Vaping(As a smoking cessation tool)

Well I’m on day 12 of stopping smoking. I never thought this was possible, I honestly didn’t, but finally made the change from tobacco to a vape and feel so much better for it.

Not health wise as yet, as you don’t get the benefits immediately after 35 years of rolling your own(of varying lengths 😉  ) But the realization that I’d probably hit critical mass and the tobacco was actually then in the process of doing the real damage and contributing to a fast approaching demise. But mentally for sure.

The hacking cough, little niggling pains in the chest, the unable to walk very far, or do any exercise without needing time to stop and catch my breath had all played on my mind, to the point I just knew i really needed to stop or i’d be on oxygen within 5 years.

Damage has already been done of that im sure, but at least this way its either not going to get any worse or at best going to slow down considerably.

So we’ve made the transition, and although I’m probably packing away one disposable vape per day, I know that in a few months I’ll look to halving that intake, and a few months one halving it again until I can work towards removing nicotine completely from my system.

Not that nicotine is actually harmful, but i think the other things in a vape, coupled with an already depleted respiratory system while not as harsh or dangerous,I would be better without just the same.

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So to all those smokers still out there. Make the change, because If I can do it, I know you can too.

Not that nicotine is actually harmful

I think it is. Nicotine can affect your cardiovascular and immune systems.

Giving up smoking resulted in my annual winter colds becoming far milder and less debilitating. Giving up nicotine (I never vaped) resulted in me barely ever catching colds at all. IME

But well done for giving up tobacco, you are now a former smoker and well on the road to freeing yourself entirely from the shackles.

And yes, you will never ever regret giving up smoking. No one, after say a year of giving up, thinks to themselves “I wish that I had smoked the last year”

On the other you are extremely likely to regret not giving up smoking.

Not that nicotine is actually harmful

No? It’s a poison, used as an insecticide, and is believed to be responsible for the loss of bee colonies, for one thing. Choosing to voluntarily inhale an insecticide isn’t a rational decision, imho.

Nicotine has been used as an insecticide since at least the 1960s, in the form of tobacco extracts (although other components of tobacco also seem to have pesticide effects).Nicotine pesticides have not been commercially available in the US since 2014, and homemade pesticides are banned on organic crops and caution is recommended for small gardeners. Nicotine pesticides have been banned in the EU since 2009. Foods are imported from countries in which nicotine pesticides are allowed, such as China, but foods may not exceed maximum nicotine levels. Neonicotinoids, such as imidacloprid, which are derived from and structurally similar to nicotine, are widely used as agricultural and veterinary pesticides as of 2016.

The NHS on nicotine.

Although nicotine is a very addictive substance it’s relatively harmless.

Thats the NHS, as in the National Health Service.

The hacking cough, little niggling pains in the chest, the unable to walk very far, or do any exercise without needing time to stop and catch my breath had all played on my mind, to the point I just knew i really needed to stop or i’d be on oxygen within 5 years.

Damage has already been done of that im sure, but at least this way its either not going to get any worse or at best going to slow down considerably.

Not that nicotine is actually harmful

Well, something must be.

Well done in taking a step in the right direction.

Does the vape actually break the habit or are you just on methadone! Get yourself of the Vapes asap!

Well done you, its a big first step.

I would set yourself a firm target though as some of those that I know that have gone down that route, now vape far more than they smoked in the first place.

Maybe worth getting a rechargable one though and cutting down the nicotine content each week till its gone. Those disposables are clearly not a good idea for the planet.

i smoked for over 20 years

got hooked on vaping, when you could still buy the stuff to make your own flid, don’t think you can by the nicotine now

treat yourself to a proper vape, not those disposable things, not good for you, the environment or your wallet

and once you buy your proper vape, make sure you have a collection of spare batteries tanks and coils in case something breaks, if you cant vape or any reason you will fall back to plan B

so yer, i vaped for about 3-5 years and was the only thing that ever worked to stop me smoking. Infact when i started out, i was getting so much nicotine that smoking wouldn’t touch the sides. then i wound down the nicotine, i essentially vaped 0% for 18 months until i didnt

Good on you for trying to do something but you quickly need to move on

Nicotine is a toxic substance. It raises your blood pressure and spikes your adrenaline, which increases your heart rate and the likelihood of having a heart attack.

