Strange chemistry

[Skorpeyon]

I'm curious if there are others on the board like me. I've never truly considered myself addicted to nicotine. I'm 31 years old and I have smoked off and on for over 15 of those years. Sometimes I would quit for as long as a year before picking up a pack of cigarettes at the gas station and starting up again.

Most of the time this happened because of social situations. I would hang out or live with a smoker and would want to do the same out of habit. Only once did it begin due to stress, that was back I. High school. I don't know if it's a chemical thing, a biology thing, etc.

The main reason I switched to vaping is to be healthier in my habit. I am now able to hang out with someone who has a cigarette and it doesn't bother me because I, too, can experience a similar action without feeling pressure to do something far more harmful to myself. I do also enjoy making my own coils and the flavors available are great. It's even curbed my tendency to snack, a welcome side-effect I hadn't expected, since I usually vape sweeter flavors.

I do vape with nicotine juice (12-18mg) because the way I see it, it's not much worse than caffeinated vs caffeine free soda/coffee/tea, and so on. Does anyone else have a similar situation?

Side note: I'm not trying to suggest others who have had trouble quitting shouldn't. I know that it can be very hard to kick a habit or an addiction. I have the same issue with caffeine, I have trouble going even a day without it. Oddly, nicotine just doesn't seem to create the same dependency for me.

 

[JaRod]

I'm curious if there are others on the board like me. I've never truly considered myself addicted to nicotine. I'm 31 years old and I have smoked off and on for over 15 of those years. Sometimes I would quit for as long as a year before picking up a pack of cigarettes at the gas station and starting up again.

Most of the time this happened because of social situations. I would hang out or live with a smoker and would want to do the same out of habit. Only once did it begin due to stress, that was back I. High school. I don't know if it's a chemical thing, a biology thing, etc.

The main reason I switched to vaping is to be healthier in my habit. I am now able to hang out with someone who has a cigarette and it doesn't bother me because I, too, can experience a similar action without feeling pressure to do something far more harmful to myself. I do also enjoy making my own coils and the flavors available are great. It's even curbed my tendency to snack, a welcome side-effect I hadn't expected, since I usually vape sweeter flavors.

I do vape with nicotine juice (12-18mg) because the way I see it, it's not much worse than caffeinated vs caffeine free soda/coffee/tea, and so on. Does anyone else have a similar situation?

Side note: I'm not trying to suggest others who have had trouble quitting shouldn't. I know that it can be very hard to kick a habit or an addiction. I have the same issue with caffeine, I have trouble going even a day without it. Oddly, nicotine just doesn't seem to create the same dependency for me.

I guess every person is different, I consider myself addicted or dependent to nicotine, although I am realizing that the habit or whatever its called of that hand to mouth need seems to be stronger, I am down to 6mg now, but I can vape 0 without too much anxiety, eventually I want to get to 0. I've met people who don't smoke regularly but if they are drinking they chain smoke, maybe a pack in a couple hours.
So I am happy with vaping because it helps me with both my needs, nicotine and hand to mouth thing, and same as you consider it a safer alternative to the stinkies.

 

[Buggainok]

We are all so different, that's for sure. My dad was one of those smokers who could just drop the cigarettes from time to time and not smoke for several years. It didn't seem to bother him, although he usually started again at some point.

I've worked with people who would only smoke one cigarette a day, after lunch.

I was quite compulsive about my smoking for all the years I smoked. I used to say the only time I wasn't smoking was when I was sleeping, and if I could figure out a way to smoke while asleep, I probably would.

 

[Dzaw]

My wife is infuriatingly immune to nic addiction. When we would get together with smoking friends, she could put away a pack a day for a week, then just drop it like it was nothing. A few months later, just have a cig or two, and then be done, again, like it was nothing. According to her, there was never any craving, anxiety, crankiness, or any of the other symptoms. Even now, fourteen months after I started vaping, I still from time to time feel the physical urge to go get a pack of wides and light up...

 

[Skorpeyon]

My wife is infuriatingly immune to nic addiction. When we would get together with smoking friends, she could put away a pack a day for a week, then just drop it like it was nothing. A few months later, just have a cig or two, and then be done, again, like it was nothing. According to her, there was never any craving, anxiety, crankiness, or any of the other symptoms. Even now, fourteen months after I started vaping, I still from time to time feel the physical urge to go get a pack of wides and light up...

That's exactly how I was. I would match people smoke for smoke and sometimes smoke a pack a day, even more, if I was hanging out with a heavy smoker. The next day, I'd be back to my normal 0-3 smokes a day, 1-pack a week schedule. I think vaping has helped so much with that tendency since I reach for my tank and battery whenever I step outside with someone who's going on a smoke break, for example.

Really interesting to see there are others that are/were the same way.

 

[Skorpeyon]

I guess every person is different, I consider myself addicted or dependent to nicotine, although I am realizing that the habit or whatever its called of that hand to mouth need seems to be stronger, I am down to 6mg now, but I can vape 0 without too much anxiety, eventually I want to get to 0. I've met people who don't smoke regularly but if they are drinking they chain smoke, maybe a pack in a couple hours.
So I am happy with vaping because it helps me with both my needs, nicotine and hand to mouth thing, and same as you consider it a safer alternative to the stinkies.

Yeah, the hand-to-mouth tendency is a big part of it for me, too. When I didn't smoke I always chewed on pens/pencils or a toothpick or something. That way I still had that physical action of rolling something in my fingers or putting it to my mouth.

 

[CMartin]

I have the same issue with caffeine, I have trouble going even a day without it. Oddly, nicotine just doesn't seem to create the same dependency for me.

I am just the opposite. I drink black coffee for 30 years, stronger brews than most people brew, with occasional breaks without any problems. In days or weeks where brewing or buying my morning and after lunch coffee isn't possible or convenient, I just don't notice the lack of caffeine. I would also quit making coffee for couple of weeks for no apparent reason and switch to teas, and lately at winter would switch to herbal infusions and it never bothered me.

It's the ritual I was missing, not coffee. Camomile or hibiscus or linden or rosehips infusions would perfectly replace my coffee, and they don't contain any caffeine. Pharmacology will maybe tell that experiments on white mice shows a clear nicotine addiction, but Allen Carr in his book 'The easy way to stop smoking' claims that the nicotine dependency is also a psychological thing more than anything else, a sort of a years or decades strong indoctrination that we'll (have to as expected) go banana if we miss our nicotine fix.