off that sometimes I felt like having a cigarette would help me breathe better. Well, yeah, it definitely would, because cigarettes have bronchodilaters in them, think asthma medication. That helps open up the airways. And the reason behind that is so the smoke can be inhaled easily and more deeply so the user gets more addicted. Vaping doesn't have that. It took me about 10 days to be able to inhale the vapor at all. I had to start with low nicotine and small drags to get used to it. I just couldn't get it into my throat. I was a little discouraged at first, because it didn't seem like smoking, and I figured I was doomed to just vapor in my mouth, no inhale. But I did get the hang of it eventually. Actually, I don't lung inhale anyway, I don't think, not even with cigarettes back then. More like just to the back of my throat and then out.

I've been quit since July 2, 2013, a little over six months now. I can't say it has been hard at all, and really easier than I thought it would be, but yet I've been in the grip of some of those tough times once in a while, especially the first few months. They never last very long, and now I can't remember the last time that happened. I know some here say they stopped smoking when they started vaping with no issues at all. That's great, but it didn't happen exactly that way for me. Besides the cravings, I also had a few brief physical things, like stomach problems and even four zits on my face! I do know one thing--I never did like smelling smoke on people, but now it's REALLY offensive to me, ugh!

Just keep your gear in order and your juice stocked. You'll be okay. There are better days ahead.

 

[DenimFreak1993]

I've only been smoking for 6 years. But I feel your pain. I've had alote of off days where I couldn't resist. But the best way to beat your temptation is to face it head on. I have a pack of Malboro Reds I stare in the face whenever I feel like smoking and I don't even pick em up. But everyone finds their own way to quit.