Plus vaping is not fully understood yet but it sure as hell looks like it’s very bad for your health and environment

The NHS is saying it prefers vaping to cigs at the minute because the available research doesn’t state otherwise. There are lots of docs that don’t agree with this

Dig deeper than an NHS website and you will read lots on f stuff about vaping and nicotine

But then do you want to dig a little deeper or happy to keep doing  something that’s bad for you ?

Well done on getting off the fags and onto a vape.

You are correct, it is the tar in tobacco smoke that does the vast majority of the harm.

As far as we currently know vaping is much safer as long as you’re using a regulated liquid.

I didn’t use a vape, but it took me about ten years of giving up in order to actually stop permanently. That was ten years ago now.

The thing that helped me stop completely was reading Alan Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking*.

It helped me identify the reason that I kept restarting when I was down the pub, which was that going out for a cigarette gave me a break from conversation. Once I realised that, I realised that I didn’t need to have a cigarette in order to do it.

Lots of people do relapse, another trick is realising that if you do, the next day just through the fags and lighters away and stop again. Eventually it’ll stick.

*not the camp comedian.

Dig deeper than an NHS website and you will read lots on f stuff about vaping and nicotine

Almost all of it referring to unregulated vapes that are used elsewhere in the world.

Well done you.
I was a proper paid up member of the roll your own, yellow fingers brigade right up until about 2003 when I was about to turn 30 and at which point, not wanting to be a smoker when I was ‘old’, I quit.
Just quit. No patches, vapes didn’t exist.
It’s different for everyone so well done for making the move.
Smoking really is a monumentally pointless and idiotic thing to do. 😊👍

Go big or go home, full commitment, the only way!

I gave up before vapes were much of a thing thankfully. Didn’t use gum or patches either. Did listen to a self hypnosis recording a few times.

Urges lasted a few years, until realised one day they’d gone.

I tried giving up smoking weed a couple of years ago.

Was smoking 10-15g a week. Found a THC oil vape. Wasn’t cheap, but was the equivalent to a crazy number of joints. Also the added bonus of it looking like just another vape meant I could carry and smoke it around town without too much stress. 

High was a bit different. That initial hit that you get with a joint wasn’t there, perhaps in part because of the absence of tabacco. The high kind of crept up on you, a bit like when you consume/eat it. 

However, if you took a big draw on it, it scratched TF out of your throat, leaving you in a coughing fit.

Gave up on it in the end. If it got too warm the oil would run and gum up the coil (leave it in the sun/heat the right way up and it would sort itself), but the biggest problem was the scratchy throat. 

Firstly… well done. I know how bloody hard it is

I packed in a 30+ year, 20 a day B&H habit with the aid of vaping, about 8-9 years ago

I still vape, because I enjoy it and I’ve just progressively reduced my nicotine levels to now 0.3mg which is virtually nowt, but I do like a vape at the same time I used to enjoy smoking, the best one being with the first coffee of the day, stood at the back door, contemplating the day.

Unfortunately I’ve become the worst thing in the world… a reformed smoker. I absolutely hate the smell of fags! I now find it absolutely disgusting. But at least I know I’ll never smoke again.

How come you’re doing disposables though? I’d get yourself a decent vape and if you’re used to rolling your own then filling it up, changing atomisers etc helps with the whole ritualistic side of smoking too.

Good luck fella! Best thing I ever did.

The hardest part is kicking the vaping in. I’ve been on them since the first one cames out which looked like a cig and lit up blue at the end, quickly followed by the ones with a clear tank where you could see the wicks in them, so around 2012/2013.

I’ve knocked it on the head twice but first time lasted 6 weeks until I ended up at a wedding and gave in when hammered, second time lasted about 3 days until I gave in to cravings again, the hardest part is the habit I think.

I’m currently using one of those Elfa sticks with the replaceable elfbar pods, I need to switch back to a low nictotine eliquid in a refillable pod cause I’m not sure what they put in the elf bar ones, despite being high nicotine they’re somehow more addictive than a normal eliquid in equivalent strength, maybe its because they taste so much better but who knows.
Ended up with one as opposed to my usual 6mg nic because a coil had burnt out and I couldn’t be bothered driving into town to get a new one so popped to the local co-op and they had these in.

