Vaping(As a smoking cessation tool)

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.

--------------

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.<br />

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..<br /><br />

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

Yeah, there are talks of pledges being made with something like 2030/2035 being the aim to ban smoking completely, it's coming, there is less protection for tobacco companies and more markets opening up.

Still think the government should legalise marijuana to make up on the losses of tobacco tax 😁

People who I work with that vape, seem to do it much more often than they actually smoked. Although they say it's better for you than smoking, I'm not sure how this is measured when tobacco companies don't list their ingredients or the way the nicotine (and other chemicals that are in both/either) is delivered differs from each other.

I think if I was giving up smoking I'd rather do the patches, this way you're not adding another habit forming activity to the way you intake your drug. 

Just to make a purely anecdotal observation, from a former smoker...

when the pub smoking ban came in you could stand up and say 'I'm nipping for a fag' and the place would virtually empty as everyone decided to join you. In my local, the beer garden/back yard thing (handily now with a large covered area) would be rammed and there would be two old dears actually sat inside, because everybody I knew smoked

I don't know anyone who smokes any more. Everyone has packed in the fags years ago. Loads of my mates vape, the same as I do, but I can't even remember the last time I actually saw anyone pull out a pack of 20 and light up.

No way would this be the case without the easy availability of vaping products

People who I work with that vape, seem to do it much more often than they actually smoked.

I don't think its 'more' or 'less', its just different. I vape more frequently than I used to smoke, but each time I do, its for considerably less than if I'd been smoking a whole fag, so I reckon it about balances out in the grand scheme of things

Although I've never actually smoked more than the odd cigarette when younger (never addicted) but I probably smoked hundreds of fags second hand from my chain smoking parents, smoking was everywhere in the seventies and eighties. Vaping, although not great is at least keeping the drug to the taker and not spreading it around. 

Well done to the OP for quitting smoking, get yourself signed up for a cycle event next year so you have something to aim for with building up your fitness and weening off the vape. 

Another thumbs up OP.As said buy a half decent adjustable re-chargeable vape, and good quality juice from somewhere reputable, and not a vape that emits plumes of steam, what a waste and you look like a rest burke, but not as bad as someone who smokes tabs.

Also add in small easy to reach goals, things like:

Ride for one hour without stopping, build this up in 10 minute increments over the days and weeks.

Start a diary, easy to do on the phone, about your progression and how you're feeling. This can really help whem you're having a bad day and you can look back to how far you've come. 

Keep it up. 👍

 are now a truly staggering £15.86 for a pack of 20

I'm pretty sure the Marlboro I was smoking in 2002 (there abouts) when I gave up were about four quid*, certainly under a fiver. Breaking a £20.00 note everyday for fags must be a shocker

* I remember that in the Budget they went up by quite a lot, 50p a pack something like that. It was part of the incentive to stop, certainly

they say “relatively harmless” – because compared to the rest of the shit in cigarette smoke it is *relatively* harmless.

Exactly. I think some people might be underestimating just how harmful tar and carbon monoxide in cigarettes are to someone's health.

. I think some people might be underestimating just how harmful tar and carbon monoxide in cigarettes are to someone’s health<br />

What are you on about? Everyone with half a brain knows that those  2 ingredients are a key reason smoking is so harmful 

but .. this thread is about vaping. And those 2 aren’t an issue with legal vapes.

@binners

if you are getting though 10 bottles of liquid a month that’s around 3ml a day. Whilst that’s apparently fairly average, imo it takes quite a bit of vaping to bang through that amount in a day no?

What are you on about?

I was agreeing with poly's comment.

Maybe chill and have a fag/vape?💡

Vaping didn't work for me - found it made my chest worse than it already was - coughing, more mucus, etc. Other than the odd one in desperation, I haven't smoked straights in 18 years, and when I quit those, I quit tobacco completley for 6 years. Then ridiculously, I started rolling. I can stay off them for a few days, but always crumble. Know i need to stop, but haven't (this time) got to the point of wanting to stop yet. I'm approx. 50g per week at the moment.

