What's Your End Game? Vape for Life or Smoking Cessation?

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Drael

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Oct 29, 2012
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Im not sure I have any kind of game plan, if I am honest. The primary point of vaping, is avoid actively killing myself.

In doing so, I have reduced my addiction, and reinforcement significantly as well.

Thats a pretty good acheivement, and so ATM, I feel no compulsion to continue "running up the mountain" for what amounts to fairly diminished returns.

Its important I don't go back to smoking, and given theres a high rate of relapse with 20 months, and its not underheard of for people to relapse 15 years down the track, thats another reason for me, to keep myself satisfied with what I am doing. Last thing I want to be is a smoker.

I am not fond of dependance, but ive already reduced that by vaping instead of smoking, and that will be more true over time as the reinforcement undergoes extinction. And at some stage, ill probably look at lowering my nic a bit.

Dunno if I want to go zero or not.

I think if I can, a fair bit later on, maybe a year or so down the track, Ill try to get my nic levels down to maybe half of what they are now (I use 24 mg/ml as of right now, about 3/4 per puff of whats in a ciggie), I would estimate that this would be a much less dependant, more casual situation where'd id happily be able to go hours, or a day without. Thats probably more my game plan as of now.

That may well be an ideal situation for me. But then I might decide on zero nic. Or I may change my mind about the taper. This all just seems to be less of an issue for me personally, compared to staying alive and fighting off the smoking addiction.
 

Bosco

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Like many - I started vaping as a way to quit cigarettes with the idea that I would also quit vaping at some point. However, after a few months vaping, I feel great - 100x better than when I smoked. I don't stink like smoke, my teeth are whiter and, now that I've got my gear, I'm spending a lot less on vaping than I did on smoking.

I was very motivated to quit smoking because it's a dangerous addiction. I find myself a lot less motivated to quit vaping. I feel like vaping is what smoking was always meant to be. Enjoyable, fun and not deadly.
 

adeline

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@ Adeline tx for sharing I was curious to know what nic level you had started at. How long have you been doing DIY juices? Are your juices yummier than anything you've bought? Do you do it cause its fun or to save money or cause you haven't found a commercial flavour that you love?

I started DIY in Oct 2011. My juices are better than stuff I used to buy. For one, they are consistent from batch to batch, which became an issue with one of my favorite vendors. Two, I can get exactly what I want out of juices with the tiniest adjustments. I had a lot of bad juices in my last few vendor orders. I mean really bad.

It is most definitely WAY cheaper than vendor juices, which means bad mixes are okay to toss. I vape a lot of juice, so the cost savings is pretty important to me. I haven't exactly measured how much, and it really depends on what delivery system I'm using.

And, aside from all that, it's fun. It's also easy to customize my nic level, so dropping to 0 gradually is easy like Sunday morning.
 

akatina

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Jan 14, 2013
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No definite plan at the moment. It's been a long time since I've been nic free so I would like to go to 0 nic to see if it suits me. I've gone from 18mg to 12mg in the course of less than 3 weeks without problems so I'm confident I can make it to 0. If I don't have any concentration or performance issues then I'll be happy to stay at 0 nic and possibly let go of vaping down the road. If it turns out I work and play better with nic in my system then vaping will remain my nic delivery choice: it's so much tastier than any other option :D
 

Chiku

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Jan 8, 2013
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Im not sure I have any kind of game plan, if I am honest. The primary point of vaping, is avoid actively killing myself.

In doing so, I have reduced my addiction, and reinforcement significantly as well.

Thats a pretty good acheivement, and so ATM, I feel no compulsion to continue "running up the mountain" for what amounts to fairly diminished returns.

Its important I don't go back to smoking, and given theres a high rate of relapse with 20 months, and its not underheard of for people to relapse 15 years down the track, thats another reason for me, to keep myself satisfied with what I am doing. Last thing I want to be is a smoker.

I am not fond of dependance, but ive already reduced that by vaping instead of smoking, and that will be more true over time as the reinforcement undergoes extinction. And at some stage, ill probably look at lowering my nic a bit.

Dunno if I want to go zero or not.

