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Vaping is what allowed me to succeed in quiting smoking. In my opinion it is the most effective aid to quit smoking anything except weed that we have. On the other hand, maybe if you vape THC it could work well for weed too, but that's a different scenario and as I haven't experienced it I really shouldn't comment on it.
For me, my switch from smoking to vaping needed me to be quite motivated and to use a bunch of willpower to make it work. IMO no addiction is easy to beat, but how hard it is varies between people. It was a challenge for me but vaping helped me overcome it.
I've read that none of these folks can be called a vaping superiority excepting only if their vaping quotient is higher than 130, though...Some folks can just act that way naturally.
Addiction VS Abuse.
Using various examples ( that may seem off topic) to illustrate my point. It may help to read through the entire post.
Someone might experience withdrawal symptoms when they attempt to quit whatever it is they are "addicted" to, if whatever they are addicted to has side effects from withdrawal !. So a "genuine" long term "addict" will have a medical record of their symptoms of withdrawal which proves they make positive steps to quit. Though this doesn't really relate to smoking nor vaping nicotine.
On the other hand, someone who claims to be addicted to something but has no medical record of illness as a result of any withdrawal is simply an "abuser" and never makes any attempts to quit and has no intention of doing so. This doesn't relate to vaping nicotine nor smoking neither.
I have no sympathy at all for those who abuse substances.
Someone who drinks Alcohol everyday, to me, is an abuser, not an addict !. They don't drink alcohol to keep the withdrawal side effects at bay, they do it to get drunk !. And they don't just have one or two, they'll drink all they can afford. That's Alcohol abuse, not Alcohol addiction. They love it !. But to me, just like any other reality distorting substance it's "samey". One experience will be exactly the same as the last. But saying "i drink because if i don't i'll shake uncontrollably" isn't a good enough reason because it's pathetic. A little like a grown man saying "i'm not going outside in the winter because i'll shiver".
For me, smoking wasn't something i had any intention of giving up and vaping is just a continuation of that habit. I loved smoking and i enjoy abusing nicotine.
Obviously, smoking tobacco will deposit tar into a smokers lungs over time, so call that a symptom which doesn't come from withdrawal.
There are those who choose to vape long term with no intention of quittting and are just people who enjoy nicotine, or feel the need to experience the conscious habits they remember from smoking, but without vaping would definitely still be smoking.
So i suppose different substances create different side effects from withdrawal. Though how a user responds to their habit and withdrawal varies from person to person. Some people who abuse substances may say they need it because of the withdrawal side effects. Though others just want to experience what they experienced when they first used it. What would get them the most sympathy ?, saying they are addicts ?, or saying they love getting off their face ?. Both these groups say the same thing which is that they are "addicted". My question would be "addicted to what ?, the euphoria ?, or the spineless and pathetic retreat from the symptoms of withdrawal ?. But then some might say that it is addiction because the abuse is part and parcel of that addiction. Not everyone will all agree with everyone else about this.
Personally smoking is something i picked up as a kid and become something i did from day to day. Never occured to me that i may be addicted, it was just something i did !. An illness, non smoking related, is what made me switch to vaping. Though the symptom was cronic heartburn which would subside when i didn't smoke, it is still an underlying result of my illness. Without the illness the heartburn wouldn't have occured. Either get over the illness or quit smoking.
So i believe there are two types of people who will all claim the same thing, that they are addicted, but most would deny that they "abuse" the substance they say they are addicted to in order to get high or get satisfaction from.
Someone who uses painkillers to take the pain away from an illness or injury may eventually become addicted to those painkillers through no fault of their own. They are genuinely addicted. But those people who obtain painkillers illegally and use painkillers solely to get high are abusers. These are the types of people i have no sympathy for. And i would definitely not call them "addicts".
To say abuse is part and parcel of addiction couldn't be applied to the latter. And the same goes for any addiction where the substance is obtained and used illegally.
Just seems that lately, over the past thirty of fourty years, the word addiction has become very fashionable indeed. And convenient for substance abusers to use. Which has turned an ambiguous underworld into a very much understood reality where the term "Addiction" is universally perceived and accepted for any form of constant substance abuse. This term is convenient for substance abusers to legitimize their substance abuse.
I know what substance abusers are like, and for me the ambiguity still exists.
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I read your whole post evan le'garde. It is a complex subject with unknowns that are still being researched. Your beliefs on it are quite a bit more simplistic than mine are.
Thanks for the long and informative post
Nicotine consumption isn't substance abuse per se. Case in point: I have yet to come across a single person who uses nicotine patches for the genuine purpose of substance abuse.