I was only ever periodic smoker, but I always enjoyed tobacco in both rollies and pipes. I will still have a pipe from time to time with another pipe smoker. But vaping has been a huge boon to me.

I have ALWAYS been a compulsive eater - as in, if it exists, then I eat it. I have poor impulse control, and every time I would get distracted (which was constantly), I would visit the fridge.

With a vape, I can concentrate better for hours on end, and feel no compulsion to eat. This has been important as, after my cycling accident in 2018, I went from 78kgs to 94kgs, and felt like hell. Since I made a deal with Mrs SR to exchange the eating for vaping, I have dropped to 82kgs and am still losing.

I feel better in every way, and have even started to move more.

And as far as all my reading has led me to believe, nicotine as a drug is really no different to caffeine. Its biggest problem has always been its delivery method.

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.

it’s a pretty poor analogy - salt is essential to human (and all animals) life.   Alcohol is perhaps a better analogy.

disposable vapes seem to have become especially unpopular with judgemental ****s - presumably because some stupid ****s through them away in nature, as they do with NO2, used jonnys, beer bottles/cans, syringes etc.  Whilst a reusable one is probably better for the environment - perhaps the cost, repeated physical purchase process and visible waste are better incentives for those who genuinely want to cut down rather than infrequently buying liquid refills.

@binners

if you are getting though 10 bottles of liquid a month that’s around 3ml a day

@tpbiker - I said it lasts me over a month, but just looking at my orders, that’s actually every 6 weeks. It sure beats 20 B&H a day, that’s for sure.

I’ve reduced the nicotine content down to 0.3mg. I’m just bloody glad I’m a non-smoker. I’m well aware that vaping is largely an unknown quantity, but I know with just how I feel that it’s a damn site better than smoking. Everything’s relative

Well done OP. I'm in a similar boat, I drive a lot for work so I used to buy a pack of tabs so I had something to do to ease the boredom, this descended into having a sneaky one at every opportunity. I'd smoked on and off for 20+ years but never got into 20 a day territory. It wasn't doing me any favours health wise either.

I decided to try a disposable vape instead just over 3 months ago and I haven't even thought about spending £15 on a pack of tabs since. I need to get hold of a reusable one as I'm not too happy about the environmental impact of the disposables. Long term I'd like to eliminate the vape altogether but that's a way off yet.

who is arguing smoking is good for you?

Read back.

it’s entirely the point when discussing smoking cessation.

It's not. No-one died from quitting smoking. Plenty of folk died from not quitting smoking (again, see above) and plenty of folk died from quitting and/or not quitting other substances. Quitting alcohol is horrific if you're dependant.

The way to quit smoking is to stop going into the shop going "20 fags please." Everything else is habit and excuses.

All the experts acknowledge that the bad stuff in cigarettes is the thousands of chemicals produced at highly toxic levels. Not the nicotine itself.

So, yay?

I assume smoking rather than vaping or chewing nicotine gum.

You assume correctly. Vaping wasn't overly commonplace when my dad started smoking aged 12.

My dad lost his mind like throwing a switch. He was at home one evening watching a quiz show on TV and answering all the questions. Then he started seeing things crawling up the walls, clawing fibres out of the chair arms and shat himself.

He was in hospital for two years, which is a story in itself, and then in a care home for another two. His extremities were necrotic and some were amputated.

All 100% down to smoking. Remind me again what smoking for 50 years costs? Ten quid a day... that'd pay for my house.

Vaping is certainly one of more, if not the most, effective ways to give up or cut down smoking, we are fortunate that to date our authorities haven't fallen for the moral panic about vaping that has happened in some states and have appreciated the dangers of the precautionary principle.

My costs are at most £150 per annum.

