Was a smoker for over thirty years. Switched to vaping thinking it would help me quit- it made it worse.
By this time I feared I was destined to die painfully of lung cancer. So…. Nothing to loose, right? It was here that I came up with my ridiculous plan- a Hail Mary of sorts-
My plan, was that I would switch back to analogs for about 6 months to ensure I was over the vape, and deeply back in the comfort-zone of my addiction, then I would pull the rug out from under it by getting on the Wellbutrin smoking cessation program.
Basically, it went like this:
For goo and comfy with my pack-a-day habit, then picked my start date to quit. In this day, per instructions, I started taking one pill every morning while still smoking. Then, after three or four days- it goes up to two pills a day. But you’re still okay to continue smoking a week later. Meaning, don’t worry if you are still smoking this deep in- it’s part of it and is totally fine.
After about a week and a half. I would wake up and forget that I usually needed a smoke. So I’d smoke- many hours later. After a few days of this, it became a chore. Also, it was kinda gross and did nothing at all for me, so I just…. stopped.
Essentially, this is how it works as it was explained to me:
Before you smoked, your body created the joy endorphins (whatever they’re called) and all was fine. However, after a while and enough nicotine, you stop making this naturally and just get it from the nicotine.
And this is why quitting is a removed!
In the first few weeks of quitting, your body hasn’t re-learned how to start creating the joy juice yet. So you’re going without. This is the anxiety, anger, jitters, etc… in a word:
WITHDRAWL.
This is where Wellbutrin comes in. It helps the body create the serotonin or whatever until your body can keep up on its own.
I was able to stop the Wellbutrin after about a month and a half.
Since then, I have lost my best friend of thirty years to an overdose, our 15 year old dog died in my lap, and my mother ended up in a coma 3,000 miles away while I had a massive sinus infection and was told under no circumstances could I fly to her.
Not a single urge to smoke through any of that.
Lastly, and for the record, I HATE typing this much, so- I REALLY hope this helps at least someone. And I’ll be glad to answer any questions for anyone wanting to try this themselves.
YOU can quit. You CAN quit.
I progressively vaped lower and lower nicotine percentages until I was vaping 0% nic. Still did that for a couple weeks and then I quit vaping altogether.
It’s nice to be able to separately quit nicotine and vaping, since they’re both addictive.
I used to smoke, and then switched to vaping. I realized I was more addicted to nicotine than I was to cigarettes, but didn’t have a reason to quit. I was feeling mentally and physically well.
Anyway, one sunday about a year ago I was really lazy, and didn’t get up from the couch for the whole day, playing games or something. In the afternoon I realized I hadn’t vaped for the whole day and thought hmm, might as well quit now. Haven’t vaped since. I still smoke the occasional pipe (monthly or so).
Having a reason to give up gave me willpower.
My wife at the time was pregnant with our first child. I decided that if the kid wanted to smoke, he could make that choice when he was old enough, but I didn’t want him to grow up seeing that smoking was normal and usual. So I quit cold turkey, Easter Sunday, 1996.
I smoked for 20 years, 20ish cigs a day on average. For me quitting was all mental, using logic. Every time I tried and failed was the same thing: “I feel like I’m finally ready to quit”, then back at it a few days/weeks later. I was always waiting for the day I was ready for it and kept telling myself that day was coming.
4 years ago I was finally honest with myself. I’m never going to be ready. I like it too much, that magic day is just never gonna come. That’s when I realized that if I quit, the only way I would quit is when I wasn’t ready for it, and if I quit when I’m not ready, today’s just as good a day as any other. Logically I’d never be any more ready than I was that day, and if I didn’t quit the day I realized that then I never would.
Haven’t touched a cig in 4 years. Crave it every day though haha.
I find that the cravings get less frequent. When I just quit I’d yearn for a fag every hour. After a year it was about every day. Now it’s every couple of days.
Sometimes though I’m surprised I didn’t crave one for about a week. Pretty cool.
I have a friend that used this concept: He called it the 10 minute rule.
Anytime you want a cigarette, you know it wont actually do anything it just kills time. So in ten minutes (approx the length of time to smoke a cigarette) you would be right back where you are now. So if you could just wait, just ten minutes you would be in the same spot but didn’t have a cigarette, and surely you could have one then if you still wanted it.
