The psychological difference between 8mg and 11mg...
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Rachy, you don't have to go DIY, unless you want to. Just purchase the same flavor of juice in 2 different levels and mix them together a carto or tank at a time in whatever ratio you want. Mostly the higher level and a little of the lower level in your delivery device is still reducing the nic at small increments.
OK- to address the issue of why I want to reduce my nicotine- because I can! I spent 11.5 years addicted to cigarettes and I'd rather not be overly addicted to anything anymore. It's a control thing. Also, considering the EU's threat, I think it wise to try and reduce it as much as possible now. A further thing to consider is that I am a woman and at some point in the distant future, should I try to have children, I would rather maximise my chances of having one. My mum smoked when she was pregnant with me and I would rather not use nicotine whilst pregnant- but that really is a personal choice. It is unlikely, but I would still rather be prepared.
Like everything with e-cigs, it's all about individuality and personal preference. I respect and understand those who need or choose to stay at a higher nicotine ratio but I found that 18mg was too high and, having dropped to 11mg (and being very proud of this!), I hoped I could drop lower. I'm not ready for that yet. I accept that. But one day, and I hope one day soon, I will be.
Subversive, I'm pretty much doing the same things and am nearly doubling the amount of batteries I use in a day (because I don't count in ml, just batteries!) from 2.5 to 4 so I know that 8mg isn't right for me at the moment.
Denali_41, the brain is stimulated by nicotine to release the happy hormone, dopamine. This begins when you get the throat hit and continues when the nicotine reaches your brain. Nicotine, effectively, is a very mild antidepressant and nobody would ask somebody to come off antidepressants just like that. Also, if it was so easy to have 0nic just like that, why are we using e-cigs in the first place and not going cold turkey off the fags?
Heavyrocker, I was looking for advice and to know that it really wasn't just me being a wimp. To know that others have been in the same boat and found that drop difficult is incredibly reassuring. Getting off the cigs onto e-cigs is certainly easier than the official NRTs out there, but there are still moments when it is difficult and support is needed. While the forum is excellent for support on the technical side of things, support on the emotional and day-to-day side is also crucial. The power of 'you are not alone' and the practical advice of people who have been there before you, know what you're going though and can offer their own experiences to guide you should not be underestimated. After all, if we could do this alone, we wouldn't be using the forum, right?x
Like everything with e-cigs, it's all about individuality and personal preference. I respect and understand those who need or choose to stay at a higher nicotine ratio but I found that 18mg was too high and, having dropped to 11mg (and being very proud of this!), I hoped I could drop lower. I'm not ready for that yet. I accept that. But one day, and I hope one day soon, I will be.
Subversive, I'm pretty much doing the same things and am nearly doubling the amount of batteries I use in a day (because I don't count in ml, just batteries!) from 2.5 to 4 so I know that 8mg isn't right for me at the moment.
Denali_41, the brain is stimulated by nicotine to release the happy hormone, dopamine. This begins when you get the throat hit and continues when the nicotine reaches your brain. Nicotine, effectively, is a very mild antidepressant and nobody would ask somebody to come off antidepressants just like that. Also, if it was so easy to have 0nic just like that, why are we using e-cigs in the first place and not going cold turkey off the fags?
Heavyrocker, I was looking for advice and to know that it really wasn't just me being a wimp. To know that others have been in the same boat and found that drop difficult is incredibly reassuring. Getting off the cigs onto e-cigs is certainly easier than the official NRTs out there, but there are still moments when it is difficult and support is needed. While the forum is excellent for support on the technical side of things, support on the emotional and day-to-day side is also crucial. The power of 'you are not alone' and the practical advice of people who have been there before you, know what you're going though and can offer their own experiences to guide you should not be underestimated. After all, if we could do this alone, we wouldn't be using the forum, right?x
Yep, I can't emphasize enough for you to look at the percentages you are dropping. In the beginning, it's okay to go down 3 or 4mg, but not as you are getting down to the lower levels.
Going from 11mg to 8mg (3mg) is a 27% drop; whereas going from 24mg to 21mg (again 3mg) is only a 12% drop.
I just went from 6mg to 4mg and that was a 33% drop and I am struggling with it big time. My next mixes are going to be 5mg.
Going from 11mg to 8mg (3mg) is a 27% drop; whereas going from 24mg to 21mg (again 3mg) is only a 12% drop.
I just went from 6mg to 4mg and that was a 33% drop and I am struggling with it big time. My next mixes are going to be 5mg.
I don't wish to disparage anyone's desire to kick nicotine. It is, however worth noting that the idea that nicotine stimulation is objectively bad because it is artificial (i.e., a drug) presupposes a this-is-the-best-of-all-possible-worlds type of worldview that is untenable. Foot travel and heat stroke are natural, while air planes and air conditioning are both artificial. We mustn't suppose that they should be avoided based solely on the idea that what we do naturally is inherently better than what we do with the help of technology. And drugs are, after all, just a technology.
