Ask Lemmy

I quit by vaping.

I smoked for 15 or 16 years. I tried vaping one time, around 13 or 14 years in, but it didn't do it for me. After a few more years of smoking, i tried a sub ohm vape, which used a low nic salt content. It made massive clouds which whilst making me feel like a twat, actually helped to fuel the illusion that i was smoking. The feel on my throat was similar to the cigarettes i was used to, and overall, it felt like smoking, so i managed to stick to it and not smoke at the same time.

The kicker was that the low salt meant that initially i was vaping more often, but as time went on i was finding that i was having less time to vape so i was t getting as much nicotine. Eventually, after maybe 6 months to a year, i found that one day, i went all day at work without vaping once. And when i realised i just decided... i dont need it, so i left the vape at home the next day.

Its been over a year and a half now, and i dont think about them anymore.

I am really fucking happy.

I did but it wasn't easy and required a lot of self control.

I started with a 6mg fluid in an 80 watt device, using a bottle of 0mg fluid I titrated down to 4.5mg, then 3mg, then 1.5mg,.75mg and so on until there were only trace amounts of nicotine left.

At this point I switched entirely to the 0mg fluid for a few days until it no longer felt like a compulsion to reach for it, the addiction having been suppressed.

No they just made my nicotine addiction worse.

The gum worked, though. Started with the 4mg dose, dropped down to two; by the time I worked my way down to an 8th of a piece of a time, I thought to myself, "wait, do I really need to be doing this?" and that was it.

Haven't craved nicotine since 2018.

My personal experience was I ended up vaping inside and smoking outside. Started feeling real shitty.

Edit: I should add I did eventually quit and what helped me was 1) really wanting to quit and 2) tea tree oil toothpicks to pop in my mouth any time I wanted a cig. Munched on those for a good 6 months or so.

It’s not the entirety of the beast but a lot of addiction is related to ritual and comfort so any way to subvert the substance out of the same ritual helps (not saying I’m not still addicted to other things but I did at least shake nicotine)

Yep, my wife. Smoked since childhood, tried many times to quit, finally managed using a vape. I started with a strong enough mix to match the daily nicotine intake, we left it like that for almost a year, then I started lowering it by 10% every month. Once we got to 20% is started dropping by 5% and then just 1% from 5% down. That said, the process being so gradual made it smooth and less disruptive.

I did, but I also wanted to quit. No one quits a substance they don't want to quit.

Yes.

I flip flopped until I found a good vape. Then one day I lit a cigarette but wanted the vape afterwards.

That was my last cigarette

I did, but I did stick with it for years before dropping the vape too. There was a transition period where my smoking dropped in frequency before I was totally done, so it wasn't immediate for me, but all my friends smoked around that time so that didn't exactly help. I was nicotine free for a few years after that until recently when I picked up the synthetic pouches under some extra stress. Do with that what you will. Its not a perfect solution, but I do think the vape was very helpful in quitting cigarettes because of the similar sensation that I never got from the gum or patches. Harm reduction tends to be more effective than elimination right off the bat.

Edit: it might be worth noting I do still use a dry herb vape for cannabis and occasionally smoke that, but the noticeable consequences are much less than they were from smoking tobacco or even vaping nicotine/pg/vg. Someday I'll completely drop the nicotine pouches too, but overall I feel pretty decent about where I'm at.

I switched to vape, not necessarily to drop nicotine, but so i could smoke in company vehicles. I haven't stopped vaping for a few years now.

I'm in no way saying the habit is healthy or nice, but there's still a net positive to switching even if you don't end up stopping.

It's cheaper overall. A little over a pack a day is basically $10/day. I probably spend $60 on juice and $10 for coils in a month, and that's a high estimate. One coil can last a few months sometimes, other times they're duds. The initial cost is what can look expensive. $100 for a good rig, but it can last years if you get the right one. (I save money by using a rig that takes 18650 batteries and scavenge them from dead electronics - they're everywhere, power tool batteries, hoverboards, etc. Otherwise it's an extra $10 every 6 months)

It also doesn't dry me out like cigarettes. Cigarettes used to cause my sinuses to bleed in the morning and just clog my sinuses through the day. Vape keeps me a little more hydrated it feels like, like even the cough is more fluid and comes right up. No more dry coughing at all.

