nothing is really satisfying

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patkin

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Personally, I took nearly a year easing into it. I have a medical condition that stress affects so I didn't want to risk health problems that way. Most of the time-period I smoked 5 or 6 a day... then slowly down to 2 or 3 a day... then realized I hadn't smoked that day at all. However, when stress hit big time, I allowed myself to smoke. Don't beat yourself up. Just keep your goal in mind... mine was improved health and saving money and let those be your guide... not what anyone else says.
 

Tyrawr

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I've heard the WTA (Whole tobacco Alkaloid) really does help people having a hard time switching from cigs to vaping. Give it a go and let us know if it helps you. Good luck and thanks for sharing your experience with us.

2) there's no "buzz" from e-cigs, unlike real tobacco. just a slightly "altered" feeling, heightened awareness, but the relaxation feeling I assosciate with tobacco is not really there. E-cigs feel artificial.

I think that trying WTA could be a perfect next step for you. I know that it seems more expensive, but based on what you are describing and experiencing, chances are that you are going to use much, much less, and get much more out of it. For me, the hard "buzz" is still absent, but the feelings of heightened awareness, satisfaction, and relaxation are equivalent. I've had excellent luck with mother's milk WTA, and regularly vape it strait (it also mixes very well) when I am hanging out with my significant other and she is smoking. I've actually come to enjoy the WTA vape more than tobacco smoke, which I did not expect, because I love(ed) smoking. It tastes and feels cleaner, more gentle, and long lasting. Give it a shot, and let me(/us?) know if you want any more advice in that realm :) I'm relatively new to this too, and aside from hardware, WTA is the only physical factor that has produced noticeable results in the areas that you are struggling with, for me so far. I've heard fantastic things about Aroma, though I've yet to try it because the cost is so high, and availability is so low. I have a bottle of Wholecig, but it seems that I recieved a "bad" bottle, so I can't really speak fairly to it, yet. Mother's Milk is delicious and awesome for me so far; affordable, consistent, and almost always ships for 1 cent (speedy, too!). Stay strong FireDragon; keep us posted!
 

Plumes.91

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I wish I didn't have to type what I'm about to type because I really need to go to sleep. But for you, and only you, I'll do this.

You need WTA. You aren't getting anxiolytic effects because regular nicotine juice does not contain the constitutents found in cigarette smoke that contributes to the anti anxiety effects. You are missing the MAOI harmine. It potentiates the nicotine in such a way that it allows you to achieve a level of nicotine in your CNS high enough to reap the "reward center" type effects, the focused effects, and the potentiation effects. The WTA (whole tobacco alkaloid) juices DO have these effects. They contain everything tobacco contains (including the naturally produced chemicals found in the tobacco leaves, known as alkaloids) AND nicotine. You need the MAOI properties for anxiolytic effects. You need WTA if you crave a FAST reward center stimulation. & You need WTA for potentiation of other substances, such as alcohol, caffeine/stimulants, and pain relieving agents.

If you cannot afford the WTA juices solely, then just use them when you're absolutely craving those effects. You can also more-easily transition to regular nicotine juice from WTA juices, rather than switching from tobacco to nicotine juice. You got this.
 

Sucker_dad

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I agree you need to start with a 36 mg nicotine level. I was a 1.5 PAD smoker of MArlboro 100s and I started on 24 mg. I was able to drop to 6 in a matter of 3.5 months. The first day I vaped I smoked 4 cigarettes. within 5 days I quit completely. I had one t of weakness about 3 weeks in when I broke my only e-cig and after that I keep several around. I have 5 vision spinners and 2 mechs plus 1 pass thru for extreme cases. If you do go with 36mg just vape enough to kill the cravings. Otherwise you will make yourself sick on it. Good Luck!
 

coalyard

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With all due respect FD, (and I mean that) I believe you are expecting too much. E-cigs are not a magic bullet that will miraculously make you stop smoking. Stopping such an addictive habit is going to require much more effort than that. What e-cigs ARE is a very good alternative nicotine delivery system to assist you in quitting. IOW, quitting smoking, much like anything good in life, is going to require some effort to achieve.