That said, I want to emphasize that I understand that there are many valid reasons for not wanting to consume nicotine; for example, nicotine's vascular constriction may cause scars to be worse after injuries or surgery. Also, personal whim, which requires no justification at all.
That said, I want to emphasize that I understand that there are many valid reasons for not wanting to consume nicotine; for example, nicotine's vascular constriction may cause scars to be worse after injuries or surgery. Also, personal whim, which requires no justification at all.
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Maybe for some people, but in general, I'm not so sure...
Nicotine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And think about this...
It is a very common experience for vapers to find their need for nicotine diminishes over time.
Or even disappears completely.
I have been working on reducing my nicotine level over the past 15 months because I want to be prepared when/if the FDA puts regulations on nic juice and starts taxing it to death. It's already a struggle on a fixed income to keep me in supplies. If I can get lower...or even 0 (eventually, no hurry) then the government can't touch my vaping habits. I have PVs that will survive an apocalypse, and back ups for back ups. Flavorings, PG, VG and such don't cost much and there is NO way the gov't can touch those. So...if the worst case happens, I won't be thrown into a tizzy. I'm at 4mg. now and was thinking about stepping down even more, until I read a thread last night that got me thinking about maybe not being in such a hurry. I think I may need the nicotine to help combat my depression tendencies. So maybe I'll just stick with 4mg....and start stockpiling unflavored nic liquid in my freezer as I can. I've heard that it can keep well for at least 10 years if left unopened. And even longer really. Some even say indefinitely! So that would work! I only use 5ml of nic juice in a 60ml. recipe...so it can last a LONG time!
Well..it was all the other chemicals added to the fags that made me addicted,like most others.once you get rid of those those chemicals the addiction is all in your head at that point
i picked up an e-cig to get off the fags ,not to have an alternative habit,now at 0mg the next logical step is to quit vapin,,SUCCESS !!
vapin is better then smoking,,it is not better then inhaling plain oxygen
If you were able to make a no-nic liquid with the exact taste and TH of a 36mg liquid and gave it to me to vape without telling me it was nic free, I would know very shortly that something was up.
Shhhhhh! It's a secret!
Denali: I'm in awe of how easy you found it. Had you tried the patches and the gum first? Seriously, what's your secret to success?
Subversive: Are you up for an experiment in that?! Purely in the name of science? I'm curious to know if we could tell...
Jackstraw: Hey!!! How's it going! I'm glad to see you're still 2 days ahead of me! I'm back on the 11mg now having had a lot of fun with the DIYing... weirdly, I didn't need to steep but that could be because I still had some juice in the cartomiser...we'll see! I went up to 18mg for a couple of hours which is infinitely better than going back to the stinkies!
You see, this is what is genuinely so great about e-cigs- CONTROL! We can control our own nicotine use! Rather than letting it (or rather BT or or BP) control us! If one cigarette (hypothetically) contained 18mg but we only needed 16mg, we couldn't control that but we can control our juices. The same is true of NRTs. Certainly in the UK, we might be prescribed 26mg patches for 2 weeks, then 18mg and so on, without having as much control or choice. Sure, we might be able to stay on the 26mg for the entire duration of our 3 months prescription but then what? Pay a fortune for the patches ourselves (I love the NHS usually...)!
I wonder what the case would have been if I'd chosen to buy the 8mg... I chose to buy 11mg and that was cool... Knowing how stubborn I am, and that if you tell me to do something I wont do it, but then if I think the idea is my own, I will do it, I wonder if this is part of my own psychology- I felt forced to drop lower than I wanted and psychologically reacted as much as physically.
I have tried every method to quit over the 45 years that I smoked. All of them had some degree of success. Vaping just appears to be the effortless way to quit (or transition from) smokes. I had tapered to 18-12-6 e-juice during the day and talked to many relatives during the Holidays and some things here reminded me of what we already know and I started wondering why I didn't act on them, if they were in fact true.
It is obvious to me that nicotine is not as addictive as smoking is. Nicotine is not as addictive as cr**k. Smoking is!
Nicotine is as addictive as caffeine!
I agree with DC2s post...
and this post....
and this post...
except you have to learn how to use the box to the right of "Reply With Quote" ! Lol
and although I agree with this post....
in that, I know I could tell the difference, but the nic free could still be a satisfying Vape by itself.
So now that I armed myself with this knowledge, took comfort in the fellowship here, and made it safely through the stressful Holidays....
I convinced myself to try if the nicotine by itself was only as addictive as caffeine. I stopped Vaping for 2 days and had no cravings.
