My guide to giving up cigarettes

[beeman]

I was a heavy smoker Marlboro Gold minimum two packs a day with a mix of roll ups mixed in for good measure. I smoked from the age of 11 till I was 48 this year I was great at giving up smoking in fact one of the best as for the last 10 years I gave up 3 of 4 times a year every year without fail. I have used willpower but never had enough to last more than a few hours. Nicotine patches If I put enough of those on I could last a full half a day. Nicotine Gum, Nicotine Lozenges, Nicotine Mini tabs on a good day I could almost go a full day until having to drive to the 24hr garage.
Next were the mouth sprays and the nasal sprays they were a little bit better lasted a full 3 days once. The top and bottom of all these NRT products is the don`t work studies have shown only 2 or 3 % of smokers manage to give and they would most likely be the smokers who only smoked a little or would have managed to quit with will power alone. Any way so over the years my local health authority must have given me Thousands of pounds of this stuff that they know will not stop me or most smokers but it gives the politicians a warm feeling inside that there doing everything they can to keep the nation healthy and avert any thought from the fact they rake in 10 billion pounds a year in tobacco taxes and it only costs the NHS 2.5 billion a year to handle the fallout from tobacco related health issues and not to forget the money saved as we all die years younger so we do not burden the state in old age…… RANT OVER…..
Now here’s my own mini guide to how I have stopped smoking tobacco ( 2 weeks now and that’s beats all records and I am very surprised that the BBC has not been in touch for an interview as it is very big news in my house even the local pub is in shock as they only stock Marlboro for me and now they’re stuck with 100s of them)

what not to do is buy one of those E-cigs from your local supermarket that they sell on the counters next to the cigarettes or at the petrol station they cost anything from £4.99 to £6.99 and say they are the same as 20 to 30 cigarettes. Now you can hear it in your head “They seem ok only £5.99 less than the cigs I’m going to buy I`ll give them a go and see” Well I can tell you now they don`t work you may as well just buy your cigarettes it will save you having to go back a hour later to buy them.
Now what you need to do is spend a few pounds on a decent e cig you only around £15 to £25 you don`t need to go mad and buy the big shiny all singing all dancing latest release that cost the earth
(But they do look great and I want them all) Start off with an eGo type or something like that if you buy the kit you will get everything you need they come in loads of colours with different names but basically they do the job as long as you can refill them with e juice vape them and calm that voice in your head that says just buy a small packet that will be ok won`t it.

Now the reason I’m saying get one you can refill yourself is the nicotine you can get them in different strengths starting at 0mg up to around 36mg. I started with the 18mg it worked from the second I put it in my mouth I have not even wanted to have a regular cigarette. But what gets me is a soon as my feet touch the floor in a morning I want a smoke that’s what drives me to get up and not pull the quilt over my head and say just another 5 minutes then I will get up.
With the 18mg I was sucking the life out of it and I do mean sucking the life out of it I was getting the nice throat hit like I got from my cigarettes the warm sensation in my mouth the taste the smoke whisping from my nose and mouth but not the nicotine my brain craved from the 5 or 6 cigarettes I used to chain smoke first thing in the morning. Then there was the other main smoking events of the day after every meal or with a cup of coffee or the cigarette just before or just after completing a task . Problem solved I bought some 24mg and 36mg juice you will find what strength you need depending on what you brain tells you it needs and not what a chart on the internet tells you.
e juice comes in all sorts of flavours some are spot on the tobacco flavours taste like tobacco try a few and you will find one that suits your palate then there are they fruit and cake and this and that flavours some taste like they should others taste nothing like what there being sold as you can only do so much with food flavourings They best advice is if you like it so what!
When I first started I bought some juice PG based you will read that some people can be sensitive to PG based feeling a bit tight chested and that sort of thing you can try VG based I found this but I was wrong it was just the decades of smoking and the crap my lungs were trying to expel but it may be different for you just drink extra water regardless. After all this just remember that when you make the swap to vamping your health will start to improve slowly don’t expect to run the London marathon next week but walking upstairs will become a little less like climbing Mt Everest. You wont smell like a wet ashtray and neither will your house Vaping has little or no smell. If you’re a man bedtime fun will improve faster than you think if you know what I mean ?
You will also save a pile of cash in my case over £5,000 a year GOOD LUCK and if the first few days are a little hard stick with it and don`t run out of juice or battery power.

[sue1952]

Smashing thread Beeman, very interesting and whatever works for you Well done on giving the stinkies the heave ho and I can relate to almost everything you've said. I have been off 25-30 rollies now for nearly 14 weeks aftyer smoking for 46 years. I luuuuuuurve vaping

[daveyboy37]

I too was on the rollies. 30-40 a day. However unlike Beeman I have never had to go to extremes with high nic strength.
Im not 100% sure why that is but I do have a theory. When I started vaping I only had the intention to smoke Tobacco flavours. I then discovered stuff like Banoffee and GVC. To me an 18MG tobacco flavour tastes VERY strong after vaping one of the sweeter vapes. I start every day on my 18mg tab tobacco with my first couple of coffees of the day(old habits), then im on the sweet stuff. Occasionally during the day I will have a few vapes on the tab, but I have never felt the need to go any higher than 18mg.
I hope it keeps working for you beeman.

[WhamBamSam]

Well said! Great post! I have to agree to disagree on the disposables, though. I managed to quit completely using these...until I saw the shiny, shiny light of AAEC. Perhaps they are not so effective for the heavy smoker.

Well done to you and a massive round of applause.

XXX

[paul3000]

I'd say avoid the high nicotine mixes, some places offer 30mg, I only bought one 24mg bottle, rest 18 and 12, I was a quite heavy roll-up smoker, but used filters and a secondary device that removed a lot of tar/moisture. Perhaps it is a problem that vaping is so nice with all the flavours etc. perhaps it is not a problem. I agree with the OP that gum/patches etc. do no satisfy the psychological addiction, but vaping does... heck I'm now considering a provari and vivi nova's and bamboo thread and coils of wire and hemp thread ffs... LOL...

sure I'm not coughing up large amounts of brown gack anymore... so success... and not funding illegal wars via cigarette tax LOL

[Banky]

Great thread Beeman, Well done on giving up the cigs, and happy vaping.

[Raffles]

Feb 8, 2013 13:49:57 GMT beeman said:

If you’re a man bedtime fun will improve faster than you think if you know what I mean ?

I'll have to take your word for that 'beeman', not had the opportunity to test it in the last decade or so

As for the rest of your excellent post, I totally agree. I luckily found this forum when I was thinking of trying the ecigs. Probably because of my age, I couldn't be less bothered about how the thing looked, I just wanted something that worked!

I went for the eGo kit, and have so far resisted the shineys, apart from a couple of excellent Spinners. My main problem has been juices, although not really a problem because I've never touched a fag in 6 months. But I wanted to find one that would be my regular, all day vape. Have now found that, although I'm still trying others, which is where any expense is going.

I do know several people that are succeeding with the look-a-likes, but also far more that have said they don't work for them and have gone back to the fags. Shame.