Quick question about nicotine.

[zapped]

I am convinced that there is a percentage of people who are more addicted to nicotine than the rest of us.
And I am convinced that there is a percentage of people that use nicotine as a medication for various mental and/or physical issues.

But other than that, yeah, a large percentage of us are finding out that the stranglehold of nicotine is more like a hug.
We can live without it if we want to, but quite often find we don't really want to.



It used to be an absolute requirement for me to have a cigarette first thing when I got out of bed.
Now I often don't even have my first vape until late afternoon or early evening.

Everyone's mileage may vary.

There have been studies that show a HUGE percentage of smokers have ADHD or were never diagnosed with it but learned to cope using nicotine.

 

[DC2]

Though the nicotine we're all getting is derived from tobacco, no? So that makes the statement "nicotine is not significantly addictive" void to the extent we're concerned?

The nicotine we use is extracted from tobacco, and that extraction does not include any of the MAOIs that are in tobacco.
In fact, that is what WTA juice is all about. It is an extraction technique developed specifically to include the missing alkaloids that act as MAOIs.

 

[Faylool]

Yikes. MAOI is not supposed to be mixed with some meds. I haven't noticed any problem but I use a medbthatbsays mixing them could be lethal. There must be a very small amount in WTA

 

[PhreakySTS9]

I'm definitely still quite addicted to nicotine, and will notice withdrawal if I were to go 2-3 hours without vaping, BUT I honestly feel that I am far less addicted to vaping than I was to cigs. Not only have I lowered my nicotine levels to 6-12mg(12 being the MAXIMUM I can handle) and i'm not taking in all the MAOI's and other addictive crap added to cigarettes, I am much better off than I ever was with my PAD+ habit.

I also think that quitting is a lot easier with vaping, because not only does good eliquid contain none of the other junk of cigarettes, we can taper down with eliquid in a way never before possible with cigs. It's extremely hard to drop from 25 cigs a day to 5 cigs a day for most of us(I tried and failed more times than I could possibly ever count to taper down my daily cigarette consumption), but with vaping you can keep on vaping the same amount and just lower your nicotine, which I think is a huge benefit a lot of people underestimate.

 

[flarg]

I have ADHD, among other disorders, but I would notice that I /needed/ a cigarette when I'd get all panicky and confused and heart racing and couldn't think straight. I'd get my cigarette fix and calm down and get clear-headed and then good to go back to work. Sometimes this was just a once or twice a day occurrence, making my cigarette consumption rather low. So, I smoked for medicinal purposes. Felt I was warding off Alzheimer's too, since I had read about nicotine treatment and Alzheimer's once I thought.

I was not aware of the MAOI business prior to this thread. I know most the meds I've taken and still take frequently warn against smoking while taking these prescribed medications, but I guess I was just thinking of the vasoconstrictive properties of nicotine in smoking interfering with drug metabolism or also compounding the effects of other vasoconstrictors like certain pain and blood pressure meds. And of course many of my meds have the MAOI warning, but I always considered that a rather outdated warning. But now, it appears as though those MAOI warnings, which I thought were targeted at specific prescription MAOIs, are also relevant to tobacco consumption as well?

Though also, I was not aware of nitrates in tobacco. I felt I had discovered that I was sensitive to nitrates in food, which would trigger my migraines. Cutting out foods with nitrates really has seemed to make a world of difference to me (though I'm bummed I can't have cheap hot-dogs ).

Preformed tobacco-specific nitrosamines in tobacco—role of nitrate and influence of tobacco type
Fischer Sophia, Bertold Spiegelhalder and Rudolf Preussmann
Received March 20, 1989.
Revision received May 16, 1989.
Accepted May 24, 1989.
Preformed tobacco-specific nitrosamines in tobacco
Abstract

Fifty-five types of con cigarettes on the open market in the FRG and several samples of pure tobacco types were analyzed for preformed tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNA) and nitrate in the tobacco. For the cigarette tobaccos the observed range for N′-nitrosonorrncotine (NNN) was 50–5316 ng/cigarette and for 4-(methylnltrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) from not detected (<50 ng/cigarette) to 1120 ng/cigarette. Nitrate levels ranged from 0.6 to 14.4 mg/cigarette. The highest TSNA values were obtained for cigarettes made of dark tobaccos and the lowest for Oriental type cigarettes. The results demonstrated that there is a correlation between TSNA and nitrate levels. The tobacco type is another important influencing factor, especially for NNK. In Virginia tobaccos unexpectedly high NNK values were observed.

For the samples of the pure tobacco types, NNN levels ranged from 20 to 8850 p.p.b. and NNK levels from not detected (<50 p.p.b.) to 1400 p.p.b. The observed range for nitrate was from traces (<0.005%) to 4.1%. Pure Oriental tobaccos which are low in nitrate showed the lowest TSNA concentrations, hi the high nitrate Burley tobaccos the highest TSNA concentrations could be determined. Virginia tobaccos which show a low nitrate content are low in NNN but rather high NNK concentrations were found. The results from these pure tobacco types demonstrate that the nitrate content of the tobacco has a great influence on the TSNA level. However, Virginia tobaccos show higher NNK concentrations than expected according to their low nitrate content.

 

[cnimngrl]

I notice my want for nicotine the most when I'm in a movie theater. On a day to day basis I vape continually throughout the day rather than vaping in sessions, so I really don't know how much I'm actually vaping and how much the ego is just hanging around on my lanyard. But when I'm in that theater I know that nothing else pulls me out of the movie more than the realization that I need to puff on that thing a bit. Habit, or nicotine need? I don't know, but I suspect if it was out of habit I'd do it without thinking about it and wouldn't feel any sort of real need.

 

[Orobas]

If I forgot my cigarettes when I left the house, I'd have noticed by the time I got down the block and would be stopping at the nearest gas station to get another pack. If I forget my PV, or my battery dies down the road, I shrug and continue about my business without that antsy panic.

I can go to the movies now. I never liked to, before, because I would be too distracted wanting a cigarette to enjoy the film. I can enjoy dinner out with my family, without wanting to step out every ten minutes for a cigarette.

Sure I had an uncomfortable couple of weeks while i was weaning down the smokes and vaping more and more. But now I feel completely free from the need for a cigarette. I haven't wanted one in ages. Instead of sighing jealously at someone smoking out in public, I feel blissfully indifferent.

I could probably quit vaping tomorrow if I really had to, and I wouldn't even want to kill anybody. Do I want to? no. The motion soothes me and I enjoy the experience. But no. Nicotine itself isn't the enemy.

The WANT to vape is NOTHING like the NEED to smoke ever was. It's no where near as urgent and consuming.

 

[East]

Interesting input here. I think I'm going to continue with my plan to quit and step it down. I'll probably always have one around though just in case, there's no way I'd ever want to go back to analogs no matter what.