Vape as smoking cessation

[bykfixer]

Some say not to stop smoking in a crisis. Others say that is the best time.

I'm in agreement with the second one. So after a couple of days at work where things went crazy.... then my vapes were leaking like crazy for some reason....

My pods got it done until..... yeah I had a couple of smokes to avoid doing something to a coworker that a conviction can result in 10 to life in prison.... but at the end of the day I still had cigarettes remaining in a pack opened on Monday. A pack that normally would've been gone by supper time that day.

Now a pod system tends to squash urges for a little while but a few drags from a good modular setup causes me to decide not to smoke for hours at a time. Had my hooka not been spilling juice everwhere during the heated battles the last couple of days that may would have had even more left last night.

So yeah, it seems that a vape can help you quit.
(Leaks are solved now btw)

 

[ven]

Buying juice is pretty costly, more so with leaks. A flavour you like, buy the concentrate, some nicotine 72mg(in VG or PG, i go for the former). Some VG, maybe 1L and smaller amount of PG, maybe 0.5L.

150ml, say 6% strength. 20% flavour, so 30ml, around 120ml to go. The flavour counts as PG as it is PG based. Around 12-13ml of nic VG for 6%, are at around 108ml left. I tend to do mostly VG now, so 95ml VG and around 13ml extra PG. Shake well and 150ml of juice for maybe $15 cost.

 

[terjee]

Some say not to stop smoking in a crisis. Others say that is the best time.

[...].

Now a pod system tends to squash urges for a little while but a few drags from a good modular setup causes me to decide not to smoke for hours at a time. Had my hooka not been spilling juice everwhere during the heated battles the last couple of days that may would have had even more left last night.

I firmly believe that if anyone wants to go cold turkey, best is when/after really sick. Two weeks influenza that you didn't smoke through for example.

Also, if anyone is in need of a relatively trouble free tank to upgrade to from ciggalikes or various pod systems, I highly recommend Triton 2 tank. It's a very good MTL tank, and will also do direct lung decently. Just mentioning because there are some bad tanks out there as well, and I'd hate to see anyone give up vaping due to leaks etc.

 

[terjee]

Buying juice is pretty costly, more so with leaks. A flavour you like, buy the concentrate, some nicotine 72mg(in VG or PG, i go for the former). Some VG, maybe 1L and smaller amount of PG, maybe 0.5L.

150ml, say 6% strength. 20% flavour, so 30ml, around 120ml to go. The flavour counts as PG as it is PG based. Around 12-13ml of nic VG for 6%, are at around 108ml left. I tend to do mostly VG now, so 95ml VG and around 13ml extra PG. Shake well and 150ml of juice for maybe $15 cost.

I'll second everything, just adding that while concentrate is typically 15-20%, single flavor aroma types can be quite strong at 2%, so buyer beware, and check recommendations.

Undiluted VG can be quite high viscosity. I'll often recommend PG if you use strong nic, to make it easier to work with. Found a good habit of mixing PG, nic and flavor, then only adding VG as the last step. Gives some dilution to the nicotine before adding the harder to mix VG.

Also, steam-engine.org has a good and easy to use liquid calculator, great for double checking your strengths etc.

Safety is good to keep in mind when working with strong nic. You don't want that poop in your eyes, and nitrile gloves is strongly recommended.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

In the late seventies, I worked at a primate research center. Investigators do additional research as long as their funded work gets done. One scientist told me that tobacco interests contacted him about researching if nicotine could improve performance. We had a discrimination and reversal test apparatus set up for squirrel monkeys. He got some nicotine tartrate and asked me to assist, as my duties in the primate nursery did give me some time to help folks. Subcutaneous injections were given at different doses. The 'eyeball' results I saw actually looked like they were going fast and accurate, but he decided not to go there. He did not smoke and was a physically fit older individual. I was glad he turned their money down. The maximum dose of that nicotine caused the poor creature to go down in the cage for some minutes before recovering to a seemingly normal state.

Yes, I would say not spilling nicotine concentrate on one's skin is a good idea.

