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People hooked on vapes try a new way to quit: cigarettes

248 points · 335 comments · alephnerd

  1. S0y · · focus · HN ↗
    Here's what I did to get rid of my nicotine addiction (vaping):

    - Gradually lower the strength of my liquid until it was at the minimum.

    - Stop all vaping and switch to nicotine gum

    - Gradually increase the time between each gum

    - Stop the gum altogether

    This process took probably 3 months and tbh it was pretty miserable the whole time. It's 100% worth it tho, You don't realize how much it controls your life until you stop. You will also still get random cravings for a year or two afterwards, Heck it's been 4 years and I still sometimes get dreams where I'm vaping.

    1. JKCalhoun · · focus · HN ↗
      Stopped smoking cold turkey when my first daughter was born.

      For the first year I wanted a cigarette every fucking day.

      Years later, I still had dreams where I would light up…

      20+ years on, a distant memory.

      1. ivanvanderbyl · · focus · HN ↗
        My father did the same thing. He used to smoke a pack a day and the day that I was born he quit and never touched it again, and then when I was old enough to understand cigarettes, he taught me to never start smoking and I never have.
        1. reilly3000 · · focus · HN ↗
          Stay that way. Your first cigarette will never let you forget it.
          1. madwolf · · focus · HN ↗
            Not necessarily. I’m over 40 now and had a total of 3 cigarettes in my life, all of them in my twenties, parties, hanging out with people smoking etc. Every time it was a terrible experience and I was amazed why people do this to themselves…
            1. outime · · focus · HN ↗
              I don't think OP advice is wrong as a general advice though. I've also smoked very sporadically and never got really hooked (as opposed to my whole family), but plenty of regular smokers started with that first one. It's better to not take any chances.
            2. JKCalhoun · · focus · HN ↗
              Yeah, same for me—the first dozen or so sucked.

              And then one day they were awesome and relaxing.

          2. Markoff · · focus · HN ↗
            No need to be drama queen. I am also 40+, had for sure 10-20 cigarettes in my teenage years to try it and on social ocassions with friends, never saw the appeal, found the taste disgusting (and remember being dizzy) and don't remember my 1st cigarette at all. For the record I dislike as well taste of beer or coffee, got used to wine, which I drink only when visiting father or him visiting me, so totally like twice a year (though it's then multiday affair). It's same with alcohol addiction, drank fairly enough during teenage years, then pretty much stopped completely during 20s (only rarely with colleagues), then around 30 while in China was drinking daily for lunch and dinner 40+ % spirit (baijiu) for months with colleagues, then completely stopped overnight after finding better (but less laid-back) job.

            Now recreational marijuana (ideally through bong) is way way more appealing than dumb tobacco cigarettes which do nothing, had it during my teenage years and also during my 20s on different ocassions with colleagues/friends (one of them used it during cancer treatment) and I can see myself having some even now in 40s if I could buy it legally.

          3. bluecheese452 · · focus · HN ↗
            I had maybe 10 cigarettes lifetime. Haven’t had one in a decade.
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