The way to quit smoking is to stop going into the shop going “20 fags please.” Everything else is habit and excuses.<br /><br />

im not sure exactly what your point is, but that’s the sort of thing my ex-smoker in laws say, and then they extend it to heroin etc too.  They quit* so others can too.  Smoking is in part a habit and in part an  addiction; it may be easier to break one than the other.  It’s widely recognised that simply telling people to stop something whether it’s addiction or habit is not an effective way to achieve it.  Vapes typically don’t address the addiction (and *may* actually make it worse) but substitute the habit, for a similar but less harmful one.  Vapes could be a good way to get off your nicotine addiction (and join the throngs of judgemental pricks!) but that will take the will power - and perhaps a recognition of why you smoke, which might need some tough inner reflection.  

*after about 20 years and several attempts - at a time when they had good motivation to do it and “life was good”.  

I'm sure there are other threads that I've commented on, but this was the only recent'ish one that came up in a search

Just noticed something in the car. I'm struggling to give up the vapes even though I can tell they aren't doing good things to me.

The new car has an air quality monitor and purification system. It only lets particles less than 2.5 microns in from the outside.

1st pic is after driving for a while with purification on.

2nd pic is sat waiting for the Mrs in a shop with the engine running (hence the high exterior reading). Check out the interior reading after a couple of puffs on a lowish power vape (not a cloud machine)

I'm going to risk sounding like a patronising **** saying this but I hope it's not taken that way. About cessation. Vaping is relatively less dangerous but that's perhaps where the risk is - it's less important to give up as it's not as deadly but it's equally addictive and we smoke to avoid the horrible temper and anxiety or nerves that withdrawal creates, that's all.

I don't generally talk about it as it feels like it undermines my self-image of being a fit cyclist but I used to smoke. I'd got out of cycling for a while as a partying teenager and ended up smoking well into my 20s, a few a day, up to 10 a day on a weekend if I was at the pub. One day I just wondered why I did it, I was back into riding my bike which meant so much more to me yet I carried on smoking, and I'd seen what it had done to family members.

Anyway. For me the hard stop was the way to do it, I wanted to prove that I could beat the nagging bastard addiction that it is. I did have some nicotine gums briefly, like 1 pack, and nytols helped me sleep in the first couple of weeks but there was a definite end point to the cigs, no cutting down and kidding myself. I think that's the way to go. Just ****ing do it. Hard stop. Deal with the withdrawal as a challenge because you can beat it. Every day that you deal with the nagging in your head and the bad temper is a crappy experience that you'll have had for nothing if you re-start. It is hard, for sure. But the nagging fades and after only a few weeks you'll be free of it. In hindsight it was an experience that made me more confident in some areas of life overall because I knew I could set my mind to something and stay on track. I could be me more honest with myself when I thought about what committing to something meant. More than just a health benefit. "If you call it you gotta do it" - BMX rules.

Like I said, not wanting to sound patronising and apparently there's little as annoying as a preachy ex-smoker. Just saying this like at a smoker's anonymous circle, in case it helps someone with a way to beat the addiction.

1st pic is after driving for a while with purification on.

2nd pic is sat waiting for the Mrs in a shop with the engine running (hence the high exterior reading). Check out the interior reading after a couple of puffs on a lowish power vape (not a cloud machine)

Run the test again, without the vape bit. That should show if opening the door had any effect on internal air quality,and also sitting with the engine running.

.

So sit with the engine running but not the doors being opened, and also sit with the engine running after opening the door for approximately the same amount of time the wifie had it open.

EDIT: Im a little confused as to how that exterior reading works. Pic 1 implies that the outside air is clean, when we know it is not.

Run the test again, without the vape bit. That should show if opening the door had any effect on internal air quality,and also sitting with the engine running.

.

So sit with the engine running but not the doors being opened, and also sit with the engine running after opening the door for approximately the same amount of time the wifie had it open.

