An older friend who smoke and drank a ton switched to vapes, and methodically lowered the nicotine content every two-there weeks for months, then stopper nicotine and vaped the flavours but as there was no more nicotine, the habit wasn't addicting and he just forgot about it more or less.
Now he's been alone free for years, and reduced his drinking as well. Looks fucking healthy now.
Check out SmokeFree.gov! It has great free resources that are science based. Quitting smoking is the number thing someone who smokes can do for their health.
The most effective methods to quit smoking include varenicline (aka Chantix), FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapies (gum, patch, lozenge, inhaler, etc), and behavioral therapy. Combining all of these therapies in a clinical trials results in the most people quitting.
No vape is FDA-approved as a cessation therapy, because no company has applied. There have been some small academic run trials, which tend to show a decrease in smoking, but continued nicotine addiction. Probably because vapes have much higher nicotine content than FDA-approved therapies. While vapes expose people to a lot less carcinogens than smoke, there are some carcinogens and nicotine itself is harmful to vascular and mental health. So if the evidence-based methods don't work, completely switching to vaping would be less harmful.
While less common, the most serious side effects of varenicline are described below, along with what to do if they happen.
Severe Allergic Reactions. Varenicline may cause allergic reactions, which can be serious. Stop taking varenicline and get help right away if you have any of the following symptoms of a serious allergic reaction.
Breathing problems or wheezing
Racing heart
Fever or general ill feeling
Swollen lymph nodes
Swelling of the face, lips, mouth, tongue, or throat
Trouble swallowing or throat tightness
Itching, skin rash, or pale red bumps on the skin called hives
Nausea or vomiting
Dizziness, feeling lightheaded, or fainting
Stomach cramps
Joint pain
Seizures. Some people who have taken varenicline have reported having seizures. There are many different types of seizures and some of them are not easy to recognize. Stop taking varenicline and call your healthcare provider if you experience any of the following signs that a seizure is happening or could happen.
Muscle twitching, jerking, spasms, tremors, or other uncontrolled movements
Stiffening of your arms and legs
Feeling anxious, nervous, confused, or a sense of dread
Feeling dizzy or lightheaded
Falling or losing consciousness
New or Worse Heart or Blood Vessel Problems. Varenicline can cause new or worsening heart or blood vessel problems, including heart attacks and stroke. This risk is mainly in people with existing heart or blood vessel problems. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any changes in symptoms. Get emergency help if you have any of the following symptoms of a heart attack or stroke.
Chest pain or pressure
Fast or abnormal heartbeat
Trouble breathing
Pain in your back, jaw, throat, or arm
Sweating, upset stomach, vomiting, or dizziness
Sudden weakness on one side of your body
Sudden and severe headache
Slurred speech or trouble understanding speech
Sleepwalking. Varenicline can cause sleepwalking. This may result in harm to yourself or other people or property. Stop taking varenicline and call your healthcare provider if you start sleepwalking.
Serious Skin Reactions. Varenicline can cause severe skin reactions, including Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS), that can lead to death if not treated. If you develop a rash, stop varenicline and call your healthcare provider right away. Get emergency help right away if you have any of the following symptoms of a severe skin reaction.
Painful red or purple skin that looks burned and peels off
Flat red rash or blisters on your skin, mouth, nose, and genitals
Red, painful, watery eyes
New or Worse Mental Health Problems. Varenicline may cause new or worse mental health problems. This risk is more common in people who have a history of mental health problems. These symptoms may also happen because of nicotine withdrawal. Stop taking varenicline and call your healthcare provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms.
Changes in mood or behavior
Aggression
Hostility
Agitation
Depressed mood
Suicidal Thoughts or Actions. Varenicline may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a small number of people. If you are about to harm yourself, call 911 or call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms.
New or increased thoughts of suicide or death
Suicide attempt
New or increased feelings of anxiety, depression, or other unusual changes in mood or behavior
Angioedema. Varenicline may cause a rare reaction called angioedema. The usual symptoms of this reaction include swelling of the lips, face, tongue, or throat. Stop taking the medicine and contact your healthcare provider if you have this type of swelling. If you are having trouble breathing, get medical attention right away.
