I've been thinking on why vaping with flavored eliquid is so effective at tobacco smoking cessation.
Smoking cigarettes was more than just a physical dependence for me, it also consisted of breaking the bad habits. I wanted to stop using tobacco, but there was more to quitting, and staying quit, than I first thought.
I tried nicotine gum, patches, chantix, etc. Nothing worked until I took up vaping. Here are my thoughts on why I think it worked, when nothing else did.
Physical needs
Tobacco contains several alkaloids and chemicals, in addition to nicotine, that change the effect nicotine has on our body and brain. Some of these alkaloids and chemicals likely have effects on their own. When changing from tobacco use to ecigarettes, I know that I initially experienced cravings that nicotine did not curb. If it was only nicotine I craved, vaping would have eliminated my cravings. This wouldn't happen for me until a little later on in vaping.
Behavior, eg. Habit
Repeating an action long enough creates a habit. Some habits can reinforce an addiction, or be a part of that addiction. Breaking those habits, in my experience, is more than half the battle when quitting.
One of the hardest habits for me to break was the ritual of smoking. It went something like this; Walk into the convenience store, buy a pack of smokes, pack them on my palm, open the cellophane, remove the top of the liner, smell that fresh pack of smokes. Take a cigarette out, light it up, smoke it, put it out. Repeat part two until your almost out, then go to the store and buy another pack.
In the beginning I had to avoid going in the store and just pay with a card at the pump. Over time this impulse has disappeared.
The act of smoking itself was the other major habit I had to change. I did this by replacement.
When I quit I found that mimicking the act of inhaling smoke, by inhaling vapor instead, helped me to satisfy the hand-to-mouth habit part of smoking. Raising my pv to my lips, taking a drag, then lowering it to my side is very similar to the way I used to smoke a cigarette. The feeling of drawing warm vapor into my mouth, then lungs, substituted for taking puffs on a cigarette.
So why are flavors so important then?
Even with the habit side of smoking more or less dealt with, I still felt I was missing something. The gnawing pull of a cigarette was still there. It only abated when I was actually vaping (and shortly after), even though I knew I had enough nic in my system.
What's going on then?
Flavors
I believe that adding flavors has a twofold benefit in successfully switching from tobacco to vaping.
When I enjoy a flavor, and I mean really enjoy it, my tastebuds and scent receptors light up in a flavorgasm. The thought of cigarettes gets pushed to the back of my mind, if only temporarily, as I focus on the sensations I'm experiencing with this vapor. That moment, and for a short time afterwards, I experience true relief from my cravings. When vaping a flavor I dislike, I don't feel as satisfied and vape more trying to fill that craving.
The two main processes that I believe are occuring to provide that relief are a shifting of focus (distraction), and pleasure.
Distraction & pleasure
Replacing an unpleasant stimulus with a pleasant one is a widely accepted method of behavior modification. Pleasure releases endorphins, sex & drugs release alot of endorphins for example. Taste & smell do this as well in smaller amounts.
I stated earlier that repeating an action long enough creates a habit. After vaping for a period of time, the association that vaping=pleasure became hardwired into my brain, and the longer that I vaped, the stronger the association grew. On the flip side the longer I avoided tobacco, the greater dissociation with the pleasure response became.
Today I don't even want to smoke, it's nasty.
Sometime later on my vape journey, heavily flavored vapor became unpleasant. I think that was after my tastebuds grew back more. I found that I used less and less flavor as time went by. Oversaturation of my tastebuds is unpleasant now.
I still enjoy flavors, but the percentages I use have been cut drastically. I regularly used 15-20% when I started, now I use from 1-5% on average. Also I started on 18-24 mg per mL of nicotine, and now use 6 mg.
I know that this stuff is common knowledge to most of y'all, same as me, but I haven't seen it presented this way in the same place before. Hopefully someone can get some good use out of this somehow.
Smoking cigarettes was more than just a physical dependence for me, it also consisted of breaking the bad habits. I wanted to stop using tobacco, but there was more to quitting, and staying quit, than I first thought.
I tried nicotine gum, patches, chantix, etc. Nothing worked until I took up vaping. Here are my thoughts on why I think it worked, when nothing else did.
Physical needs
Tobacco contains several alkaloids and chemicals, in addition to nicotine, that change the effect nicotine has on our body and brain. Some of these alkaloids and chemicals likely have effects on their own. When changing from tobacco use to ecigarettes, I know that I initially experienced cravings that nicotine did not curb. If it was only nicotine I craved, vaping would have eliminated my cravings. This wouldn't happen for me until a little later on in vaping.
Behavior, eg. Habit
Repeating an action long enough creates a habit. Some habits can reinforce an addiction, or be a part of that addiction. Breaking those habits, in my experience, is more than half the battle when quitting.
One of the hardest habits for me to break was the ritual of smoking. It went something like this; Walk into the convenience store, buy a pack of smokes, pack them on my palm, open the cellophane, remove the top of the liner, smell that fresh pack of smokes. Take a cigarette out, light it up, smoke it, put it out. Repeat part two until your almost out, then go to the store and buy another pack.
In the beginning I had to avoid going in the store and just pay with a card at the pump. Over time this impulse has disappeared.
The act of smoking itself was the other major habit I had to change. I did this by replacement.
When I quit I found that mimicking the act of inhaling smoke, by inhaling vapor instead, helped me to satisfy the hand-to-mouth habit part of smoking. Raising my pv to my lips, taking a drag, then lowering it to my side is very similar to the way I used to smoke a cigarette. The feeling of drawing warm vapor into my mouth, then lungs, substituted for taking puffs on a cigarette.
So why are flavors so important then?
Even with the habit side of smoking more or less dealt with, I still felt I was missing something. The gnawing pull of a cigarette was still there. It only abated when I was actually vaping (and shortly after), even though I knew I had enough nic in my system.
What's going on then?
Flavors
I believe that adding flavors has a twofold benefit in successfully switching from tobacco to vaping.
When I enjoy a flavor, and I mean really enjoy it, my tastebuds and scent receptors light up in a flavorgasm. The thought of cigarettes gets pushed to the back of my mind, if only temporarily, as I focus on the sensations I'm experiencing with this vapor. That moment, and for a short time afterwards, I experience true relief from my cravings. When vaping a flavor I dislike, I don't feel as satisfied and vape more trying to fill that craving.
The two main processes that I believe are occuring to provide that relief are a shifting of focus (distraction), and pleasure.
Distraction & pleasure
Replacing an unpleasant stimulus with a pleasant one is a widely accepted method of behavior modification. Pleasure releases endorphins, sex & drugs release alot of endorphins for example. Taste & smell do this as well in smaller amounts.
I stated earlier that repeating an action long enough creates a habit. After vaping for a period of time, the association that vaping=pleasure became hardwired into my brain, and the longer that I vaped, the stronger the association grew. On the flip side the longer I avoided tobacco, the greater dissociation with the pleasure response became.
Today I don't even want to smoke, it's nasty.
Sometime later on my vape journey, heavily flavored vapor became unpleasant. I think that was after my tastebuds grew back more. I found that I used less and less flavor as time went by. Oversaturation of my tastebuds is unpleasant now.
I still enjoy flavors, but the percentages I use have been cut drastically. I regularly used 15-20% when I started, now I use from 1-5% on average. Also I started on 18-24 mg per mL of nicotine, and now use 6 mg.
I know that this stuff is common knowledge to most of y'all, same as me, but I haven't seen it presented this way in the same place before. Hopefully someone can get some good use out of this somehow.
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