I think if I can, a fair bit later on, maybe a year or so down the track, Ill try to get my nic levels down to maybe half of what they are now (I use 24 mg/ml as of right now, about 3/4 per puff of whats in a ciggie), I would estimate that this would be a much less dependant, more casual situation where'd id happily be able to go hours, or a day without. Thats probably more my game plan as of now.

That may well be an ideal situation for me. But then I might decide on zero nic. Or I may change my mind about the taper. This all just seems to be less of an issue for me personally, compared to staying alive and fighting off the smoking addiction.

A friend of mine quit cold turkey 20 years ago, 13 years after quitting she asked for a drag of a friends smoke, and smoked for a few more years. She quit again 5 years ago, and every day she thinks about starting again, and has been close to going out and buying a pack. Now that I am vaping, she is thinking that if the urge ever gets too strong she is going to try vaping instead of picking up a smoke. She still sometimes follows a smoker towards the store because she loves the smell. Before I started vaping I had never went more than 6 hours without a smoke, even when I was trying to quit (all my attempts felt pretty half hearted). With vaping I finally feel like I can stay off cigs, it's a lot better than smoking and honestly I wouldn't of had the willpower to quit without it. I'm sure that without vaping I would of smoked the rest of my life.
 

Unc1987

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I know many "former" smokers who quit cold turkey only to start back months later by what they thought was just one analog. Now theyre closet smokers who will chain smoke when given the opportunity. I'm determined not to let that happen to me. For now vaping is the better alternative to smoking and my newest order has 6 mg nic. I have been vaping less and less and will continue this. One day I plan on not vaping but I'm not in a huge rush.

I feel, and may be very wrong, that in a perfect world, cigarettes wouldn't be bad and we would all smoke and love it. That being said, they're bad and we have kind of found a replacement that allows the same sensation without as much harm to our bodies so for many they will continue to vape, because they simply like it and don't want to quit. They just don't want the bad health effects.
 

dialx7

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Jan 22, 2013
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I didn't read all these posts though the whole thread, but I did catch a few on my journey to the last page. I'm so new to this that I have to say at this point, if I didn't vape, I would smoke. Period. I had no intention of stopping when I bought my first e-cig just a couple of weeks ago. I tried to smoke a cig in the beginning. Tried is the operative word. I still am absolutely amazed that I smoked those for well over 25 years. Now, I have to say, after upgrading to a fab pv, and with the finest choices of juices out there, in all nic mg's to pick from, I can't see stopping vaping. In my opinion, if a few days of vaping can stop a 2 PAD smoker, just like that.... well, then, why the heck should I stop it. I speak for myself when I say, without vaping, I would be smoking. I don't plan on stopping vaping, because I'd rather not smoke again.
 

TigerLadyTX

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Feb 16, 2012
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After 33 years as a smoker, I have been vaping for about 13 months and cigarette free, (except for ONE), since 3/4/12. I started off at 24mg juice and quickly reduced it to 18mg juice. About 6 months ago, I dropped to mostly 12mg juice and about 3 months ago, dropped again to mostly 6mg juice. I noticed that when I dropped down lower than 12mg juice, I had a harder time thinking and I had more body aches as well as more stomach issues.

{I have firbromyalgia, inflammatory bowel disease, and diverticulitis. I also have some permanent neurological issues due to contracting a severe case of Bartonella infection a few years ago. (That mostly affects my speech and short term memory & sometimes my gait/balance when I am especially tired and/or stressed).}

Anyway, after I started having more physical issues than normal for me after the last decrease in nicotine content, my doctor suggested that I increase back up to 12mg for the most part and to increase it to 18 to 24mg when I was symptomatic. Soooooo.. I kind of think I will be vaping nicotine laced e-juice forever.

~Tiger
 

markdm4805

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Dec 4, 2012
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For me I really don't have any plans to quit vaping in the near future. I started at 24mg 3 months ago. Not long after that I switched to 18 mg and now I'm working on a 10 ml sample that happened to come at 12mg and I'm not feeling any withdrawals so I think my next order is gonna be 12 mg. If I get down to 0 nic and can handle it then so be it. If I stay at 12 forever and don't develop high blood pressure then I'll stay there. Either way I think I will be vaping for the long haul. I see it for what it is. Safer than tobacco. Does that mean no risk at all ? No. I see it as if I cut out everything in life that has some kind of risk I would probably die of a Heart Attack from worrying about it all lol.
 
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