Cosign, I just liked the smoking myself. Vapes made it worse if anything cus it made smoking more conventent 😂 no ash, ashtray or lighter thats somehow always missing.
20 years ago I quit smoking with chewing tobacco aka dip. That shit is WAY better than cigarettes. Dip was even harder to quit. Then I went back to off and on cigarettes for 18 years. I have not had one in a year and a half and have no intention or desire to ever start that shit up again. Welbutrin is also pretty helpful for this. My best friend did mostly quit by switching to vape though, so I think it can work. I'm pretty sure it's also just as bad for you though?
I smoked a pack a day for roughly 30 years. My night time breathing was getting ugly and my wife would sometimes get woken up by the sound of my wheezing.
Every method of quitting failed me except vaping. I started as most do with a high nicotine vape juice that tasted like tobacco, but after about a month I swapped and started going lower and lower nicotine and change the flavor from tobacco to a custardy type.
2 months of that got me off the cigs. Two more months got me down to zero nicotine. Two or three more months after that I was done.
I have been off cigs for 7 years.
My breathing no longer feels wet or difficult at night. And My yearly health tests all come back the same as a non-smoker.
Yes. Switched to vaping and was vaping for multiple years before quitting completely. Biggest thing was the "safety" of always being able to have my fix without an actual smoke. The "never again" mentality made it so hard to ditch the cancer stick but the vape was always like "it's ok, you can just have a little puff whenever you feel like it". Slowly down the nicotine content. Puff less. Even less. At some point I just forgot. Still have the vape. Still have the liquid, albeit it's dark red now and looks radioactive so utterly unusable. But point is that the vape eventually faded into irrelevance in a way that cigarettes never could.
I wish I could vape. This is gonna sound stupid, bc it is, but I’m a chronic asthmatic who has smoked for about 20 years now. Been intubated twice for asthma. And yet I still can’t put the damn cigarettes down. I’ve tried patches, gum, hypnotism, medication, you name it.
Vaping was the only thing that was helping when I switched but believe it or not, it was bothering me way more than a cigarette. Immediate throat scratchiness and shortness of breath. That doesn’t happen with smokes though. I’ve tried all sorts of vapes too. All with the same result.
Smoking is probably gonna be what takes me out and it sucks that I feel totally powerless. I will say though, that the book “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking” by Allen Carr got me off cigs for about 3 months. Then my grandpa died and it all spiraled back from there.
Apologies for what could well be a dumb suggestion: Herbal / nicotine free cigs exist. They might be an avenue of escape if you haven't tried that already.
Smoking isn't just the nicotine fix, it's the whole ritual of getting away and doing something else for a while. Scratching that itch might work.
Of course there are other ways to get away and do something else for a while, but those are for later.
Cigarettes contain ingredients to suppress some of the negative symptoms of smoking. One reason you might have irritation without the cigarettes is because the cigarettes are preventing you from feeling the irritation they cause. Just a thought. It might make sense to see if you can get other medication to help with those issues until you are able to stop vaping too.
Also, hearing that the death of your grandpa caused a relapse suggests you might want to try quitting again, but with some sort of therapy/support. Try the book method again, but make sure you have someone to talk through issues with.
I did, but I would mix my own fluid; every couple of batches I would half the nicotine content. Eventually it was near-negligible, and perhaps two weeks after that I was doneski
I did but it took me a long time, years and years, with occasional dips back into smoking.
Now though it's nearly been 2 years no vape or anything and at least three years of no nicotine.
I went up and down in nicotine levels, I used big huge cloud throwing fog machines and little tiny disposables.
I eventually settled on a unit with a built in rechargeable battery and pods with replaceable coils (geekvape aegis)
I don't think vaping will naturally result in quitting, it I do think it's the most effective harm reducer out there and as a tool has many ways to help reduce use over time.