One thing I have noticed with using the disposables/2% nic elf bar types as opposed to 6mg eliquid type is that its having a much bigger impact on my body if my garmin is anything to go off, it’s consistently saying my stress levels are high and my body battery instead of being at around 40-45 at the end of a chilled day is now always in the low 10’s

Great work OP. At two weeks you are way past the hardest bit (first few days).

I do a lot of work on smoking cessation services and I’d encourage you to ignore the scaremongering about vaping – it is MASSIVELY better for you than smoking.

You may wish to buy a non-disposable vape thingy and start reducing your nicotine intake gradually, as others have said they’ve done above.

Good Luck!

I didn’t get on with vaping at all- when I did give up it was with the use of the Allan Carr book mentioned above (listened to it over and over on audiobook while out nightriding), and a prescription of Champix from the NHS stop smoking nurse.

No urges to start again in nearly five years now, and I can happily sit near smokers without even considering joining in.

Nice one OP. What a really positive step to take. Hope the benefits keep on coming your way.

For those interested in the health effects of vaping, there’s a decent podcast here about what the research does and doesn’t say:

https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/episode-5-vaping#details

(the tl:dl is it’s almost certainly not as damaging as smoking by a long way and a lot of the scare stories are bollocks)

Well done on quitting the fags OP. I switched from smoking to vaping nearly ten years ago now and have used almost every iteration of them that has ever existed from the little cig-a-likes through to multi battery sub ohm cloud making machines. These days I have settled on a rechargeable, refillable pod system as a middle ground between ease of use and reduced waste.

When I first made the switch I used to cling on to my vape like my life depended on it, it was literally always in my hand, as time has gone on I have got a lot better and often now go for a day out with out it at all.

I would like to quit the vapes eventually, but all the time I’m in full time employment I think that will difficult as i do find it stressful at times, and the other time I tend to fall down is if I’m out for a drink with my mates as they are all still smokers, the vape does at least keep me from being tempted by a cigarette.

Whilst I am 100% sure that the best option is to inhale nothing but clean air, I don’t feel that the vapes are too detrimental to my health as after 10 years of use as I have become much more cardiovascular fit than I ever was in my 20’s and 30’s.

One small tip I’ll share that may or may not work for you, switch from the sweet/fruity flavours and find a tobacco flavour, when I did this it had two benefits, I did less habitual vaping as it isn’t as tasty, and it goes better with a beer or coffee. 

Well done on giving up, by the time I was day 12 I was so excited about not smoking that I couldn’t wait for each to start to that I could carry on being a non-smoker! It was a weird feeling. That was 20 years ago, and haven’t smoked since, vapes weren’t available at the time, so no option for me other than cold turkey. 

Did have some very realistic “smoking dreams” though where folks would give me cigarettes and I’d smoke them. They were so convincing that on waking, for about a minute or so I’d worry about the fact that I’d taken it up again, and how I was going to explain it to the missus?

@dyna-ti Just wanted to say well done mate.

My lad is doing similar to you are the moment.

He managed to hide the fact he smoked from me for a few years the little sod. I was pretty devastated when I found out he smoked.Lol

He’s gone the vaping route and intends to gradually wean down the nicotine level and ultimately give up the vaping too.

If anyone wants any encouragement to stop smoking, then a good thing to do is to take the money that you would have spent on fags and put it into a specific ‘off-the-ciggies’ account. It wasn’t too long before it paid for a rather nice new bike. Seeing what a pack of 20 costs nowadays is eye-watering. I don’t know how anyone can afford to smoke any more

Lots of nonsense written on here

Nicotine, is highly addictive, but not bad for you or your long term cardiovascular health. Short term it can cause spikes in heart rate that could potentially be dangerous if you already have heart issues, but otherwise it’s no worse than coffee. NRT has been around for years and there is no evidence it’s unsafe

 

Plus vaping is not fully understood yet but it sure as hell looks like it’s very bad for your health and environment

A statement which contradicts the latest review , carried out by experts looking at actual data and facts and stuff from numerous study’s, rather than daily mail headlines ..

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update

Is it 100% safe, no and they don’t claim it is. But it’s far safer than smoking at pretty much every level

Seeing what a pack of 20 costs nowadays is eye-watering. I don’t know how anyone can afford to smoke any more

I did an article on this earlier this year.

You’re looking at more than £2k a year if 10-a-day, and obviously £4k a year if 20-a-day.

The average UK wage is around £26-27k after tax.

And a disproportionate amount of smokers will be below that average wage.

