So I'm planning to quit tobacco by Feburary 11, 2010 at 02:51 AM....

[moriah]

... the day I turn 30.

I am determined to never smoke another tobacco cigarette again. I will not use a smokeless tobacco-based product either.

But I am not really sure if I can give up nicotine or a lot of the psychosocial aspects of smoking -- being able to get up from my desk after a stressful call and say, "I'm refreshing my nicotine level, BRB..." and step outside, breathe, and read a book for 10 minutes. But I'd like to really be able to BREATHE!

Sooooo.... I saw a product variously called an electronic cigarette, electronic nicotine inhaler, or personal vaporizer. I found a forum where people who had used those products give reviews and offer technical tips and support. After researching I found the product I think will be best for me, and it should arrive either today or tomorrow. I'm going to start learning how to use it and trying to wean myself off of inhaling nicotine from burning a plant that is doing me such damage.

If it doesn't work, well, I'll do what a friend suggested: that last 50 minutes before I turn 30 I will smoke as many cigarettes hotboxed in a row as I can and make myself absolutely sick as a dog, so that my memory of the last time I put a burning butt up to my lips is clutching the porcelain goddess and hurling up my toenails, and go cold turkey. And pray.

[hobbit709]

1. Good luck

I quit 35 years ago and if I get majorly stressed I still find myself wanting one. The trick is not to give in.

[blogslut]

2. Good luck with your efforts

Stay strong. :)

[moriah]

3. Yay! Glad to see another person trying it....

I was going for the 510. It should arrive tomorrow or Thursday.

I know the electronic nicotine inhaler is more similar to switching from heroin to methadone, but it's a harm reduction strategy. And the promise I made myself to stop smoking at age 30 will still be kept if all I use is the e-cig -- it's not "smoking", it's "vaping". Heheh.

[BlueIris]

4. Good for you.

Tobacco is bad.

[Petrushka]

5. Here's something that might help you quit . . .

After smoking for more than 50 years, I kicked the habit 6 years ago.
This website helped:

http://www.quitsmokingonline.com/

You can do it, too!

[rcrush]

6. Smoking till you puke may work.

I did that once. I didn't smoke again for months. Now I just smoke maybe 1 cigarette every 2 or 3 days. I think thats fine.

[mikeytherat]

10. I had never smoked, but one night in my freshman year I smoked 1-1/2 boxes of Marlboro Red Box.

I never smoked again.

mikey_the_rat

[rcrush]

11. Gross

My first time I smoked cigarettes in highschool I smoked like 14 of them in one night and puked. I didn't start smoking regularly until college.

[mikeytherat]

12. I swear it amplfied my hangover like nobody's business.

Life lesson learned!

mikey_the_rat

[Mugu]

22. In many cases smoking is at least 50% of the hangover. n/t

[BurtWorm]

7. I quit Feb. 14, 2005.

I'd smoked since 1977, except for a couple of years in the early 1990s. I used a straw cut to cigarette length that I carried with me constantly. Any time I wanted to smoke, I drew air through the straw and exhaled, as though I were smoking, until the craving abated. It worked. It cost nothing. I haven't had a single puff since then. Anytime I get the least little craving, I just think about that straw and it gets me through. I don't have many cravings.

PS: good luck to you.

[moriah]

8. Ya know, I'll try that if the inhaler thing doesn't work out....

I'm hoping that having something to keep the hand-to-mouth need fixed will help cravings and keep me from eating a huge amount of food...

I'll let you guys know how the nicotine inhaler works.

[BurtWorm]

9. That was precisely the beauty of having a straw in my hand.

:thumbsup:

[elocs]

13. Electronic cigarettes could well help quite smoking. Check this forum about it:

http://www.ecigarettes365.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=141 Read the comments and see what you think.