I smoked 3 packs a day for over 30 years. I am a type 1 diabetic. I tried Chantix, and it got me down to a bit less than a pack a day, but it didn't finish the job for me; e-cigs closed the deal. I had many reasons for wanting to quit which, in the end, were important enough TO ME to make me actually stop. Your reasons will be different, but they must be important enough to you to work.

I truly wish you the best in your endeavor to quit smoking. I think it is safe for me to speak for others here at ECF to say that we are all here to help and advise you. I am here to say that quitting smoking will eventually become one of the best decisions you ever made, and will carry many more benefits than are apparent to you now. Good luck, and best wishes.
 

birdSmok

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There are a lot of great comments. As I was reading them I kept thinking of the 4000+ substances found in cigs. Then the other Chemical reactions that make other substances when fire and oxygen is added to it. I also thought of how the cig is carbondioxide. So you are starving your brain of oxygen when you hit a cig. That is something you get used to. The roll your own pipe tobacco. Yes very strong. Pipe tobacco is ment for a slow smoke. So it is strong. If you roll it you get a big blast. Cigars I did in the past. They aren't pure tobacco just like pipe and roll your own. All have ingredience added to them to keep them fresher longer and flavor additives. The only way to get pure tobacco is to grow it yourself organically. Dry it. Then smoke it. That would be pure tobacco. Now all this doesn't mean you can't stop smoking. It just is the reason you are struggling. You will make it. I don't doubt that. I just wanted to add my 2 cents about the background of some stuff. As you vape don't feel guilty if you must do an analog. Soon you won't need them. If you start feeling guilty for having an analog you only will make it harder.

Cold turkey my dad did. Lots of coughing attacks. Lots of allergies. Being really sick. Then the crazy mental aspect. I smoked in the past. I picked up vaping for the hobby and relaxation. I do Zero mic. I'm all about the flavor and DIY juice. Without the nic stimulant ( nic is a stimulant ) it is truely relaxing. If you have anxiety issues you might want to get a doctor to help you with those. I have anxiety and Rage. My doctor helps with those. A truely relaxing vape is Valerian root mixed with PG and VG. That is a herb that is ment to relax you. I love vaping that mix. Really calm.

I do want to make one last statement. Everybody's body is different. Same with everybody's addiction. There is a general path all may follow. Some may go different directions off the path before they make it to the end. That does not make a person bad or weak. That is only that person. Don't stress just work your program.
 

Dshobe

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Wow, some great replies so far! I haven't been vaping for long (3 weeks), but have cut back from 2 packs a day to 4-5 cigarettes a day. The difference in how I feel has been amazing, and not smelling like an ashtray is definitely a plus!

It sounds to me, and please don't take offense OP, that you may not be at the point where you really, REALLY want to quit smoking. I was, and am. You can't kick an addiction until YOU are ready.
 

cocacola31173

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You have to remember that vaping is not like smoking...its a complete different taste, inhalation method and nic hit. But after a month it does get better. I dragged out one of my old cig alike batteries the other day and the simple act of smoking was so awkward for me! ANd I smoked for over 20 years.
 

FireDragon1138

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I actually roll my own cigs using filters or filter tubes. It's actually easier to hand roll with a filter. And I usually use a holder of some kind that has a filter. But they are still potent stuff, in between strength of a light and full flavor filtered cigarette.

My point is that I find light cigarettes, commercially made, perfectly satisfying in a way that 18mg e-liquid is not, and left on my own devices, I'd smoke about 14-20 of them a day. That's my comment. I've hit on high nicotine e-liquid and it does kill the craving for cigs but it also has a lot of unpleasant side effects for me, like anxiety, that are absent in real tobacco.

I ordered some Aroma e-Juice 12mg G.I. Joe WTA to try (I've tried a similar flavor before, and I liked it). I will let you all know how it goes.
 
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olderthandirt

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Talk to your doctor. Really.

I've gone from snus, snuff, pipe and RYO to vape only. Stopping the snus was the hardest for me.
Spoke with my doctor and agreed to try Welbutrin. That did the trick, for me.

Whatever the underlying causes may be for the anxiety/panic, tobacco withdrawal or......... talk to your doctor.
 

