Need motivation to quit smoking

[Hawise]

Well, I don't dislike it, and it also depends on the juice. This one banana juice I use, I really like, but it doesn't have enough nicotine to really curb cravings, so I can vape it forever and I still want to smoke. I really can't afford another device but my bf and I were wondering if I could or should pick up some of those gas station blu e cigs, to go back and forth between my device and that. Maybe having a variety would help. But really it's not so much the device as much as still figuring out the right type of e juice, I think.

I think that enjoying vaping is a a key factor in switching.

As I was reading this thread, I wondered if it might help to think of smoking in terms of a coping strategy. It is one, after all - something stressful happens, and you want a smoke. It's not just the addiction; it's also the habit that's relaxing and comforting. One of the things you learn when trying to ditch an unhealthy coping strategy is to replace it with a better one - vaping for smoking, in this case. The thing is, a new coping strategy doesn't work until you've practiced it a lot. As you do it again and again, and begin to use it for smaller stressors, your brain begins to identify it as something calming and effective. It gradually gets more effective and you begin to use it for bigger stressors, and that's when you start to substitute it for the unhealthy coping strategy.

Right now, it sounds like vaping is almost a negative. It's what you do when you're forcing yourself not to smoke, making it inherently stressful, not calming. It might help to ease off on your attempts to keep cutting down the cigs and focus on learning to enjoy vaping. You like the banana juice? Just enjoy it, and don't try to force it to be a substitute for a cigarette. @JCinFLA's offer sounds great and could really help you along the way.

When you get to the point that you like vaping for itself, it'll be a much more powerful coping strategy than it is now. That could be a better time to cut out the rest of the smokes.

For what it's worth, the pressure-free approach is how I switched. I knew that if I pushed too hard I'd get stressed and sabotage myself, so I decided to just try vaping and see how it went. I never denied myself a cigarette. Perhaps I haven't technically quit - it's just that I haven't got around to getting another pack in the last four years. It's not the right approach for everyone, but it worked for me. I hope you can find what works for you here or in someone else's suggestions.

Good luck!

 

[sofarsogood]

I think that enjoying vaping is a a key factor in switching.

For what it's worth, the pressure-free approach is how I switched. I knew that if I pushed too hard I'd get stressed and sabotage myself, so I decided to just try vaping and see how it went. I never denied myself a cigarette. Perhaps I haven't technically quit - it's just that I haven't got around to getting another pack in the last four years. It's not the right approach for everyone, but it worked for me. I hope you can find what works for you here or in someone else's suggestions.

Good luck!

That last paragraph mirrors my approach. I'm an older guy, vaping was my last chance but pressure is self defeating. I'll start this vaping thing but I'll have a cig WHENEVER I want one. Similar to the OP and a lot of us my ciigs declined 80% almost immediately and with no apparent effort. I considered declaring viicory and leaving things like that but reserved judgement. I left those last 5 daily cigs alone and focused on learning how to vape. Six weeks later I get a call that someone has died. I'll be leaving work immediately and off for a few days and out of my usual routine. I happened to be out of cigs but instead of stopping at a gas station to buy a carton I stopped at the vape shop and bought some cool new toys (presents work). That was the end. I didn't worry about relapse because that would be back to 5 cigs a day, not 25. I knew I'd never stop vaping.

So don't worry about smoking, just concentrate on vaping. I found cigs were less and less satisfying so by the time I tried for zero ciigs the effort was reletively low. Six weeks in to zero cigs I smoked one to prove to my brother and myself that I was immune (and I gave him an N mini and iStick 20 for Christmas which he still uses). He was a dual user for 10 months. Today I could smoke a cigarette with zero chance of relapse. That's the prize if you are patient.

 

[go_player]

Please help. TIA

Hmm... if there's anything I could tell you that might help motivate you to quit smoking it would be describing, blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute, what dying of lung cancer looks like, and how watching someone you love die that way feels. I'm not going to do that though- it is too ugly to post in a public forum, and even the dead deserve a degree of dignity and privacy.

I will talk about it in general terms though, and I will say that you do not want to invite that sort of death. It's a death, probably a premature one, full of terror, pain, and indignity. Imagine the worst thing that has ever happened to you. Now imagine it amplified many times over, so that you cannot stand it, but you must because you have no choice. Well- it's worse than what you are imagining. It is torture of the sort that makes you beg for death (really, and literally.) The future will become the present, by and by, and you don't want that in your future. Better to die in your sleep aged 104.

Cigarettes have been my stress ball, my excuse to step away from stress, the best friend that never criticizes me for 24 years.

Oh, I hear you on this one. I once tried reading the DSM-V, but a few pages in I dropped it and called my lawyers. I don't recall having assigned any rights to my life story to the "American Psychiatric Association," whatever that is.

I'm a complete nutjob, but an oddly successful one. I'll get manic and start a business that takes in a million in its first year. Then I'll get depressed and set a match to it- I'll admit that I have sometimes enjoyed burning down what I have just built:

Well, I am what I am, and probably diagnosable if I let the diagnosers within 100 yards of me. I don't.

But I do self-medicate with a lot of nicotine. It's wonderful stuff, once you divorce it from tobacco.

 

[Tonee N]

Hmm... if there's anything I could tell you that might help motivate you to quit smoking it would be describing, blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute, what dying of lung cancer looks like, and how watching someone you love die that way feels. I'm not going to do that though- it is too ugly to post in a public forum, and even the dead deserve a degree of dignity and privacy.

I will talk about it in general terms though, and I will say that you do not want to invite that sort of death. It's a death, probably a premature one, full of terror, pain, and indignity. Imagine the worst thing that has ever happened to you. Now imagine it amplified many times over, so that you cannot stand it, but you must because you have no choice. Well- it's worse than what you are imagining. It is torture of the sort that makes you beg for death (really, and literally.) The future will become the present, by and by, and you don't want that in your future. Better to die in your sleep aged 104.



Oh, I hear you on this one. I once tried reading the DSM-V, but a few pages in I dropped it and called my lawyers. I don't recall having assigned any rights to my life story to the "American Psychiatric Association," whatever that is.

I'm a complete nutjob, but an oddly successful one. I'll get manic and start a business that takes in a million in its first year. Then I'll get depressed and set a match to it- I'll admit that I have sometimes enjoyed burning down what I have just built:

Well, I am what I am, and probably diagnosable if I let the diagnosers within 100 yards of me. I don't.

But I do self-medicate with a lot of nicotine. It's wonderful stuff, once you divorce it from tobacco.

Take my vape and 200 rounds of ammunition to the range and send them down range at a zombie target. Best stress reliever I have found![emoji106]

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