 

[ven]

Yes good point, it is a poison . People some times forget its absorbed through the skin ,as well as obviously being swallowed. When mixing fluids, gloves are a good idea(surgical type).

MTL Vape tends to benefit as said with more PG as VG has a higher viscosity compared. Only flip side are more potential leaks or easier to leak. Maybe 50/50 would be a start with MTL.

 

[bykfixer]

Those 'pens' are getting good. EDC items. I tried a Triton but was looking for a pen for Mrs. Fixer so I wasn't thinking whether I'd like it or not. She ended up going with a Kangor K-Pen.

When I return to that Vape store I'll give the Triton a second look (for my use). Thanks for the tip.
Yes pun intended.

Heck, I've slowly gotten to the point where I don't even want a cigarette (or vape) yet still smoke a few a day out of habit.

 

[matt4350]

Glad it appears you're having successes. I've given up smoking for vaping a couple times, the last time was about 4 years ago and haven't touched a dart since. That said, I'm sure I'm psychologically addicted to vaping, and not sure I can give that up. Gotta say I feel better for it when I go for a run, doesn't hurt in the lungs so much. The missus gets a little embarrassed when I 'discreetly' vape where I'm not meant to, she'll whack me one day! I recall hearing of a British study that found about 25 percent of those trying to quit, who vaped, were successful. Now that I'm a non-smoker, I don't like the smell of stale smoke on a person or in a house, but I still like the smell of freshly burning tobacco. It's up there with the smell of bacon, coffee and chocolate for me! I hope you stick with it, it's something I've never regretted.

 

[bykfixer]

The smell of burning tobacco is why I have resumed smoking several times. Started out "with just one" each time.

I work outdoors in summer. It gets very hot at times. I carry a pod type in my shirt pocket or safety vest. I can puff away and those sensitive type who detest burning tobacco (saying "uchth, cigarettes give me a migraine") don't complain. I have to put up with snowflake types on the construction site who get offended that construction workers burp, fart, cuss and smoke cigarettes. One of the enviro-nazis I have to deal with who stated the smell of cigarettes give her diariah recently remarked she liked the smell of my vape. "What is that?" she remarked. I said it was Black Note Prelude, but did not tell her Prelude is a lit cigarette flavor. lol.

Yup, tastes just like smoking my favorite brand of a super light cigarette. The reason I mentioned the heat is that carrying around my favorite mod in the summer heat resulted in a pocket full of syrup-ee 70/30 grape-ness and slurping sounds from the chimney this week. Using my favorite pod with anything less than 60/40 results in dry hits. So I've stuck with the 50/50 Prelude while walking around the construction site.

 

[bykfixer]

Another week into the deal and I won some battles, lost some battles and fraternized with the enemy a few times. It was the most stressful week I've had in a while. Unpredictable and beyond my control but... a lot less cigarettes were smoked versus previous similar events. The best part was chain vape wasn't a crutch. My crutch was the Divine Trilogy. Father, Son, Spirit made the tough times feel less hectic.

Meanwhile the after dinner cigarette is out. First one of the day is minimum 2 hours after wake up. No vape either. Many times the urge is thwarted by the vape. This coming week I'm shooting for another 50% reduction in smoking. Deprivation. As in just not carry any with me. Where I used to carry 2 packs, then a partial pack, and this week.... 5. If all 5 are gone by noon, well... thatz it for that day.

See, I'm not looking to trade one addiction for another. My long term goal is to occasionally vape zero nicotine and no cigarettes.