Plumes.91

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I rolled up pipe tobacco the last 2 years I smoked. Its all I could afford. I went through 35-40 pipe tobacco cigarettes a day, sometimes just using rolling paper with no filter if I had no filter tubes. But I had to quit that, it was hurting my lungs. I had this spot in my right lung that felt like I was poking a hole through it every morning and every night. My esophagus felt inflamed & coated in phlegm most of the time.

I do not think MORE nicotine is better for a heavy smoker. I think a lower nic amount is better, because heavy smokers are heavy vapers. If you smoked a pack or more a day, then if you start at 24+ mg your going to wind up sick from too much nicotine. I smoked almost 2 packs a day of RYO pipe tobacco cigs and I got sick from 24mg the first day I switched. To this day 24mg makes me sick. & you think your withdrawing from not smoking, but your actually just nic sick from the damn 24mg juice. So you vape more, get sicker. It's ridiculous the amount of times I've seen people recommend 24-3x mg juice to new vapers. More is NOT More. Less is more.

WTA juices at 18mg is all you need to switch if you're having a rough time switching. Not higher mg nicotine juice.
 

Danderdude

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Whats missing from juice are the other addictive chemicals they add to ciggs!

I'm tired of this nonscientific assumption being thrown around.

The 200 or 4000 or 247365 "chemicals" in cigarette smoke are just the natural products of plant matter incomplete combustion, aka SMOKING. When you partially break down a very large number of complex and varied molecular structures, you will end up with an exponentially larger number of possible compounds. The good news is that the most harmful ones are also much more temperature sensitive, your carbon monoxide, chlorobenzenes, phenols and aldehydes. They mostly burn up in the bud.
 

Danderdude

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I'm now on day 5 of being tobacco free and am struggling with cravings. This is basically the middle of beating the neonicotinoid addiction. It's not just pure nicotine that's in cigarette smoke, but many alkiline derivatives as well that share the same functional groups. Those minor addictions in addition to the real nicotine addiction together are what make it hard to break the habit. However I'm doing my best to get through these two weeks and narrow the addiction spectrum down.
 

Plumes.91

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We have said it several times, if you feel your addicted to the alkaloids that took the anxiety away from nicotine, you should try WTA juices. If you want to withdraw from the other alkaloids, so your free from their chains, then do so. Pure nicotine alone is a stimulant. Stimulation includes energy boost and spontaneous thought, which can induce anxiety. Nicotine with harmine, is potentiated, and there-for it gives those effects of calming stimulation, focus, quieting of the mind. Nicotine + WTA alkaloids also potentiates other substances.

If you are someone that needs this, then use WTA juices. If you are someone that just wants to make the switch, stick to 12-18mg nicotine if you smoked 1-2 packs a day. If you only smoked .5 or less packs a day, then I'd recommend 18mg at the lowest. People that smoked more, can benefit from using 12mg nicotine, because they'll be vaping a lot. People that don't have that oral addiction can use 18mg nicotine for their 5-10 vapes. In my opinion, 24mg nicotine should only be used by those consciously willing to only take 1-4 drags per vape session. 24mg should not be used to vape "normally" rather, as an aid to shorten vape session duration.
 
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FireDragon1138

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Just some background about me that might be relevant to my situation...

I am an adult with Asperger's syndrome, vision impared (I cannot drive anymore), and I have fibromyalgia (I'm also disabled and waiting on my SSI settlement). The fibro has been getting better the past year and some days I have no pain at all from it. Otherwise, my physical health is very good and I've been an infrequent smoker in the past 15 years, with periods where I smoke and periods where I quit. I've used smokeless tobacco a lot in that time.

A few months ago I was given ketamine during a colonoscopy (I have irritable bowel, at the time I was a non-smoker). I had a bad reaction to the ketamine and started freaking out for days afterwards. I feel like it messed up my head and made my panic attacks much worse. So I'm very sensitive to stimulants now, or anything that pushes up my anxiety. I feel like my brain is broken. The only relief I've found is in CBD, but its expensive. Whole tobacco also seems to eliminate the anxiety, but not pure nicotine. At least, the nicotine doesn't completely remove it. It still leaves me a bit edgey and feeling in a funk.

Wellbutrin is the wrong thing for me to be taking right now. I took it in the past and started getting psychotic depression at 150mg/d- I got by on dropping it to 100mg. And I found it hard to stop, too.

