Quitting Smoking and the Stories Behind it.

[Stefanozz]

The reason I'm here is because quitting smoking is has been very hard and frustrating for a long time. E-Cigarettes made this task about as easy as it can get in my life.

Today is 1 month without a single smoke for me. I have been reflecting on different methods tried, and hard moments in the last month also, and wanted to see if others had experiences they wanted to share.

This time quitting has been the easiest but not without challenges. For me, there have been about 4 times that I wanted a cigarette and felt like a PV was just not gonna cut it. You know the feeling, at least I think you do. I made a conscience decision to grab my pv and puff hard for about 10 minutes... and the urge disappeared. I think the first few weeks of using a PV instead of cigarettes, I had my mind fooled into thinking I was smoking.. but it seems the last week it is starting to miss the "old" way and know the difference. I plan to fight this thing with everything I have. My PV will be a 24mg pacifier if needed.

I know there are 500 people with stories or advice on this.. and I honestly want to read all of them. Please post your efforts to curb your smoking.

 

[DC2]

This will (probably) be a somewhat controversial suggestion...

Have a smoke. There, I said it.

It can work, or it can not.
But I really don't think it can hurt someone who is focused and committed.

For many people, having a smoke after vaping for a period of time will cement their resolve...
--Cigarettes now taste like cow dung
--Cigarettes provide very limited throat hit
--Cigarettes provide hardly any vapor

There have been some that tried a smoke and for some reason still seem to like them.
That can exacerbate your struggle if that happens to you.

But most people find a cigarette completely and totally unappealing.
And it further cements their resolve, and validates their decision to move on from death sticks.

The decision, however, is all yours.
And I take no responsibility for the outcome.

 

[Stefanozz]

The first cigarette after every quitting period I have ever had.. fell far short of what my tricky mind made it out to be. I am confident that cigarettes will be horrible. The trick is lowering the volume in my head that tells me how desperately I NEED one...

 

[MiamiMom63]

I actually agree with DC2. I think after a couple weeks I tried a cig just for the hell of it and couldn't smoke it. I think the problem was it was more the anticipation of having it and wondering how it would taste that had me mesmerized moreso than the actual cigarette. After all, it was the first two weeks I had gone without an analog after about 30 years of smoking. I have been vaping a little over a year now and have tried (maybe 4 times) to have a cig and just couldn't do it after a couple puffs. It sort of made me feel better to know that I wasn't missing out on anything after all by not smoking them. Once in a blue moon I wonder if it is any good and find out it is horrible! And then I just can't believe they had such a stronghold on me for 30 yrs.

 

[zuzette]

just keep up the positive re-enforcment....self encouragement ...and self congratulations ...no matter how it goes.

you learn new behaviors and learn to love them from the positive end of the stick. not the negative.


i only had ONE today gets you primed for more success vs I had one today dammit I'm a loser.

 

[Fiamma]

I've been at this for awhile now, vaping down at 4mg nic. I still keep a bottle of higher nic for stressful days, just in case.

I will wake up some mornings with a distinct feeling of looking for something, probably my morning cig. I just grab a PV instead and it goes away in a couple of puffs. For some of us it seems to be easier to stop. I smoked for 55 years, the last 20 of them at 2 cartons a week. I quit the day I got my gear and never picked up another one, but then the need was not there for me to do so for whatever reason. Maybe the juice I was using at the time had something to do with it.

I think my brain dreams of smoking sometimes while I sleep and I wake up looking for a cig I think it liked the freebase rush it got from the first hits on a cig. I should be long free of the residuals of smoking now as far as the umpteen chemicals that are in cigs, so I just chalk it up as my brain trying to fool me.

 

[JAY73]

i agree with everybody so far i think since we are ex-smokers(damn that just fells so good to say) evan after a period of time we feel the need for a stinky, for me i knew from my first vape this was for but i have backslid four times in in sixteen months the most recently when i had a major hardware failure i smoked for a week and it was pure hell so do not beat your self up just go with the flow it does get better as you go along..

 

[JENerationX]

I agree with DC2.... about once a month or 5-6 weeks or so, I light a cigarette. It tastes like crap, there's hardly any smoke, and no TH whatsoever. The last time I had one, I actually got nauseous and did in fact puke. A friend who was about 3 1/2 weeks in called me freaking out because he was having a craving for a cigarette. I'd talked him through his cravings up to this point, but the other day I told him to smoke one. He lasted 3 puffs and went back to vaping.

 

[MiamiMom63]

It's amazing how after smoking for so many years, that vaping is so much better to me. I really never thought that was possible. I actually started vaping because I was trying to quit smoking (for the umpteenth time) and was walking around my house with a hollowed out ballpoint pen that has a cig stub in the end of it for the smell of it, and I was sucking on it. OMG! Is that sick or what? That's where I was at with trying to quit smoking. So I figured I would go online and see if I could find something fake to suck on to quit smoking. Voila! Ecigs! OMG! I actually thought when I purchased my overly expensive analog look alike ecig that it would royally suck but at least it would be better than sucking on a hollowed out ball point pen. Once I ordered it online, I bought a pack of cigs to wait out the delivery. After all, I deserved to smoke while I waited, right! lol. When I got my overly priced crappy ecig, I took a puff on it the first time and I was like, OMG! I can maybe do this! Yep. It's all history after that. It worked for me. I took to it rather easy. Maybe because sucking on hollowed ball point pens was really dreadful. LMAO.