The term "addiction" appears to be extremely loosely defined. I.e., ask 10 different experts, get 10 different answers, and, ask them again in a few years to get even more different answers... no joke. Remember the fact ex-smokers who quit before vaping came to existence and who are never-vapers are still also experiencing withdrawal symptoms even today. These symptoms are causing ex-smokers to relapse back to smoking cigarettes as I'm typing this. Therefore, to conclude "vaping nicotine is addictive" based on some rats in a lab having been genetically modified in complex ways under complex stimuli preferring to be in one place over another in a complex environment equates to the superlative of quackery, for which I am simply incapable to have sympathy in any way, shape, or form. That's right, studies have shown with ample clarity the fact that models based on animal studies where nicotine was administered intravenously aren't representative of nicotinic responses in humans. So then, point me to one (just one) study supporting the claim that ingestion of freebase nicotine, in absence of tobacco smoke, is addictive in humans. Find that.
OMG I feel so awful for that Russian guy, I don't even find it funny. I totally understand the sentiment,
My dear Evan I don't really understand your post AT ALL and I read it three times, and like the most I got out of it was like you are THE SUCK unless someone else makes you addicted to something by prescribing it for something legitimate and the you have like, an excuse.
Well I am one such person in the early days before the "epidemic of Ultram." Me and my doc could find NOTHING NOTHING NOWHERE and like, we LOOKED HARD for anything claiming it was addictive in any shape or form it wasn't even a "real" opiate.
I stopped the med and it sucked, W/D did. But I did quit, and then I got on a bit of a roller coaster with it, it was easy to get illegally with enough money and knowledge. At one point I believe I had over like 984 Ultram pills stashed around my house to feel safe. I was at the maximum safe dose to "avoid seizures" too so after the first couple of weeks, well, I was just staving off w/d. Oh, I tried to quit and wound up in an urgent care, with back pain "oh so innocently going" "I think this one time they gave me ultram?" and my innocent gaze and my insurance all combined and like, the woman was like, "Not even a REAL narcotic even how BRAVE."
And I walked out of there marveling how no one could see inside me at all, I had no track marks on my arms, I could walk and talk and function just fine, although I had no more or less control than the ...... addict buying from the bus depot. It wasn't a good feeling.
It took a few more relapses and a stint on suboxone to get my life back including a rather unconventional and illegal treatment to get my opiate receptors wiped back to the driven SNOW.
And I have since had oral surgeries hours long AWAKE on Novocain and Advil where my oral surgeon buried chunks of titanium in my bone and I'd return home looking like a beaten spouse for a week or so while the swelling went down.
So, I don't know where you would class me, but I know what class you are in:
either you don't understand how easy it is to get from one category to another for ONE or two, you don't know or understand the chemical changes that occur in the brain, more quickly and/or easily for some people to another or c) you don't have any empathy or understanding of using substance of an addictive sort or ANY purpose whatsoever you are just a black and white sort of thinker, with a NEEDEDLY confusing exposition because if there is a thing more complicated than ANY addictions (including psychological ones) I'm not sure I'm ready to meet it.
I like, could learn calculous if I wanted, it's like I COULD it's an unchanging and maybe
than predicting IN ANY WAY WHO I MEET who will give up a particular substance or not, or when or what might be needed. INCLUDING IN MYSELF.
So just give it a rest already this is a road you do not want to venture down. If your daddy was an evening boozer who hit you, I'm sorry. But deciding to trash every user who uses anything is really REALLY a path you ought not to go down.
EVEN myself. I just woke one day and decided I was no longer going to be on Suboxone. It happened. l like to call it "grace" and I wish it to any smoker or vaper who calls themselves an addict or user or abuser it really doesn't matter, it doesn't do much but allow someone to give themselves a savings of face in what they believe are the eyes of another.
The physical in some ways is the easiest part,. It's the time when you are FREE of the physical and going through stress or depression or whatever and THE SIREN song was so strong. I never had FUN quitting Ultram. I did it alone without aid, because like, I didn't want anyone finding out dude, so I went ULTRA slow and was bipolarly unstable the whole time but I *did*it.
It was the undoing of the really, really pesky chemical (semi permanent) change in my brain that surfaced while stressed and avoiding that chemical the rest of my life, because I simply cannot have it, ever.
IDK Man
Anna
My dear Evan I don't really understand your post AT ALL and I read it three times, and like the most I got out of it was like you are THE SUCK unless someone else makes you addicted to something by prescribing it for something legitimate and the you have like, an excuse.
Well I am one such person in the early days before the "epidemic of Ultram." Me and my doc could find NOTHING NOTHING NOWHERE and like, we LOOKED HARD for anything claiming it was addictive in any shape or form it wasn't even a "real" opiate.
I stopped the med and it sucked, W/D did. But I did quit, and then I got on a bit of a roller coaster with it, it was easy to get illegally with enough money and knowledge. At one point I believe I had over like 984 Ultram pills stashed around my house to feel safe. I was at the maximum safe dose to "avoid seizures" too so after the first couple of weeks, well, I was just staving off w/d. Oh, I tried to quit and wound up in an urgent care, with back pain "oh so innocently going" "I think this one time they gave me ultram?" and my innocent gaze and my insurance all combined and like, the woman was like, "Not even a REAL narcotic even how BRAVE."
