I just started vaping... I have been smoking a lot fewer analogs since I started vaping, but I feel nervous about quitting. I am a ten year smoker, and I have quit cold turkey twice. One lasted about a year, one six months. I don't know why, but I feel a lot of anxiety about giving up analogs. I want to, but I just feel nervous about it. Any advice? I have around half a pack left.
I know that anxiety well. Believe me.
This may sound odd at first but try not to think of it this as "quitting". Seriously. I noticed if I thought of it as "quitting", it triggered an almost panic reaction. So I choose to not think of vaping as yet another "quit attempt". Decided if I smoked less--and I was, a
lot less--that was a good thing. And focused more on this new thing. This "vaping" stuff. And what it could do and what flavors were available and, you know, playing around with it. New hobby right?
Then started doing things like switching stuff out. Here at the computer? Used to always be an ashtray to my left. Always. A lighter or two and a pack. Well, that went into a kitchen cabinet. I put vaping stuff in its place. I could have a cigarette if I really, really wanted one but I had to go get the pack out and couldn't bring all that stuff back here at the computer (where I spend a lotta time... home office set up thing... though, lately, I refer to it as being "self-unemployed"... sigh).
And I could have a couple of cigs in the evening or the mornings but just in the living room. And I had to get one at a time out of the cabinet. Not the whole pack. Also, I could have one and only one pack in the house at a time. If I ran out, I had to go to the store. No "stocking up". No cartons.
Then the vaping stuff took over "my spot" in the living room too. Especially as I found more juices to try and all. And I actually was slowing down on smoking enough I tossed extra ashtrays out and such (needed more room for liquid samples you see). So, new rule. I could have a cig in the kitchen. But only there. No sitting around with a convenient ashtray. Just stand in the kitchen, get it over with.
At some point in there, as I kept slowing down more and more, as vaping took over and smoking became less and less frequent, cigs started tasting
terrible. Harsh and didn't have any of the great flavors like my vapes and I started wondering what the heck I ever saw in the things.
Then, they started giving me headaches when I gave in to the urge to "have a real one".
Heh, I actually started dreading that trip to the kitchen. I'd fight it because I didn't like smoking anymore. It taste bad and smelled bad and gave me headaches and don't make me do that!!!
Took me six weeks to come to a complete stop with the smoking. It kept slowing down week after week until I remember tossing a pack I think was empty or down to two or three cigs and the ashtray that was in the cabinet because they were
in the way. I was doing a lot of "sampling" of different juices and needed storage space. It's still a little eerie that I tossed the stuff so casually. The smoking stuff was in the way. Just... in the way.
Not everybody can "cold turkey" even with vaping. Lot of us have to settle in with the vaping. Find the hardware and juices and the "right combinations" that pull us away from the cigs. I told myself long as my smoking was going
down, I wouldn't put pressure on myself and wouldn't think of it as a "quit".
And even now, I don't think "I WILL NEVER SMOKE AGAIN!!!!" That still causes some kind of gut level rebellious feeling. Much milder, less anxious. I do this thing of: "Okay, if you
really want to. But there are no cigs in the house, no ashtrays, no lighters, you gotta go to the store, and, by the way, it's pouring out there right now..."
(It actually is right now. Pouring rain.
)
I still get mild, "I miss it" feelings. So I grabbed a couple of NJoy disposables to supplement my regular stuff. They "look and feel" more like a cig and NJoy did a decent job of imitating smoking. I even found a little glass thing that's kinda... well... vaguely ashtray shaped. I seem to still sometimes have the urge to hold a cig shaped thing and fiddle with it. Like when I smoked. Dunno.
It's a "head game" yeah. But there's a big psychological thing going in smoking and addiction in general. Those things become so tangled up in your life and are like... constant companions? For some of us, thinking of it as you're just going to toss them out all at once causes an actual panic reaction.
So turn it the other way around. Find the positive things about vaping. Explore juices. Find stuff you really, really like. And if you have a few cigs along the way, don't beat yourself up. If the smoking is slowing down, that's a good thing.
Count the ones you don't smoke. Not the ones you do...