I then tried Vaping no nic juice. It was as enjoyable as the nic juice.
SO..... it is now blatantly obvious to me that the tobacco companies were making the nicotine become more addictive while smoking
....now my biggest fear is that these industries will do the same to e-juice to make it more addictive once they become the sole supplier of e-juice. Does anyone share my concerns?
ETA: I have no idea why my banner states 1 year minus 1 month rather than 11 months!! Lol
It is obvious to me that nicotine is not as addictive as smoking is. Nicotine is not as addictive as cr**k. Smoking is!
Nicotine is as addictive as caffeine!
I agree with DC2s post...
and this post....
and this post...
except you have to learn how to use the box to the right of "Reply With Quote" ! Lol
and although I agree with this post....
in that, I know I could tell the difference, but the nic free could still be a satisfying Vape by itself.
So now that I armed myself with this knowledge, took comfort in the fellowship here, and made it safely through the stressful Holidays....
I convinced myself to try if the nicotine by itself was only as addictive as caffeine. I stopped Vaping for 2 days and had no cravings.
I then tried Vaping no nic juice. It was as enjoyable as the nic juice.
SO..... it is now blatantly obvious to me that the tobacco companies were making the nicotine become more addictive while smoking
....now my biggest fear is that these industries will do the same to e-juice to make it more addictive once they become the sole supplier of e-juice. Does anyone share my concerns?
ETA: I have no idea why my banner states 1 year minus 1 month rather than 11 months!! Lol
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I did something similar about 6 months ago...
I came back from a vacation to Cozumel/Cancun/Playa Del Carmen with a bit of a Montezuma's revenge.
And I left all my vaping gear packed away in my luggage in the trunk of the car.
For two days I took off work and hung out around the house, but just never bothered to go unpack my vaping gear.
And although at times I kind of thought it would be nice to vape, I never had a craving to.
If I had been smoking cigarettes that NEVER would have happened.
In fact, I would have driven to the store in my bathrobe, puking all the way if I had to.
I did something similar about 6 months ago...
I came back from a vacation to Cozumel/Cancun/Playa Del Carmen with a bit of a Montezuma's revenge.
And I left all my vaping gear packed away in my luggage in the trunk of the car.
For two days I took off work and hung out around the house, but just never bothered to go unpack my vaping gear.
And although at times I kind of thought it would be nice to vape, I never had a craving to.
If I had been smoking cigarettes that NEVER would have happened.
In fact, I would have driven to the store in my bathrobe, puking all the way if I had to.
Several things bother me about this:
1) Any addiction Grows. It gets larger and stronger.
Vaping (my case & your case, anyway) does not seem to always get stronger as an addiction.
2) Things have been added to smokes to make the nicotine more addictive. Nicotine patches and gum are nearly as hard to quit as smoking is. Does this mean things have been added to them as well?
3) Will e-juice production be limited to companies who will add things to it to make 4mg (EU) e-juice as addictive as smoking, patches or gum.
If this was just a matter of will power (which I am very limited in) then the nicotine patches should have been as easy to quit as a cup of coffee is. They definitely were not. The fact that you could leave your vaping gear in your car for a few days proves that something is very different about this.
I know that not everyone reacts the same and that even withdrawal from caffeine can have physical symptoms, but the degree of difference between my nicotine addiction while smoking and my addiction to my DIY nicotine juice is night and day different. There should definitely be more research studies on vaping. I'm in 2 studies right now but it will take a long time to have useful information available for others.
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I think there are two sides to addiction; the psychological and the physical. The simple 'hand to mouth' action and 'seeing' the smoke/vapour might be considered the psychological. The physical is the effect nicotine has on our bodies. Nicotine changes the brain's make-up and, as I have previously mentioned, is a very mild anti-depressant in that it stimulates the brain to release dopamine.
Again though, we are all individuals with our own brain make-up and our own psychologies. There are some amazing people out there who can give up the cigs cold turkey and after a couple of days be OK about it, as my grandmother and exboyfriend did (needless the say, the exboyfriend couldn't understand why it was so difficult for me to quit, he behaved like a jerk and had to go!). From my own experience, though, I had to know myself in order to get off the stinkies. I knew that the control element of my brain, the stubborn, challenging part, would like to have a go and so I would challenge myself to only have 10 cigs a day (very early on!), then 5...suddenly it was 2, then 1. That final one, first thing on a morning, was very much about the quick fix.
When friends have asked about my success this time, I tell them that I 'believe in the magic'. It's a strange thing to say, perhaps, but this time I KNOW it will work.