A question for those who have transferred to vaping then; how much is it costing you compared to the cigarettes?

Not that nicotine is actually harmful

The NHS say:

relatively harmless.

Notice they don’t say “not harmful” they say “relatively harmless” – because compared to the rest of the shit in cigarette smoke it is *relatively* harmless.  But I think you need to read that in context too – its in the context of nicotine consumed from fags. Its a bit like saying chlorine in swimming pools is relatively harmless.  It certainly can be toxic if you take enough – and this is an issue to consider when vaping.  I know a few people who quit fags – went to vapes and found it very easy to “turn up” the dose for a bigger hit every few weeks.  My wife reports a colleague who used to have 5 fags during the working day, but who now is pretty much constantly on their vape whenever they are not in a face to face meeting.

I’m not saying vapes are bad – compared to consuming the same amount of nicotine by inhaling the fumes from smouldering tobacco leaves they are enormously better.  But beware – they are 100% intended to make money for the Vape company (many of whom are owned by the tobacco companies!) and the best way to achieve that is to get you addicted to Vaping and consuming more and more nicotine.

Almost all of it referring to unregulated vapes that are used elsewhere in the world.

Even in this part of the world, vapes are very poorly regulated.  Compared to say nicotine gum or patches which superficially are direct competitor offerings.

A question for those who have transferred to vaping then; how much is it costing you compared to the cigarettes?

Next to nothing. I order my favourite liquids 10 at a time for £35, which lasts me over a month. I have a decent variable voltage vape that cost me 40 quid. I spend a few quid on new atomisers. Thats it

For comparison, I’ve just looked online and 20 B&H, the fags I used to smoke, are now a truly staggering £15.86 for a pack of 20 😳

Well done OP, keep up the good work. I smoked for 30 odd years and finally gave up for what appears to be good a few years ago. Never tried vaping as personally I don’t see the point in replacing one habit with another, but each to their own.

Good for you OP! Stick with it.

Dig deep and quit the smoking…..don’t vape – Vapers look like pillocks. Fully grown adults sucking on a pacifier, not a great look! Plus like someone said further up, you’re effectively on ‘Methadone’.

Plus vaping is not fully understood yet but it sure as hell looks like it’s very bad for your health and environment

The NHS is saying it prefers vaping to cigs at the minute because the available research doesn’t state otherwise. There are lots of docs that don’t agree with this

I do suddenly wonder what the Venn diagram intersection looks like between people who vape and people who rejected the Cov2 vaccine due to a perceived lack of long-term data.

I’ve just progressively reduced my nicotine levels to now 0.3mg which is virtually nowt,

Why not make the leap to 0mg? That exists I believe?

Lots of nonsense written on here

Nicotine, is highly addictive, but not bad for you or your long term cardiovascular health.

Assuming that to be true, it’s surely not the point. Cigarettes aren’t 100% pure nicotine.

My dad died – eventually, after they’d patched up necrotic ulcers and amputated lumps out of him to keep him going – from vascular dementia. Care to hazard a guess as to the root cause?

If you’re a smoker and enjoy it then good for you, crack on. If you’re a smoker arguing “well, it’s good for you really” then you’re a lunatic of the highest order.

I did less habitual vaping

I’ve often wondered whether this is a thing. If you smoke then you go for a cigarette, it runs out, you return to life (or choose to have another). If you vape then there’s no cut-off, you can stand there chugging at the thing for half an hour.

I do a lot of work on smoking cessation services and I’d encourage you to ignore the scaremongering about vaping – it is MASSIVELY better for you than smoking.

You may wish to buy a non-disposable vape thingy and start reducing your nicotine intake gradually, as others have said they’ve done above.

Consider it well and truly ignored, though that said I did take on board that was as you say massively better than regular smoking, there is a small negative, which is why as in my initial post I am hoping to go on from 20mg to 10 to 5 eventually. Im sure after than making a final break will be much easier.

As to using the disposable. Well you’ve got to start somewhere, and I have in the past tried the liquid ones but at that time didnt really get on with it as i hadn’t fully committed in my mind to stop the tobacco

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To those saying tobacco is a poison, insecticide etc. Yes it is, but it is also mostly harmless to humans as in the way salt is mostly harmless and I ask those people directly. Do you use salt in food- I’ll hazard a guess thats a yes. But salt dissolves slugs and snails, and kills plants, and yet you still add it to your soup. Why do you do that knowing that it kills slugs and snails and plants 😕  Correct, because it is mostly harmless.