And when you wanted it, you did ten more minutes.
Eventually, those ten minutes till you want one gets longer and longer, and eventually you just don’t at all anymore.
Nice, I’m going to try this with junk food lol.
I turned 40 and just stopped. Cold turkey. I don’t want to die of lung cancer. When I got the urge to buy another pack of smokes I simply…didn’t. If I didn’t have any on hand to smoke then I couldn’t do it. It was tempting at times but the real trick is to just not have the things on hand.
Buddy of mine also did this for his 40th birthday present to himself. Quit cold turkey and he’s over 15 years clean now. He said stairs are so much easier now.
Smoked throughout my 20s in the 1990s. Was off-and-on throughout my 30s in the 2000s. By the time I reached my 40s in the 2010s I was just over it. That said, I have picked it up two or three times since then (I’m 56 now) but put it down after one to three months. Always pick it back up during times of great depression and financial hardship - the worst time to smoke ironically. My husband is similar but gets hooked much more often and much more severely. Smokes for a month or two and then transitions to vaping for three to six months, lowering the nicotine until he’s eventually vaping no nicotine. Goes a couple of years and then rinse and repeat.
I used spite.
I lived with my partner and two friends who all smoked at the time. We all decided to quit on new years day and by about 2am both of my friendship had started again and by 4am my partner had started too. Pure burning spite and superiority kept me from starting again.
It felt really good to my petty younger self to be haughty and superior, but I was definitely ungracious about it. My partner somehow managed to stay with me through that, they are a very tolerant person, and we ended up getting married and are still together now 19 years later.
My partner also quit about 10 years later using a vape. They outsourced nicotine dosage to me and I was manually mixing their juice, so I reduced it very very slowly. Each time I reduced it the frequency of puffs went up for a while then tapered back to the previous level. It took about a week to level out and about two weeks to use the bottle and I would then adjust again. It took most of a year to slowly land at zero but then it was done and vaping was only done with nicotine free juice and it only lasted a month or two after that. I would strongly encourage it as a less harmful version of smoking and as a reasonable quitting aid.
nicotine pouches (like snus but only nicotine powder)
been trying to quit those fuckers for a few years though. I keep managing to stay off them for a few months until inevitably I get stressed and go buy a can and wreck my streak
Honestly, I only started it out of boredom, and ended up quitting after about four years because I didn’t care for how it made me feel. Sure, the buzz was fun at first, but after a while, you just smoke to curb the cravings, and by that point, I was happy to start cutting back. Switched to snus for a bit as I reached the end point, but that didn’t hit the same, so I just ended up quitting altogether.
Smoked for 20 odd years, switched to vaping, kept dropping nicotine levels until reached very low levels after a number of years.
Then my vape broke while I was away so I took it as a sign to stop.
I got poor, and the vapes/smokes got expensive. That’s really about it. I will say that after vaping, I’ll never ever go back to cigs. Vaping is just better and there is no awful smell.
In case anyone needs them here are some resources to help you quit from the American Lung Association . Quitting is hard and thankfully there are FDA approved therapies that can help like varenicline/chantix, bubpropion/Wellbutrin, nicotine replacement like gum, patches, and lozenges. If you smoke quitting is the best thing you can do to improve your health!
Wellbutrin nearly killed me so I’m not a fan of that path. I found nicotine pouches were the best way to wean off smoking/vaping. Along with addiction counseling and understanding triggers and halflives of chemicals and how they play with physical versus mental addiction.
The simplest first step is to separate the trigger “I need a smoke.” To the actual action with a timer and gradually increasing the time.
New Year’s Eve, a number of years ago. Wife and I went to a bar with some friends and rang in the New Year. I think she and I maybe smoked a pack between the two of us that night. Next day, both of us felt sick to our stomachs. Really nauseous, and just terrible. We didn’t get that drunk, so it wasn’t a bad hangover or anything. Anyway, just the thought of a cigarette made both of us even more nauseous. Flash forward a week, and neither one of us had spoken about not having smoked, and we didn’t want another cigarette. A week later, wife confirmed to me that she hadn’t had any at work. I said the same to her. Years later, we haven’t had any either.
Now we’re “ex-smokers,” who I think are the worst for smokers to be around. We’re hyper-sensitive to the smell and smoky rooms.