But then there is the physical side. I had to up my nicotine to 24mg when I first came onto e-cigs full-time to get me over that first few hours. Physically, 11mg hadn't cut it when I first started out last year (and failed!). 24mg, dropping to 18mg did cut the mustard this time. Again, physically I realised that 18mg was keeping me up all night and dropping to 11mg wouldn't be a bad idea. To keep me at it, though, psychologically I was remembering that it was my choice to do this.
This is where we reach the 11mg/8mg conundrum. Half of you seem to go with the physical, while the other half are psychological. Either way, it doesn't matter because whether it is a physical or a psychological thing, I wasn't ready- and after only 7 weeks on the e-cig, I don't think that's too much of a bad thing! I wonder if we actually thought about our own psychologies (I'm no psychologist but I like to think I know myself pretty well), if this might partially explain why some people seem to manage it easier? Perhaps that dopamine rush is more important for some than others, perhaps for genuine health reasons?
As for the is nicotine as addictive as caffeine or ......, I've never tried ...... so I wouldn't like to comment on that side too much although I would point you to this article; Is Nicotine Addictive? It Depends on Whose Criteria You Use - New York Times. However, if I don't have my caffeine, I am ratty, irritable, bad tempered and exhausted...not to mention the headaches (oh those cruel, cruel headaches!)! If I went cold turkey from nicotine, I think I'd have to be locked up in a padded cell!
Finally, what exactly do they add to nicotine to make it more addictive and does it become an entirely new compound?x
Again though, we are all individuals with our own brain make-up and our own psychologies. There are some amazing people out there who can give up the cigs cold turkey and after a couple of days be OK about it, as my grandmother and exboyfriend did (needless the say, the exboyfriend couldn't understand why it was so difficult for me to quit, he behaved like a jerk and had to go!). From my own experience, though, I had to know myself in order to get off the stinkies. I knew that the control element of my brain, the stubborn, challenging part, would like to have a go and so I would challenge myself to only have 10 cigs a day (very early on!), then 5...suddenly it was 2, then 1. That final one, first thing on a morning, was very much about the quick fix.
When friends have asked about my success this time, I tell them that I 'believe in the magic'. It's a strange thing to say, perhaps, but this time I KNOW it will work.
But then there is the physical side. I had to up my nicotine to 24mg when I first came onto e-cigs full-time to get me over that first few hours. Physically, 11mg hadn't cut it when I first started out last year (and failed!). 24mg, dropping to 18mg did cut the mustard this time. Again, physically I realised that 18mg was keeping me up all night and dropping to 11mg wouldn't be a bad idea. To keep me at it, though, psychologically I was remembering that it was my choice to do this.
This is where we reach the 11mg/8mg conundrum. Half of you seem to go with the physical, while the other half are psychological. Either way, it doesn't matter because whether it is a physical or a psychological thing, I wasn't ready- and after only 7 weeks on the e-cig, I don't think that's too much of a bad thing! I wonder if we actually thought about our own psychologies (I'm no psychologist but I like to think I know myself pretty well), if this might partially explain why some people seem to manage it easier? Perhaps that dopamine rush is more important for some than others, perhaps for genuine health reasons?
As for the is nicotine as addictive as caffeine or ......, I've never tried ...... so I wouldn't like to comment on that side too much although I would point you to this article; Is Nicotine Addictive? It Depends on Whose Criteria You Use - New York Times. However, if I don't have my caffeine, I am ratty, irritable, bad tempered and exhausted...not to mention the headaches (oh those cruel, cruel headaches!)! If I went cold turkey from nicotine, I think I'd have to be locked up in a padded cell!
Finally, what exactly do they add to nicotine to make it more addictive and does it become an entirely new compound?x
The article is interesting reading but it constantly interchanges "nicotine addiction" with "smoking addiction". There seems to be very little information available on nicotine addiction that is not related to smoking or tobacco use. People do become addicted to nicotine patches and nicotine gum but there seems to be very little information available on the subject of nicotine addiction that is not tied to smoking.
****
I have tried to quit many, many, many times before using every resource available. I am definitely not someone who can just put down smokes and walk away. With vaping I have been able to transition away from smoking fairly easily. After vaping for nearly a year I have been able to transition away from nicotine fairly easily. This seems definitely different to me.
Vaping has made a difference and it is not just the power of suggestion (since the majority of vapers here seem content to vape forever, I would gladly do this as well) nor is it even something that I have had as a goal or that I have consciously planned to do. Granted, I could not have done this a few months ago, but the time is now right to do this. This seems to be in agreement with this quote from the above article:
"Moreover, it is not merely the drug that determines addiction, says Dr. John R. Hughes, an addiction expert at the University of Vermont. It is also the person, and the circumstances in the person's life. A user may be able to resist dependence at one time and not at another."
I guess my time had come! Lol
I was ready to cut and paste quotes and info but I realized that DC2 had all the info and links in Post #27 in this thread.
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