Vaping

[JohnC]

I used to smoke, very glad I stopped.. I feel that the companies are keen for people to replace one product with another especially in the countries where health education and awareness are letting people make informed choices about the stuff they are breathing in. I see men and women outside the unit I work in, attached to chemo, having a smoke, I know they're addicted & I know for many its "academic" if they stop at that stage. So, anything that can help you stop, do it, but don't just swap one addiction for another, IMO..

 

[feralpig]

I'm a hypnotherapist and would say that in my experience the psychological addiction is far more powerful than the physical one. I never use the words quit/quitting, giving up, packing it in etc when helping people. People at a subconscious level reject those terms - because we don't like to give up or quit on anything.

Its about becoming smoke free and breathing normally - amongst other things - including getting to the bottom of why the individual smokes and dealing with that issue - e.g. if its a coping strategy for dealing with stress. You weren't born a smoker.

Letting go of the smoking habit is really difficult and it takes a lot of strength. I certainly don't underestimate the difficulties that people experience but its my personal belief that e-cigs and vaping don't really help in the long term.

I took Hypnotherapy, it worked, for a while, but I started again. Some of it stayed with me, it just didn't quite get to the bottom of it.
Whatever it is that made smoking such a part of my identity, is now satisfied by the (maybe) much less damaging, and cheaper E cig.
After being on it for such a length of time, the habits and rituals that surrounded tobacco are now starting to diminish, almost gone altogether. I doubt I'd go back on tobacco if the ecig wasn't there.
It was more or less those habits and rituals that kept me smoking. As life moved on, I didn't want to smoke anymore, but the practise was so engrained in me, I couldn't stop.
I'd tend to agree with you that it's the mental urge to smoke that is difficult to overcome, the addiction to nicotine, at least for me, is very minor, or non existent. I certainly don't get any where near the withdrawal symptoms from the ecig as I did from tobacco. I can go all day without the ecig if I have to, and feel little different. I couldn't do that with tobacco.
I know the ecig is not addressing the base issues that led me to smoke, but I'd say most those issues are overcome now anyway. Having said that, I am aware that part of the reason I use it, is to address issues that could be better overcome by altering my thinking processes.

 

[TurboGirl]

The Alan Carr books were brilliant at casting off some of the psycological dependancy but even he went back to stinkies Vaping works for some, some of the time. Thats a huuuuge improvement over smoking even if its a tiny minority and when its the long term folk it helps most, thats a grand thing!

They dont tax the ejuice and most of it comes from China, apparently. Thats why the tobacco industry is leading the call to ban them. Powerful opponents usually means they have something to worry about and with the huge number of folk relying on ecigs rather than fags, I'd say they are quite right to be kakking themselves. About time that industry had its ar5e kicked in my book!

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

My issue is, \i like a smoke not a vape I can do at my desk and taste.

I am 28 (29 in two months) and I have been smoking since I was 11. Now on average I am about 20 a day plus a Cuban and I have cut way down from a year or so ago when I was on 40 a day. But at the moment I am working two jobs and run my own business but at either job I get about 45 min a day in breaks (the job's are both charrities I am the IT guy for so I also do a lot from home unpaid) but I relish the opportunity to take a break and walk away from the desk as I just need to not look at a screen and do something for me. and the 10 or 20 min personal reset works wonders, for instance I figured out why a system that is supposed to assign a action to the next person in a random order wasn't so random (I can't / wont go into detail about this, as it could hurt the way the charity works) and I was sitting on the bench watching some pigeons go at some bread and realised what the problem is right at the end of my smoke.

And there is just some times you need to make a excuse, I mean some times I am in a bar with people and just want to get a quick out on the conversation as I don't like the way it's heading so I'll just say "Popping for a smoke" and for 10 min not a single person batts a eye.

 

[TurboGirl]

That mental reboot is something bushcrafters seem to value beyond 'normal' deskbound folk, perhaps that is the key to our legendary calm under stressful circumstances I understand your pov. But I have to remain 'in the zone' or I loose the track of thought and need a full reset after all the negative charge dissipates then have to reinstall all the thought process anew might be a woman thing