 

[Crazyeddiethefirst]

Bykfixer, I have lost too many good friends to lung cancer(and one was not a smoker). I have watched people I love go from vibrant full of life, never stop, turn into shells that gasp for air at any exertion. I share this because the ones I know who have successfully quit have been encouraged by this one statistic: if you quick before advanced COPD sets in, and stay smoke free for 7 years(may be less now, I haven't seen the latest study), your risk of getting lung cancer is reduced to the same odds as someone who never smoked at all. Very few people succeed the first time they quit-but those who do succeed quit over and over and over, until they do succeed. Very few other things can have as dramatic effect on your health as quitting. My mom had 95% blockages in both her carotid arteries. The surgeon who operates to clear the blockages told my mom that when it came to blocking those same arteries again after surgery it did not matter what her cholesterol was, how bad her diet or lack of exercise was, the only people who had to have the surgery repeated were those that kept smoking. She had three more surgeries before dying from a stroke. The surgeon who gave her that warning? Dead of lung cancer 2 years later(heavy smoker). My dad dropped dead at the age of 32 from a heart attack(heavy smoker). I don't share these things to be negative, I want to tell you how important it is to me personally that you succeed! I am so proud you are sharing your efforts to quit-many parents and grandparents grew up not knowing the dangers of smoking(I have a 1957 "Life" magazine ad that says "More Doctors smoke Camels than any other brand"). I believe every single person who decides to try to quit deserves as much support as possible. Keep up the good work, thousands of Flashlights need you in good health, not to mention a number of loved ones as well!

 

[night.hoodie]

I am moved by your experience, bykfixer. Vaping didn't work so well for me, but it was not the juice. I found that even vaping plain gycerine (like a couple bucks for 8oz. in the WalMart pharmacy section) satisfied half of what small pleasure it is that I am enjoying when I smoke. That's right, no flavor, and I do not need nicotine. I switched from regular national cigarattes (soon after learning how they were manufactured, and why) to natural pipe tobacco and rolling my own, so my nicotine habit naturally degraded. I probably smoke more rolled to get the same nicotine, but removing the drug altogether is possible for me, pretty easily. It is the ritual that is my thing. Switching to natural tobacco has likely saved me a few thousand dollars since the switch, and is somewhat "healthier," than smoking national brand cigarettes, at least according to the Surgeon General.

So the puffing and blowing cloudy exhales is part of it, and it is solved, more or less, by vaping. What wasn't solved is the digital part, whatever small comfort my hands and fingers have accustomed to and require as part of this inscrutible need. I used a cheaper vape pen, Ego, cheap, but I could tell investing more in a better vape like it would not help me. It just wasn't the same, but again, the stuff I was inhaling and exhaling was fine about it. I believe a small vape stick the precise dimensions and weight of a typical cigarette, that draws just like a cigarette, that allows me to exhale cloudy air and adjust the amount, and no other simulation features except perhaps a little wisp of vape streaming off the end, is probably all that is required to get me to quit. I haven't seen one yet, not aware of any yet, but I am confident they will appear as the technology advances, and not have the issues the smallest vape sticks currently have that are close to the dimensions of a real cigarette, such as too much draw resistance. I roll my cigarettes loose to get more air through, burn the medium faster.

Congratulations on your success, hope it continues. Also hope that I passed on something not generally known (though unlikely I know anything no one else knows), that the vegetable glycerine sold in pharmacies for topical use in large bottles for cheap and approved for human consumption is the same as the vegetable gycerine sold in vape shops at a premium for tiny quantities. (Not the other kind of vape juice base, the propylene glycol that is mixed in for that "hit" to the back of the throat, which I don't personally require.) I also experimented with common grocery store extracts for adding flavor, but I think the concentrated vape juices you can get, unmixed with glycerine or glycol, are probably worth their cost, and you get more variety in the vape shop, and the neat little chemistry aparatus in which they are sold.

 

[bykfixer]

Thanks for the support folks.

Nicotine is highly addictive. Nicotine from tobacco is a very efficient delivery system. Big tobacco has tweaked that system to ensure a consistant delivery system is kept.

Basically if I'm in a place that doesn't allow smoking I can go all day and be just fine. But you can bet your arse when I'm off campus I'm going to smoke. Part of that is rebellion against "the man" from my teenage years. Once I was hospitalized for 3 weeks. An issue of internal bleeding nearly put me on the wrong side of the grass. Scarey. I'd sneak in the bathroom and blow my smoke into linens in a bin. It worked but... it thinned my blood and I'd start leaking again. So I asked for a patch. They gave me one 12mg patch. The urge to smoke was nill for the entire time after that one patch. But the moment I stood up out of the wheelchair when exiting the hospital I looked for my cigarettes in my pocket.