Don't even get me started with the smell.

It's worth mentioning too, there's a difference between the nic salts and the juice. The salts are where you can experience OD and even seizures.

I did. I smoked from 1988 until 2010'ish and also chewed tobacco from '01 - '10 as well.

A friend had Strawberry Rhubarb vape so I tried it, loved it, then converted to vape. I slowly decreased the nicotine amount until it was 0-nic and then from there I started becoming more strict like no vaping at work, no vaping while driving until it got to the point where I just didn't vape. Then I got bronchitis.

I got better and then began exercising more. I plateaued and saw a doctor. COPD.

Now I'm just depressed all the time because I apparently have Anhedonia to boot.

So I'm gambling with 20% of my take home in hopes one of these strategies has a huge payout so my wife and kid can be taken care of when I'm gone, which will likely be under a decade.

Took me years, but yes.

This was back in the day when you could easily source stuff to mix your own juice though. I was vaping 3ml and I stepped down 0.5ml every month until I was vaping just flavor. At that point I'd carry my vape around but use it WAY less. Eventually I'd get sick of bringing it with me and just stopped using it.

Then I'd cave again, and restart the process.

Took me a few years, but my vapes are gone and I only smoke when I'm shithoused and around a bunch of smokers, which is a maybe once every couple years event now?

I'm not sure how it would work these days. Everything is packaged, can you even mix your own nic content? Fucking big tobacco fucked up the market.

Even just switching to vaping full time is better than smoking, so get your family member one and hope for the best.

The TL;DR on this one is "if someone wants to quit being addicted to nicotine a vape is a decent way to stop." If they don't want to, they'll just switch to the vape instead of smoking.

So they have to want to quit in order to get any benefit.

I quit smoking using a vape and then quit vaping.

I found that it was easier to quit smoking using a vape because I kept the same motion. I needed a powerful one to feel a similar hit.

And I found it easier to stop vaping than to stop smoking because I could mix liquids to have any desired nicotine content, allowing me to reduce it very gradually. A lot of people simply replace smoking with vaping but that's still an improvement.

My spouse and I both did.

I was a pack per day smoker for 15-20 years. Switched to vaping as it was becoming so popular. Stepped down the nicotine over the course of a few years until I finally just got tired of going and buying 1mg juice and stopped. Haven't had a vape in about 2 years and a cigarette in about about 5.

I still get a craving now and then but it passes. Cigarettes usually just smell like a disgusting ashtray and I'm glad I don't smoke anymore.

edit: we both actively wanted to quit and I'm so happy it worked for us

20 years smoking 10 to 15 cigarettes a day, switched to vaping for 4 years, then quit completely as I was fed up with the logistics of vaping.

My last cigarette was 9 years ago and I don't miss it at all. I consider vaping was the biggest reason I quit, seconded with the avoidance of social situations where smoking is common.

Yes! I smoked for over 20 years. I didn't think I'd ever be able to quit. I started vaping with the goal of quitting, and eventually quit! Then I quit vaping too, about six months later. It's an excellent cessation method, with almost a 70% success rate. The next closest cessation method has a success rate of 3% and is owned by the tobacco companies.

Get a device that hits like a cigarette. This means mouth to lung, and not a big DTL cloud machine. It also ideally means a round mouthpiece. Make sure it's good enough to give throat hit, but not so good that it produces massive clouds. Ideally you want a device that is not sub-ohm. Start with 18mg tobacco flavored juice. Then just vape. Sometimes you'll smoke cigarettes, and sometimes you'll vape. Don't beat yourself up when you smoke, but try to vape more than you smoke. Before you know it, you'll be reaching for the vape more than the cigarettes, until you don't reach for cigarettes at all. Then you're free!