EDIT: Im a little confused as to how that exterior reading works. Pic 1 implies that the outside air is clean, when we know it is not

Don't read too much into the pics. They were taken to show the molecule content of the vape, not an example of exterior air quality. Does the same when it's showing clean air outside. Bear in mind I'm in a semi rural area, so the air isn't bad. Usually shows between 3 and 20 when moving. The interior will stay at around 2 normally. Vaping, it's in the 100's

2nd pic is sat waiting for the Mrs in a shop with the engine running (hence the high exterior reading). Check out the interior reading after a couple of puffs on a lowish power vape (not a cloud machine)

I don't think vaping produces particulates, your car's air monitor is detecting microscopic droplets of vape to get that inside reading. These don't have the tissue penetration or persistence of particulates.

That concentration might be undesirable, particularly to somebody ingesting it passively but it's not the same thing.

I don’t think vaping produces particulates, your car’s air monitor is detecting microscopic droplets of vape to get that inside reading. These don’t have the tissue penetration or persistence of particulates.

That concentration might be undesirable, particularly to somebody ingesting it passively but it’s not the same thing

Fair do's 👍

I don’t think vaping produces particulates

Erm, they are clearly not an aerosol

I'm no expert, but a quick flick through some science journals would suggest that vaping very much DOES produce particulates....and the power setting on a vape can affect their size.

I don’t think vaping produces particulates

of course it does. The term “vape” is a complete misnomer. It’s an aerosol.

I think you're right, I worded that a bit carelessly. I was meaning to draw a distinction between solids and liquids. Having done some more reading around it though (thanks @Tom-B) it looks a lot more complicated than I'd first thought.

I really don't have a dog in this fight but having looked at it a bit more I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

Full disclosure - after a couple of decades of smoking I gave up 27 years ago and still believe that a cup of black coffee with a Marlboro Red is the finest breakfast known to mankind.

still believe that a cup of black coffee with a Marlboro Red is the finest breakfast known to mankind.

cor, amen to that. (Quit smoking 7 years ago, quit coffee this year)

10 weeks of no tobacco now.  I used a vape but reduced the strength quickly then stopped it.  I still have some nicotine lozenges for bad moments.  Still getting slight physical withdrawal.

Well done TJ

The way to quit smoking is to stop going into the shop going “20 fags please.” Everything else is habit and excuses.

Its really not - nicotine is physically addictive.  More so than heroin or alcohol.

TJ i agree that nicotine is physically addictive.

I stopped about 30 years ago, I was smoking around 30 -40 a day.

Used the gum, which tasted foul back in the day. I really saw behind the curtain when I started enjoying the flavour, your brain tricking you in getting more of the "good stuff".

However, if you are a heroin addict or an alcoholic, if you simply stop altogether, then you would be putting your life at risk. Which simply isn't true with nicotine. Feel like shit, yes but not any serious physical harm.

However, if you are a heroin addict or an alcoholic, if you simply stop altogether, then you would be putting your life at risk

Alcohol yes.  Heroin no.  I know ex heroin addicts who said it was easier to give up than cigarettes and heroin withdrawal is not life threatening - alcohol and benzos are

I was 20+ a day for around 12 years. Went out one day on my bike to Clent, couldn't keep up with a mate, threw my fags in the bin at the top of the hill and haven't smoked since. This was 20 years ago.

I guess it's different for different people, but I had no physical withdrawal symptoms and stopping was easy. I found it much harder to kick the speed after a few years of putting a quarter away every day.

I still believe that a cup of black coffee with a Marlboro Red is the finest breakfast known to mankind.

@johnners - I packed in 8 or 9 years ago and that’s  the one I still crave. Getting up, walking downstairs into the kitchen, coffee machine on, large Americano, then open the back door and light up a B&H gold

Breakfast of champions!

Oh… and well done Uncle Jezza

I guess it’s different for different people, but I had no physical withdrawal symptoms and stopping was easy.

It was much the same for me, physically it was no problem for me, breaking the habit of doing it in social situations was by far the hardest part. It wasn't helped any by the fact that much as I always thought it was a bit minging, I really enjoyed smoking cigarettes. Some people can have the odd one for old times sake or whatever, I've never even had one in the past 27 years because I just know I'd still like it.

Well done anyone who's managed to give up, and for those of you still trying, good luck and keep trying, as many times as it takes!