by RealNC » Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:25 am
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Is the idea that there SHOULD be nicotine in it? Or not? Do people have different goals?
I guess the idea is to have nicotine in it, otherwise it's not a substitute for smoking. I tried 0% nicotine juice and it doesn't work. At all. There's no throat hit. At least not the same throat hit you get from smoking, which feels smooth and warm. The throat hit you get from 0% nicotine juice feels cold and "scratchy".
With the 18% nicotine juice I'm using, the throat hit feel is pretty much identical to that of smoking. Stronger, even. The taste is obviously different (vapor cannot taste like smoke, no matter what you put in it), but having a strong throat hit helps a lot. Once I feel I'm completely free of craving for a smoke, I'll probably switch to lower nicotine juice. But currently, the very strong throat hit is very helpful.
Also, at the end of the day, nicotine is not very dangerous. Well, it can be dangerous in the same way caffeine is dangerous. But neither of them kills you or otherwise affects your health in such a negative way smoking does. Both are addictive and both have side effects, but they can't be compared to inhaling smoke:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ne-all-bad
So even though I know that nicotine is not harmless (it's a vice, not a virtue,) I'm keeping it for now, since the plan is to stop inhaling smoke (and making sure I don't go back to it) and nicotine helps with that.
In fact, I'd say that since the invention of vaping, getting off cigarettes is easier than ever. Nicotine patches don't even come remotely close to the experience of inhaling and playing with a deceptively similar-to-smoke substitute that isn't actually smoke. The act of inhaling and exhaling smoke and playing with it as you exhale is a big part of smoking, it's not just the nicotine, and vaping has that covered too.
My biggest fear right now is that like 10 years from now, some new ground-breaking research gets published that goes like "forget all the studies till now, we just discovered that vaping is twice as dangerous as smoking" .... Man, that would SUCK.
FlyingCarp wrote:Don't let your guard down. I've found that 3-4 months and 8 months are when I go back to it.
Yeah, I still want to smoke. But since I'm at a point now where vaping feels like smoking and it completely satisfies the cravings, I'm confident that I won't relapse.
I've read articles of people claiming that vaping does not help in quitting tobacco smoking, and I got to say they're talking complete and utter bullshit. Some of these people are just idiots, but many seem to be invested in something that gets hurt economically by vaping products. Many of these people are influential and were successful in even passing a law here where all online stores that sell vaping-related items are forced to put a prominent disclaimer up that says "vaping is not a substitute for smoking and SHOULD NOT be used as such." And, I kid you not, the notice says "it is illegal for non-smokers to use these products." I not shitting you. The notice says that is ILLEGAL for non-smokers to vape... What the actual fuck...
[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]Is the idea that there SHOULD be nicotine in it? Or not? Do people have different goals?[/quote]
I guess the idea is to have nicotine in it, otherwise it's not a substitute for smoking. I tried 0% nicotine juice and it doesn't work. At all. There's no throat hit. At least not the same throat hit you get from smoking, which feels smooth and warm. The throat hit you get from 0% nicotine juice feels cold and "scratchy".
With the 18% nicotine juice I'm using, the throat hit feel is pretty much identical to that of smoking. Stronger, even. The taste is obviously different (vapor cannot taste like smoke, no matter what you put in it), but having a strong throat hit helps a lot. Once I feel I'm completely free of craving for a smoke, I'll probably switch to lower nicotine juice. But currently, the very strong throat hit is very helpful.
Also, at the end of the day, nicotine is not very dangerous. Well, it can be dangerous in the same way caffeine is dangerous. But neither of them kills you or otherwise affects your health in such a negative way smoking does. Both are addictive and both have side effects, but they can't be compared to inhaling smoke:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-nicotine-all-bad
So even though I know that nicotine is not harmless (it's a vice, not a virtue,) I'm keeping it for now, since the plan is to stop inhaling smoke (and making sure I don't go back to it) and nicotine helps with that.
In fact, I'd say that since the invention of vaping, getting off cigarettes is easier than ever. Nicotine patches don't even come remotely close to the experience of inhaling and playing with a deceptively similar-to-smoke substitute that isn't actually smoke. The act of inhaling and exhaling smoke and playing with it as you exhale is a big part of smoking, it's not just the nicotine, and vaping has that covered too.
My biggest fear right now is that like 10 years from now, some new ground-breaking research gets published that goes like "forget all the studies till now, we just discovered that vaping is twice as dangerous as smoking" .... Man, that would SUCK.
[quote="FlyingCarp"]Don't let your guard down. I've found that 3-4 months and 8 months are when I go back to it.[/quote]
Yeah, I still want to smoke. But since I'm at a point now where vaping feels like smoking and it completely satisfies the cravings, I'm confident that I won't relapse.
I've read articles of people claiming that vaping does not help in quitting tobacco smoking, and I got to say they're talking complete and utter bullshit. Some of these people are just idiots, but many seem to be invested in something that gets hurt economically by vaping products. Many of these people are influential and were successful in even passing a law here where all online stores that sell vaping-related items are forced to put a prominent disclaimer up that says "vaping is not a substitute for smoking and SHOULD NOT be used as such." And, I kid you not, the notice says "it is illegal for non-smokers to use these products." I not shitting you. The notice says that is ILLEGAL for non-smokers to vape... What the actual fuck...