Once you're free, wait a month and then cut the juice down to 12mg, then 6, then 3, then a mix of 0 and 3, then 0! After a couple weeks of 0 you'll just naturally quit, no discipline required.

Share this information with the person you know, and tell them that if I could do it, anyone can do it!

Edit: for such a device I recommend the Geekvape B coil series, in higher ohm ranges.

Yes. I switched to vaping after smoking a pack a day for ten years. Then in about a year I was able to winnow my usage down and quit vaping too.

I had tried many times to quit before that. Have not smoked in 13 years now and after about 8 years I stopped liking the smell.

While it may not stop the nicotine addiction. It beats the tar and crap actual cigarettes....

Yes.

Wife and I switched to vaping, then that eventually dropped off to nothing.

Yup.

An older friend who smoke and drank a ton switched to vapes, and methodically lowered the nicotine content every two-there weeks for months, then stopper nicotine and vaped the flavours but as there was no more nicotine, the habit wasn't addicting and he just forgot about it more or less.

Now he's been alone free for years, and reduced his drinking as well. Looks fucking healthy now.

I did, but I would mix my own fluid; every couple of batches I would half the nicotine content. Eventually it was near-negligible, and perhaps two weeks after that I was doneski

I quit not only because of vaping and tobacco-less nicotine pouches, but because I wanted it. If you are buying it for a family member, you can't make them quit... Hopefully they are wanting to, because you can't make that decision for them. Just like any other addict.

I have quit smoking after switching to vaping. To be more specific I'm a cannabis ex-smoker who switched to dry herb vaping where you heat raw flower or concentrates up until the cannabinoid oils vaporize but not so hot that things combust into flame. Before I switched I was having issues with coughing up black tar mucus flem and some wheeze in the lungs. No more of those problems, and I can actually taste the terps and subtle flavors now.

Yes. Switched to vaping and was vaping for multiple years before quitting completely. Biggest thing was the "safety" of always being able to have my fix without an actual smoke. The "never again" mentality made it so hard to ditch the cancer stick but the vape was always like "it's ok, you can just have a little puff whenever you feel like it". Slowly down the nicotine content. Puff less. Even less. At some point I just forgot. Still have the vape. Still have the liquid, albeit it's dark red now and looks radioactive so utterly unusable. But point is that the vape eventually faded into irrelevance in a way that cigarettes never could.

I did, not sure it made it easier though. It took away two negatives for smoking for me, it didn't smell bad to others and I could smoke inside.

If anything it made it harder to quit, but they're supposedly much better for you

Yup.

I smoked a pack a day for roughly 30 years. My night time breathing was getting ugly and my wife would sometimes get woken up by the sound of my wheezing.

Every method of quitting failed me except vaping. I started as most do with a high nicotine vape juice that tasted like tobacco, but after about a month I swapped and started going lower and lower nicotine and change the flavor from tobacco to a custardy type.

2 months of that got me off the cigs. Two more months got me down to zero nicotine. Two or three more months after that I was done.

I have been off cigs for 7 years.

My breathing no longer feels wet or difficult at night. And My yearly health tests all come back the same as a non-smoker.

Check out SmokeFree.gov! It has great free resources that are science based. Quitting smoking is the number thing someone who smokes can do for their health.

The most effective methods to quit smoking include varenicline (aka Chantix), FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapies (gum, patch, lozenge, inhaler, etc), and behavioral therapy. Combining all of these therapies in a clinical trials results in the most people quitting.

No vape is FDA-approved as a cessation therapy, because no company has applied. There have been some small academic run trials, which tend to show a decrease in smoking, but continued nicotine addiction. Probably because vapes have much higher nicotine content than FDA-approved therapies. While vapes expose people to a lot less carcinogens than smoke, there are some carcinogens and nicotine itself is harmful to vascular and mental health. So if the evidence-based methods don't work, completely switching to vaping would be less harmful.