 

[dmj4]

I agree with some of the other posters, smoke a half cig. I still do occasionally. I don't do well when I feel I "can't" have something. With the cigs, i just think I can if I really want one. It is up to me. I allow myself up to 3 per day, but I've not had 3 or even a whole one in over 15 months. I just do better knowing I can have one, two or three, if I need them and still be successful.

I have noticed that I enjoy smelling someone else smoking a cigarette more than I enjoy smoking one myself. The smell of one burning makes me want to stand close to the smoker. Lol

You probably know, after trying to quit before, what your weaknesses are. Give yourself a little room to falter without a diagnosis of failure. Everytime you skip a cigarette and vape instead, you have succeeded. Every cigarette not smoked means you are healthier and happier because you skipped that one.

In the end, after 16 months, cigarettes aren't pulling me toward them anymore. I have taken it easy and allow myself room to slip up. That makes it easier with a lot less pressure. I may smoke my allowed 3 per day tommorrow, next week or never, but no matter because I am a vaper now.

I failed with other quitting techniques because the pressure and even sadness, like losing an old friend, made me begin to think of living for the rest of my life without a cigarette. I would think, "I can't smoke a cigarette for the rest of my life". I would then fail and smoke again. Sure, there have been times I have wanted to smoke the 3, but I talked myself out of it because I know I can have them if I want them.

Good luck and I hope something someone says strikes a note for you.

 

[JENerationX]

dmj4 - you're dead on. The second I CAN'T have something, the obsession begins. Vaping had to be a choice for me, and knowing it's a choice eventually led to me choosing not to smoke. I didn't quit... I just don't want it anymore.

 

[Strigoi]

I was tired of smoking and tried to quit way too many times. A friend of mine got a Blu, I tried it and figured this could work for me. After spending way too much money I just passed my 2 year anniversary of not smoking (Aug. 18th 2010). I have had a few drags here and there, but it's just to remind me how nasty cigarettes are. It's also a lot of fun tricking my friends into letting me take a drag so I can break the cig (oh ....! these things are fragile!). Some of them still haven't learned.

I've had many friends try e-cigs and only one of them has succeeded. I've lost touch with him (was a "party" friend) but a mutual friend has said he's gone well over a year without smoking. Even one of my friends that was really into it and had mods went back to smoking. I was seriously surprised when I saw him smoking again. He knew just as much as me when it came to this stuff.

 

[Kopfstimmen]

Well, for what it's worth, here's my story - I smoked and vaped together for 6 months or so. My cigarettes were down to between 5 and 10 a day from 1+ packs a day. Eventually, I got a "new" car that I didn't want to smoke in (it doesn't have an ashtray anyway), and a few days later I smoked the last cigarette out of my second to last pack before going to bed. The next day, I just didn't open the new pack and vaped instead.

From that point on, if I really got the urge, I'd just step outside with my PV for about 5 minutes, and I still take breaks at work; I just vape with my friend who smokes. All in all, it's been pretty easy - for those times I do still want one, I just think to myself that I don't want to go through that again...

 

[RosaJ]

The reason I'm here is because quitting smoking is has been very hard and frustrating for a long time. E-Cigarettes made this task about as easy as it can get in my life.

Today is 1 month without a single smoke for me. I have been reflecting on different methods tried, and hard moments in the last month also, and wanted to see if others had experiences they wanted to share.

This time quitting has been the easiest but not without challenges. For me, there have been about 4 times that I wanted a cigarette and felt like a PV was just not gonna cut it. You know the feeling, at least I think you do. I made a conscience decision to grab my pv and puff hard for about 10 minutes... and the urge disappeared. I think the first few weeks of using a PV instead of cigarettes, I had my mind fooled into thinking I was smoking.. but it seems the last week it is starting to miss the "old" way and know the difference. I plan to fight this thing with everything I have. My PV will be a 24mg pacifier if needed.

I know there are 500 people with stories or advice on this.. and I honestly want to read all of them. Please post your efforts to curb your smoking.

I agree with everyone else, don't beat yourself up. Try not to think of it as depriving yourself of the pleasure of smoking and light one up. I did that, and the last time I lit a stinky I gagged and threw away half a pack of cigs. There was no pressure from anyone around me to quit or not, it was an easy decision to make between how bad the cigarette tasted vs how good the vape tasted.

What I enjoy most about vaping is not just the flavoring but the clouds of vapor coming out. So after much research and trial and error I've decided that a pyrex tank with my provari is my all day set up at home, and my eGo vv 1000mAh passtrough with a Kanger T2 is my set up when I'm out in public. Just keep searching until you find the right set up for you and you will never look back with nostalgia to the days of smoking analogs.

Don't give up, keep trying, you won't regret it.

 

[Stefanozz]

Thanks for the replies from all. Your support and advice is invaluable. Off to go vape some more!

 

[Pappy]

For ME, having a cigarette is just not an option. I remember all the times I quit and then started back. That first cigarette made it easier to cheat again the next day. And what started out as one cigarette became 2 or 3 a day, and then 5 or 6 a day, and then I was smoking again.

So, when I started vaping, I decided that was it for the cigarettes. No more. No cheating. No drags. None, nada, zilch, bupkis. I decided I simply was not going to smoke any more ever again.

And you know what? It has worked for me. When I wanted a cigarette, there was no decision to be made on whether or not to smoke one. I think that helped me a lot.

But everybody is different. What worked for me may not work for anyone else.