My 18 year old goddaughter got some Smoke51 e-cigarettes (http://smoke51.com/index.php) from her mother for Christmas and she loves them. She has gotten down to just a couple of cigarettes a day, down from a pack. These e-cigarettes come in different nicotine levels (16mg-12-8-6-4-0) so you can wean yourself from nicotine which is obviously the reason for smoking. At least with the e-cigarette you avoid all of the nasty crap that is terrible for you in tobacco. The price of these e-cigarettes is the equivalent of about $1.50 a pack. They look like a real cigarette, the Smoke51 produces a lot of vapor that is exhaled, and the tip can glow like it is burning, but there is no fire or danger of burning.

[Taverner]

14. Good luck! And don't rule out the patch if things get hairy!

Or the gum!

Trust me, even if you think you won't need it, a lot of the exhaustion, aches and pain go away if you use it.

And it's not even 1/10th as bad as a smoke.

[Lindsey]

15. Wow. I'm in the same place. I quit many years ago and relapsed

in '07 and relapsed again in '09 and am still smoking. I also am going to do the electronic route. I've heard good things. I'm on Chantix now and it worked really well in '07 but it's not working for me now. I guess the only way to get the electronic ones are on line. I'm going to place my order within the week. Good luck to you. :-)

[Lindsey]

16. Oh, I meant to ask you what product did you go with? n/t

[moriah]

18. I went with the Joye 510.

It will hopefully arrive tomorrow. Cost for the starter kit and the charging case was $62 plus shipping. That's about a carton of cigarettes for me. I then got a sampler pack of different flavored nicotine liquids for $30 -- six 10ml containers. Most people say they go through about 2-3ml of the "e-liquid" a day, and it comes in different strengths. Because my mom had a really awful reaction to the patch and had to go to the 3rd step patch in order to keep from getting sick (she's smoking again), I went for a lower strength than most do who have a pack a day habit currently -- I got the 18mg/ml instead of 24mg/ml. I figure it's easier to use more, even if it's not cheaper, instead of overdosing.

So I figure if I can use this for 20 days, I will have saved $30 already instead of spending $120 on 2 cartons of cigs. And if it arrives tomorrow I'll have about two weeks to get used to it before my confirmed quit date -- I'm kind of planning it out the way you quit with Chantix, which was to start the drug before you quit and set your quit date after you had the drug levels in your system.

I only got one of the liquids with "tobacco" flavoring, to mix with the other liquid I got which was menthol (I'm a menthol smoker). I also got vanilla, clove, caramel coffee, and (since I couldn't think of any others to try) blueberry cheesecake for gits and shiggles.

[Bryn]

17. Patch or the gum? LOL

This is what Big Pharma wants. They were wanting the judge to rule e-cigarettes as a medical device (smoking cessation) so that they'd have their finger in the pie, but our good Federal Judge ruled it otherwise so e-cigarette users won! I belong to an activist group for Right to Vape. Ok, not 100% win because e-cigarettes are ruled as tobacco/recreational use. E-juices are made with or without nicotine so it'd be tough to tax it. We shall see.

My fave is 510. I've tried DSE901 and Penstyles so I am sticking with 510. They're sturdy. Faster to get charged, too.

[moriah]

19. While I could see a need for *some* regulation....

... like not selling any products to people under 18 and serious penalties if they did....

You are entirely correct that it will increase the price of them if they have to go through a lot of the procedures that Big Pharma does. At $0.50 a ml, and hearing estimates of 3ml of e-liquid a day, it's still going to be half the price of my cigarettes to vape (about $30 a carton instead of $60). And three weeks of Nicoderm CQ is $150! And I can get larger quantities once I find flavors I really like, so it'll make it cheaper.

I went for the 510 myself so I think I made a good choice after reading all the forums.

From what I can see on the USPS tracking it *should* arrive tomorrow.... fingers crossed!

[petronius]

20. Hey, that's my birthday! Except that I was born about 4 hours later,

and nine years earlier... :)

Good luck with the quitting thing - as hard as it is it will be the right move.

[Grey]

21. I used Zyban as an aid to stop smoking.

Here is what About.com has to say, It worked really well for me. I haven't had a cigarette in eleven years.