And I walked out of there marveling how no one could see inside me at all, I had no track marks on my arms, I could walk and talk and function just fine, although I had no more or less control than the ...... addict buying from the bus depot. It wasn't a good feeling.
It took a few more relapses and a stint on suboxone to get my life back including a rather unconventional and illegal treatment to get my opiate receptors wiped back to the driven SNOW.
And I have since had oral surgeries hours long AWAKE on Novocain and Advil where my oral surgeon buried chunks of titanium in my bone and I'd return home looking like a beaten spouse for a week or so while the swelling went down.
So, I don't know where you would class me, but I know what class you are in:
either you don't understand how easy it is to get from one category to another for ONE or two, you don't know or understand the chemical changes that occur in the brain, more quickly and/or easily for some people to another or c) you don't have any empathy or understanding of using substance of an addictive sort or ANY purpose whatsoever you are just a black and white sort of thinker, with a NEEDEDLY confusing exposition because if there is a thing more complicated than ANY addictions (including psychological ones) I'm not sure I'm ready to meet it.
I like, could learn calculous if I wanted, it's like I COULD it's an unchanging and maybe
than predicting IN ANY WAY WHO I MEET who will give up a particular substance or not, or when or what might be needed. INCLUDING IN MYSELF.
So just give it a rest already this is a road you do not want to venture down. If your daddy was an evening boozer who hit you, I'm sorry. But deciding to trash every user who uses anything is really REALLY a path you ought not to go down.
EVEN myself. I just woke one day and decided I was no longer going to be on Suboxone. It happened. l like to call it "grace" and I wish it to any smoker or vaper who calls themselves an addict or user or abuser it really doesn't matter, it doesn't do much but allow someone to give themselves a savings of face in what they believe are the eyes of another.
The physical in some ways is the easiest part,. It's the time when you are FREE of the physical and going through stress or depression or whatever and THE SIREN song was so strong. I never had FUN quitting Ultram. I did it alone without aid, because like, I didn't want anyone finding out dude, so I went ULTRA slow and was bipolarly unstable the whole time but I *did*it.
It was the undoing of the really, really pesky chemical (semi permanent) change in my brain that surfaced while stressed and avoiding that chemical the rest of my life, because I simply cannot have it, ever.
IDK Man
Anna
A lot of people assume you are a druggie because of vaping, I have had experience of this, before the lockdown I used to go to a pub near where I live that allowed vaping and this woman said let's sit over there cause he is on drugs, now I practice stealth vaping and only vape in public when no one is around, stay safe
Its completely pointless to try to educate a person about vaping if they don't want to understand, I've tried believe me.
Because of all the hype in the press etcetera people will form their own opinions and you always get the hard core that think they know best, for instance, try explaining what e juice is made with, especially diy, they just won't believe you because they don't want to
Because of all the hype in the press etcetera people will form their own opinions and you always get the hard core that think they know best, for instance, try explaining what e juice is made with, especially diy, they just won't believe you because they don't want to
As I have aged in years I have come to the understanding that I know so little. BUT, it has taken all those years to come to that understanding.
and more to go, I strongly suspect.
and more to go, I strongly suspect.
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Addiction is clearly more complex than just biochemical, with a significant psychological aspect. There is is quite a lot of evidence that there are some powerful synergistic relationships occurring when nicotine is delivered by tobacco smoke. I'm sure the tobacco companies have a deep understanding of this.
It's quite possible that nicotine delivered by ecigs is no more addictive than a cup of tea. Having said that I've tried not vaping for a few hours and let me tell you I was feeling pretty uncomfortable. This could either be the psychological aspects of addiction at play, or it could be that I am an ex-smoker.
Nicotine is a toxin and I'm sure we are not supposed to be inhaling it. The plants manufacture it must be really ...... off that their evolutionary strategy to stop us from consuming them has failed so miserably.
As I've dropped my nicotine levels to next to nothing, it has had almost no effect on my vaping satisfaction. I have found that the factors that really count are the visual and physical ones, like throat hit and a big ol' plume of vapor that give the sense of satisfaction. It's only when I have tired zero nic that I've started clucking, and that to me suggests it's my mind at work rather than my body.
It's quite possible that nicotine delivered by ecigs is no more addictive than a cup of tea. Having said that I've tried not vaping for a few hours and let me tell you I was feeling pretty uncomfortable. This could either be the psychological aspects of addiction at play, or it could be that I am an ex-smoker.
Nicotine is a toxin and I'm sure we are not supposed to be inhaling it. The plants manufacture it must be really ...... off that their evolutionary strategy to stop us from consuming them has failed so miserably.
As I've dropped my nicotine levels to next to nothing, it has had almost no effect on my vaping satisfaction. I have found that the factors that really count are the visual and physical ones, like throat hit and a big ol' plume of vapor that give the sense of satisfaction. It's only when I have tired zero nic that I've started clucking, and that to me suggests it's my mind at work rather than my body.
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