My pop had heart disease that would occasionally put him in the hospital those last few years. Sometimes for weeks at a time. As soon as he got to the car he'd say "got a cigarette?".... of couse I did.

"I'll just smoke one" your brain say. Nonsense!!! Nope. That one cigarette starts the whole process of addiction cessation again. Not the withdrawl part but the mind game part. I do it everyday.

When I first started to vape my idea was to gain control over possibly the worst invention man has concieved. And after a few weeks I have fought off cigarette after cigarette. I have won a ton of battles. But it's like a heroin addict sleeping in a poppy field. They will not win the war. When I decided to go sober I told my using buddies that my path was going veer from theirs in order to keep sober. The same thing will have to occur with cigarettes at some point.

The vape idea is to get used to nicotine from another (less efficient) source to avoid becoming a monster. Meanwhile habit changing is also occuring a day at a time. And yesterday was restock day. Instead of buying a carton I bought 4 packs. Over the last few days I was backing off tobacco flavored vape and opting for more sweet stuff. And slowly cigarettes were tricking me into smoking more. Still way less than in June when my heart went all-a-flutter. I had even shelved my pod with pure tobacco flavor e-juice.

At 6 oclock this morning I smoked 3 in a row. My body did not want more grape, more strawberry etc. No thick, syrupy steam. It wanted tobacco. By noon I took the pod off the shelf and chain vaped tobacco flavor for about 10 minutes.

Four hours later I've yet to want a cigarette. I also figured out all those 70/30, 80/20 blends just don't satisfy the urge for a drag. So I mixed a tank with a 50/50 tobacco and a 70/30 strawberry to achieve about a 60/40 viscocity. Much more satisfying, much more tastey and the urge to smoke is no longer driving me nuts today.

The point of this thread is hopefully pointing out pitfalls smokers all share. Other pitfalls those choosing the vape to attempt to quit. A friend told me recently he'd recently stopped cold turkey and so-far-so-good. Like me he'd stopped earlier in life long enough to be considered a former smoker. But a dramatic lifestyle change triggered the old habit to return. So far his wife and dogs still like him. My former mentor stopped smoking in the 1970's. I asked how often he has the urge to smoke. He replied "everyday and twice on Sunday."

 

[night.hoodie]

The point of this thread is hopefully pointing out pitfalls smokers all share.

I think nicotine addiction and smoking is a small pleasure, but one that staves off a grave discomfort. Had Big Tobacco not decided nicotine addiction was the best way to increase sales, and created such a deadly product from what was previously not really much of a cancer vector, the massive amount of smoking-related deaths per year would not be extant. Blows me away that their cases were finally lost in the 1990's, yet the government did nothing whatsoever to the remove process that makes cigarettes so addicting and deadly. idk if it was assumed all unhealthy things are all equal, or if no one noticed, but banning them outright and forcing smokers into an illegal underground was at least not considered an option. Someone wiser told me, "you can't mess with people's cigarettes," meaning it was deemed not a good idea to force the manufacturers from abandoning their process of the ideal drug delivery system and return to packing legitimate, natural, unmolested tobacco into cigarettes. I think it would have worked, that at some future date, suddenly, the cancer death rates would have dropped dramatically, though the population of smokers would have remained constant. Heart disease and emphasema would have also remained constant.

 

[bykfixer]

Big money NH. Doctors, lawyers, hospitals, big pharma, drug stores, all kinds of industries..... all would have been severely affected by tobacco addictions being suddenly gone.

And then there's the tax revenue. Huge dollars flow into government coffers. Nah, big brother likes things just as they are.

 

[night.hoodie]

Big money NH. Doctors, lawyers, hospitals, big pharma, drug stores, all kinds of industries..... all would have been severely affected by tobacco addictions being suddenly gone.