I'm no longer interested in quitting tobacco. I can honestly look back and see my mental health being better using tobacco, I see some positive qualities a much vilified herb, honestly, and not all forms of tobacco are all that unhealthy. But, I currently find myself stuck in cigarette mode, so I'd like to find a way to get the satisfaction of smoking but in a healthier form. I initially thought vaping would supply that, but now I'm realizing it is not so simple- the two experiences are very different. Most e-liquids are more like NRT, in my brief experience.
 
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Plumes.91

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Are you taking medication for your fibrymialgia? We are very similar. Although I am not diagnosed Asperger's, I have struggled with oversensitivity my entire life. It began in 4th/5th grade and ever since, its only gotten worse. I cannot look many people in the eyes. I cannot enjoy a dinner with my family. I cannot stop thinking about how I feel, every little movement of my body gets scrutinized, from a leg twitch to a one sided crack of a smile. I'm over-sensitive to social cues & it causes extreme social anxiety. Nicotine vapor can/does give me anxiety, but I know when to quit vaping before that happens, usually.

As far as nicotine juice goes, I notice the effects of vaping in conjunction with my medication almost immediately. If you are on pain medication for your fibro, I believe that cigarette smoke potentiates the euphoric side of pain medications, where-as, our e-cigarettes actually cause dysphoria. Vapor does little to nothing in the way of potentiation, because it lacks MAOI activity. Our nicotine also makes friends/family of mine living on pain medications often feel very ill, nauseous, and foggy-headed if they've skipped a regular dose, or if they've taken a dose too soon after the last. The pure nicotine acts as a dopaminergic receptor & dopamine catalyst. Which can cause symptoms of over-sensitization, classic "withdrawal" syndrome, classic nicotine overdose symptom, and dopamine overstimulation. So our e-cigarettes can be tricky to get the hang of for those on these types of medications.

I think you would truly benefit from purchasing a small 15ml bottle of whole tobacco alkaloid juice. It does contain MAO Inhibitors, which means the WTA juices DO allow for more relaxing feelings, more-similar to cigarettes, in comparison to the solely nicotine molecular makeup in regular e-juice. & nicotine pretty much only acts as a stimulant, never a high dose stimulant. (unless it is potentiated by MAOIs) The difference between low & high doses of nicotine is night and day. In low doses, it is strictly a stimulant. In higher doses, it's a stimulant based sedative. Which means you're body will feel fresh, renewed, but you won't get undesirable effects, such as overactive mind or physical hyperactivity or over-firing neurons. Rather, with WTA juice, it gives the effects of focus, calm- stillness of mind, and all of the effects we were used to with cigarettes, such as potentiation of other substances, and "relaxation" of the body.

What you SHOULDN'T do, is you should NOT listen to people telling you it is nicotine withdrawal. Nicotine withdrawal and nicotine overstimulation feel almost EXACTLY the same. So it's very easy for one to steer another wrong, if they do not know the other's whole-story. If you were a regular smoker of 1 or more packs per day, I recommend going with 12 to 18mg juice, no higher. You may be able to get away with 10-11mg but no higher than 18 and no lower than 10 without experiencing uncomfortable symptoms.
In my opinion, 24mg juice is SOLELY for reducing the amount of "puffs" one has to take to get a sufficient amount of nicotine per vape. 24mg in my opinion, should never be vaped like we used to smoke, if you were a heavy smoker. (people like to think [naturally] that it would make sense for a heavy smoker to use a HIGHER mg amount. On the contrary, I believe that a heavy smoker should use a LOWER nicotine amount, because a heavy smoker will be a heavy vaper) Using 24+mg nicotine liquid will potentially only cause immediate problems of over-stimulation, and eventually, a leveling out, a new baseline, and ultimately a higher physical/emotional dependance than the dependance one had before switching from cigarettes to 24+mg juice. Could a 5 a day smoker utilize 24mg juice? I think so. They could drastically reduce the amount of puffs they need to take for those 5 vapes each day. One to four puffs from 24mg juice should sufficiently satisfy a 5-10 a day smoker. But if your going to chain vape like you chain smoked, then 12-18mg will replicate the experience of smoking much more efficiently, in my humble O.

Thats all I've got. If this post gets scrolled over like I suspect the others have, then your all on your own.
 
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