Good, glad we got that silly little non point point out of the way.

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My usage – for those looking to quit.

On tobacco i was about £20/week, and I believe cigarette smokers average 10/day which at £13 for 20 (approx) will be about 50 quid.

I’m currently smoking 1 disposable vape per day – At 5 vapes for £20 im spending around about £30/week*

* I am new to this and at this stage it is not the money, but weaning myself off the 4000 other really harmful ingredients in tobacco. Im quite sure once i start on the lower nicotine 3mg/5mg in a proper electronic liquid vape thats going to come down to probably a fiver/week, and that will be within a year.

But as said, totally new to this and you’ve got to start somewhere. Most that try to do this cold turkey end up back smoking tobacco within 3 months, so cold turkey is a pointless endeavour.. If you want to stop go for the disposable vapes to begin with. It gives the body its nicotine, and also something to do with your hands, which from what I’ve read helps considerably making the changeover. Remember for some of us its something we’ve been doing for decades, so the body and mind are hard wired into those actions, you cant just stop that dead duck and not expect to have problems.

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Disposable vapes and the environment. Most if not all vape shops plus many supermarkets have recycle bins for these battery products, so thats the best place to be rid of them.

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I tried giving up smoking weed a couple of years ago.

Yeah that was a first step about 3 years ago. I was puffing about an oz/month of the good weed, so about £250/month or £3k/year, but I realized to give up tobacco i needed to first stop weed and the two were interlinked. That i did go cold turkey on, and yes there are withdraw symptoms like profuse sweating and violent emotional and vivid dreaming.

I basically took my months oz, with i just to grind up after removing twigs etc and tipped the entire lot in the bin. That was how i justified remaining weed free to myself, If i could take a fresh oz and throw the entire lot out it was such a waste of money that buying any more was utterly crazy.

Unfortunately I retained the long cigarette papers so smoked bigger roll ups 🙄  😆 but at least we’ve now knocked that on the head.

Vapers look like pillocks. Fully grown adults sucking on a pacifier, not a great look

Like I give a flying **** what people think I look like! I used to smoke 20 B&H and now I don’t, courtesy of vaping, because i’d tried and failed by every other method. Repeatedly

But hey, you know… maybe I should be more conscious of my image and how I appear to those who feel the need to constantly judge everyone? 🙄

Unfortunately I doubt the environment is of much concern to the people buying disposable vapes.

My mum died at the age of 56 after years of ill health because of heavy smoking. My dad, 81, has given up smoking for a vape device and, while he now resembles a skinny geriatric grey haired baby constantly sucking on a bubbling electric dummy, is probably better off for it.

Vapers look like Thomas the Tank engine and smell like a strawberry.

Not sayin’ it’s a bad look, mind.

Unfortunately I doubt the environment is of much concern to the people buying disposable vapes.

I expect some do Montgomery. Just as some cyclists throw their empty gel packets a hedge. But I wouldn’t say all do that because I dont have that Daily Mail mindset.

So thats a bit of an unfair and all encompassing comment there matey

If you’re a smoker and enjoy it then good for you, crack on. If you’re a smoker arguing “well, it’s good for you really” then you’re a lunatic of the highest order.

who is arguing smoking is good for you?

Assuming that to be true, it’s surely not the point. Cigarettes aren’t 100% pure nicotine

it’s entirely the point when discussing smoking cessation. All the experts acknowledge that the bad stuff in cigarettes is the thousands of chemicals produced at highly toxic levels. Not the nicotine itself. No one is saying smoking isn’t terrible for cardiovascular health, lung health, and any other health..

Care to hazard a guess as to the root cause?

I assume smoking rather than vaping or chewing nicotine gum.

Keep going, i quit using the tablets years ago, was a completely different scenario as that made even the thought of smoking make me feel nauseous, vaping is of course relatively unknown for health hazards, but reality is, there’s a lot of confidence that it’s better than smoking.

Only issues over the years will be the cut back on vaping, it’s already happening at our workplace, town centre, etc, yes a lot of folk still do it, but give it a decade and it’ll be the next thing on the chopping block.

With more vaping and less smoking, hopefully smoking will fall from grace totally and that all points to people becoming healthier in general