And then there's the tax revenue. Huge dollars flow into government coffers. Nah, big brother likes things just as they are.

This is perceptive. Also, if the Social Security fund is going empty (by 2025 by some accounting) and suddenly the amount of retirees drawing off the fund start living far longer, the fund will be put into an unrecoverable debt spiral. I guess we need to consider that it is only ethical to leave some resources remaining for future generations. Live dangerously. Quality of life is more important than quantity of life, by some argument.

 

[bykfixer]

^^ Working construction for 35 years I'm figuring between silica dust, asbestos dust, spent fumes from liquid asphalts, paints etc, plus those crazy things we tried as youngsters.... time will reveal what was the worst thing for my particular system. But tobacco smoke is causing plaque build up in my arteries. And that is what wiped out my entire family prior to me. Well, the smokers anyway. The non smokers had strokes in their 90's.

7;30 edit
Today was a good day. The kinda day you hope to have everyday. Example: I'm making a batch of juice from concentrate. Can 1 goes in the mixer bottle fine. (I'm wearing tan pants and white t-shirt). Open can 2 and good night Irene! Concentrate goes flying everywhere.... except on me. It was like the scene in Pulp Fiction where the bullets should have gone through Jewels and Vincent.

Work was attempting to be stressful yet I was wearing a perma-grin all day. Summer heat had me sweating like in a sauna, yet my stamina was like going back 20 years in time.

On the comute I opted for light weight, positive vibe music instead of the news radio station and all its depressing stories. My comute seemed to be cut in half. At the close of business I still had three cigarettes left in a partial pack that ordinarily would've been gone by noon. The air smelled fresher, the sky seemed bluer, puffy clouds more spectacular....

I owe nearly all the credit to not smoking. The ones I did were enjoyable. Also a bit of credit goes to a vape device I carried with me. Instead of a pod that had pure tobacco taste, my home brew tobacco with strawberry added was more satisfying than the real thing.

So it's the second week without chocolate candy, the third or fourth (I forget) without caffiene and week two of a 75% reduction in smoking. Right now I'm outside having the last one for today and two remain in the pack. I had several puffs from a tank of grape flavored 70/30 and decided to go outside and enjoy a cigarette.

It seems what I was feeding my auditory senses also halted triggers to smoke subconciously. I had taken note of that a few times before but today confirmed it.

 

[ven]

:rock: awesome stuff mr fixer

 

[bykfixer]

Yesterday was a bad day.... in terms of habit changes anyway. I woke up 2 hours early and my decaf coffee just wasn't doing it. I kept nodding off in an important meeting to boot. By 10am it was pretty obvious I had some sort of stomach bug and was extremely run down feeling. A few cigs were smoked, but not so bad. By noon my days supply was gone though. Only brought 5 to work. Finally at 2 I grabbed a caffienated beverage that lit me up for about 20 minutes.

After work I went to bed. Before that I had filled a tank with a nice blend I'd been waiting to age a few days.

This morning I saw a puddle around the mod I was going to take to work. All of the juice had leaked past a coil I'd failed to fasten properly. But at least my head wasn't swimming like the previous day.

My first cigarette today was an ultralight that acted like it was broken. Next one.... same way. Ok that sucks. Now my vapes are acting like it too. Must be me I figured.

Went to a store and picked up a stronger pack of cigarettes... a brand I don't care for. But at least I got a good drag. A few drags later and all was right with the world. Instead of my daily supply of 5 ultralights I had 2. And two of the stonger kind.

Got home from work, cleaned some airflow chambers and now my hookas are proper too. This is week three of a lifestyle change and today my body rebelled the changes probably more than any day prior. Old habits are some sneaky so n so's and today they hit me with a 1-2 punch and an upper cut. But in the big scheme of things they did not win.

 

[peter yetman]

Bum, sorry you had a bad one. Your resolve is still there, and you have to admit nicotine and caffiene are serious drugs. They would never licence them now.
Keep on fighting.
P