Bupropion as a Quit Aid ( Zyban / Wellbutrin )
Bupropion hydrochloride, marketed under the names of Zyban®, Wellbutrin® SR and Wellbutrin® XL by GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) is a prescription-strength anti-depressant medicine also used to help people quit smoking. Wellbutrin SR and Wellbutrin XL are typically used to treat depression, while Zyban is most often prescribed as a quit smoking aid.

[myrna minx]

23. I smoked my last cigarette on Sunday.

This has been the most intense 3.5 days of my life, but it really does get better. I went cold turkey - because I didn't want to transfer one addiction for another, but I did give myself permission to pop the nicorette gum if i was tempted to light up - but I'm nicotine free. Now it's tackling the psychological triggers.

Best of luck to you. It's challenging, but you can get through it! :hug:

[moriah]

24. Gratz! I'm not sure if I'm that strong yet....

I know this is going to be substituting one addiction for another. But it's going to be a lot cheaper, and a lot better for me, than keeping my current addiction. I figure it's harm-reduction -- better than nothing.

I really did like the person's suggestion above about the straw. That would probably do a lot of what I was trying for by choosing a way to replace nicotine that would replicate the hand-to-mouth gesturing habit. I'll have something in my hands, and I won't necessarily have to puff on it all the time, I can gesture with it as much as I want. And I can do that with the straw!

We'll see how it goes. Per the USPS tracking it should be in my mailbox soon.

I'm hoping that after I've been quit of true smoking for a month I'll be able to go to the doctor and he'll notice a significant improvement in my lung function. We'll see.

[MISSDem]

25. Good luck. I had

been cutting way back for years after I was diagnosed with emphysema. After I got to about two or three puffs on a couple of cigs three days a week while driving home, I bought a new car. I did not want the new car to smell like cigs so that was it. Haven't smoked since November 4. And I still want one but don't do it. Don't wait until your lungs are damaged irreversably (did I spell that right?).

[MISSDem]

26. I would also would like to add that I had changed to American Spirit cigarettes

years before I quit and I believe that made it easier. I was off all of the additives that the regular cigarette companies add to really, really get you addicted. I was just addicted to nicotine and, of course, had the psychological addiction.

[retread]

27. I quit in 1970 when the woman I was living with said it would be difficult

for her to live with a smoker while she was quitting.

[moriah]

28. Update, my crutch is here...

... and this may run contradictory to a lot of quit documentation, but I'm okay if this is just a "replace heroin with methadone" type solution. If I quit nicotine, great. If I don't, I may not have fixed any damage being done to my heart by nicotine, but I'll at least have fixed the damage to my lungs that was being done by tar and the other carcinogens in burning tobacco.

I got the vanilla flavored liquid nicotine, and I must say I am very happy with the taste. It's not sweet, it's not overpowering, it's kind of spicy. And it's *different* from cigarettes, so maybe my brain is now making new associations between nicotine and taste, so that the taste of a regular cigarette will not appeal to me as much.

I got the Joye 510 in copper color with black cartridges/mouthpieces -- from a distance I bet it looks like a Black and Mild or a clove cigarette. But the light on the tip lights up purple when the heating element is on, instead of glowing red like a cigarette. I got the PCC (perosonal charging case) and it's charged up. I'm going to make up two more vanilla cartridges for it and take it all to work, which will be the big test -- if I can get through a night when we're likely understaffed (we've got winter weather coming) without smoking a real cigarette but using this instead, I think it will work to keep me from smoking tobacco.

[applegrove]

29. Try smoking only in one place which is inconvenient. Get up from your keyboard and go there to smoke

Then you wont associate smoking with being at a keyboard. And to gross yourself out try smoking herbal cigarettes. They are disgusting. Then go to the quitnet.com website. They have lots of ideas and it is the place to go when you are alone and have a crave: you log on and ask for help, you reply to those who help you and your 2 minute crave is over.