trying to quit nicotine vs. just trying to quit analogs?

[justme4112]

VinnieVapor I'm totally with you on the sentiment "I hated how I couldn't do anything without having cigarettes with me and I now I hate how I can't do anything without having my ecig with me. The only culprit is nicotine"

I Have been off of analogs for 4 months and 3 weeks now, and off of nicotine for 3 weeks. Relatively speaking, it was a breeze to switch from analogs to ecigs, compared to totally going off of nicotine. I purchased my 1st pv really as a novelty item, thought it would be great for non-smoking hotel rooms, rental cars, etc. Then I started to read about people quitting analogs on them, and became curious. After finding an optimum nicotine level I quit analogs just because I could. Why not quit if quitting was relatively easy I asked myself. That all went well, then, every month I cut the nicotine level in half (started at 18mg., then to 9 mg, 4 1/2 mg, etc...)till finally I went to 0 nic.. For the 1st week of each drop in nicotine I would be a bit "edgy," but nothing serious, and that would level out for the rest of the month.

Having quit cold turkey 20 years ago, I know exactly how difficult that is, and after 8 months as a non-smoker, was ELATED to start again, and thought, "what the H was I thinking wanting to quit smoking!" Anyway, back to the drop to 0 nic. - after going 0 nic. the cravings and constant hunger from nicotine withdrawl did show up (as well as excess crabbiness at home unfortunately). BUT, and it's a big BUT - it was still nothing like the difficulty of quitting cold turkey. I've thought about going back to vaping nicotine, it would be so much easier and more comfortable for now, but like you I feel like I am a slave to this substance. I'm holding on right now, hoping that time will soon heal the nic. addiction pathways, and soon it'll all be good again.

Good luck to everyone!

 

[housefly]

justme: this is exactly what I came here to find out. So basically, even though it's completely anecdotal, you did have withdrawal symptoms from going from a very low dosage to zero. I'm about to make that transition myself (with the holidays coming up, no less) and worry that I'll go through the typical withdrawal symptoms during that transition. Any advice on coping with that transition?

 

[isande]

It seems like such a silly little thing, but my primary goal when I took up vaping was eliminating ashes. Spilled ashtrays, ashes dripping on things... heh. Secondary goal was to reduce the cost, since we've had one tax hike after another and brand name cigs are going for about $50 a carton in Texas. (Yes, yes, I know some of you big city dwellers have it much worse.. but this is a lot and the cig bill between my husband and I was almost as high as our rent.)

This may be shocking to some, but not only do I not have any desire to give up nicotine, I can say with great confidence that my life really improved when I started smoking. I only wish that I'd taken less than 10 years to discover a safer alternative. Nicotine improves my mood, helps me focus, makes me feel more alert, and makes just about everything more enjoyable. I was a chain-smoker and only the slow-burning feature of Pall Malls kept my cigarette consumption under four packs a day.

That said, even chain-vaping.. and I mean REALLY chain-vaping 48mg .. did not do enough. I had FOUR e-cigs (510, KR-808D1 and two 901s) on rotation. When one atomizer's casing was hot enough to touch, I'd set it down and reach for the next. I did not take a breath of fresh air between drags.

So I'm using Swedish snus now, which appears to be about as safe as (and definitely more heavily studied than) e-cigs. I should have been getting enough nicotine vaping, but apparently the naturally-occurring alkaloids in tobacco other than nicotine were part of my issue. Note that I've quit with NRT and cold turkey for as much as two months at a time without ever getting past the withdrawal (or "getting over" the enhancement that nicotine and other tobacco alkaloids provide).

So, my answer is neither. The analogs are gone now, but I'm not just consuming nicotine either.

--K

 

[tulsatggr]

and we're addicted to nicotine......

I watched a vaping video here and knew that I could find an e-cig that would work for us. We chose the dse901, and have been very VERY pleased. The batteries have been a huge issue, because I vape like a freight train, but now that I have my pass through - Life is good !

We are grateful to this site for the info and recommendations.

My house, car, clothes and hair smell bettery. I am not embarrassed about smoking and we look to save almost 2k per year. All good things.

33 days vaping = 1155 cigarettes not smoked

 

[jennlsnoopy]

No plans to quit the e-cig but I have moved from 24mg to 18mg. I might go to low in a few months, but I'm not making any plans right now.

 

[justme4112]

Housefly, Good luck to you! I wish I had some good advice for you on minimizing the withdrawl - I came to the forums today hoping to find some wisdom to help me. I found a couple of instances where other members transitioned to 0 nicotine without any withdrawl symptoms. That would be great, and perhaps that will be the case for you as well. Personally the 6 to 10 p.m. are the hardest hours of the day for me, when the cravings are at their worst. Actually, I can deal with the cravings, but I really don't want to deal with excess weight gain - the older one gets, the harder it is to lose excess weight. And, there's an level of anxiety present, especially at night. I tried dieting the first few weeks, but decided that I was just trying to overcome too much at one time. Now, at the start of week 4 I have been able to control my caloric intake, so I would say that things are already improving.
Another thing I noticed is that the ecigarettes don't hold nearly as much appeal at 0 nic. I love sweets , and vaped only non tobacco flavors after quitting analogs, but at 0 nic. every flavor seems too sweet. So, I saw some advice from a 0 vaper on another thread today and ordered some menthol drops from Juicy. Hopefully that will add a little kick to the now unappealing liquids. I suspect that eventually I will just stop vaping once my withdrawl symptoms are gone.

The best advice I could give you or myself is to be mindful that time will diminish the symptoms, and until then do what you need to do at any given moment to keep sane and nicotine free. When I quit cold turkey years ago I was single, and I could really take care of my moment to moment needs to quit, now I am married, and could never, I feel, have quit cold turkey without inviting divorce - the cravings can be so bad that I cou ldnot be pleasant enough for someone else to live with, ha ha! Thankfully, the withdrawl is MUCH MORE low key quitting this way.
If you are really concerned, you may choose to wait till after the Holidays. I probably would have if I'd known for certain if I was going to have withdrawl symptoms. But for me, I was unsure of that, and using myself as my own experiment. Now I'm just being stubborn and staying quit - I've considered going back on nicotine for now, but no sense going through all of this again, because I know I'll want to quit again. GUNG HO!

 

[phillyd]

My name is Phil and I'm a Vapoholic. I cant put this damn thing down but thats ok as long as I dont pick-up another analog. I've been smoke free for 8 days now and that in itself is a HUGE Miracle for me. Thank GOD for these things