High nicotine disposables (elf bars, juul) I would stay away from if you can though since the nicotine concentration is so high that it can deepen the addiction.
I found that it was easier to quit smoking using a vape because I kept the same motion. I needed a powerful one to feel a similar hit.
And I found it easier to stop vaping than to stop smoking because I could mix liquids to have any desired nicotine content, allowing me to reduce it very gradually. A lot of people simply replace smoking with vaping but that's still an improvement.
Yes. It is a shame that vapes are disregarded as therapeutics. They are fantastic in that regard.
Not to say that the fruit flavoured garbage aimed at children is okay; it is not and should be dealt with. However, we should simultaneously not let the tobacco industry deter the medically valid use of vapes for use as an aid with smoking cessation
I'm a fully grown adult who very much enjoys fruit flavours in my vape. Please don't legislate me based on the kids. Make better laws to protect and allow adults to enjoy things.
My son worked for vape wild. His favorite part was talking to people about how to use vapes and custom fluids to quit smoking. Then they had a huge investment from one of the cigarette companies and it all went downhill.
I quit not only because of vaping and tobacco-less nicotine pouches, but because I wanted it. If you are buying it for a family member, you can't make them quit... Hopefully they are wanting to, because you can't make that decision for them. Just like any other addict.
Yep. I moved from smoking to vaping. It became a bit of a hobby but I quit that too after a few years just by lowering the nicotine bit by bit and ended up just not using it when the habit was no longer fuelled by addiction.
Vaping is safer than cigarettes, it's still bad and we don't know how bad it is long term but it is safer than smoking.
It's better to just stop completely using a stop smoking service to get alternative nicotine products if that's available. If the person doesn't want to stop then you're unlikely to be able to make them however a vape might be able to replace it with something better.
Other products to look at are patches, gum, lozenges and inhalators which can be useful in quitting.
In summary smoking and vaping are both bad but smoking is worse. Better off just quitting if possible, if not go for the vape.
I'm not a smoker/vaper so my opinion doesn't really matter here. But from a sober perspective, I believe that switching to vaping CAN be good, as long as you're willing to follow the rules diligently.
The biggest problem I can see going down would be that vaping can be more addictive because you can put more nicotine in it. So if you plan on getting one for a family member, make sure they are actually willing to quit. Because there is a possibility that you can make the addiction worse if they have the opportunity to put even more nicotine in their system.
Once again, this is from an outside perspective, if I'm in the wrong vapers, please let me know.
This is a little more complicated because vaping doesn't get nicotine into your blood as effectively as smoking. So even if the liquid seems like it's stronger than a cigarette would be, it's likely not actually getting them more nicotine. If anything too little nicotine is an issue because this could make it harder to switch.
Smokers (and vapers) also self titrate, meaning they adjust their smoking/vaping habits to get the amount of nicotine they want. So if you had a genuinely stronger vape, they would stop after fewer puffs. Nausea comes pretty quick after too much nicotine too so it's not pleasant to take too much.
It has the benefit of putting something in your mouth, and preserving the smoking ritual. Which is as important for many smokers as nicotine.
It's not without reason that it became so popular in the few years since it went mainstream.
To be clear it has become popular as a substitute for (or adjunct to) smoking. As a quitting aid it isn't especially effective, even if slightly more effective than NRT.
I must say in my practice I haven't seen anyone quit using vapes, it just becomes a substitute.
Thankyou, I have been relying on an article I read several years ago, which in my memory was Cochrane also, I may be able to track it down. Turns out I'm out of date on that stat.
I stand by it having uncertain long term consequences when other forms of NRT are proven safe.
But the gum and patches as additional options. The ritual of putting cig to mouth is incredibly strong, especially if there are social factors in play.
You can't make someone quit your way, they have to quit their way.
I quit some 20 years ago without using vape (did it exist back then? Not sure) or any medication. That day, after careful consideration I made up my mind and never looked back.
And not just because of my health (it was a very important factor) but also because I had realized how much money I was throwing away. Thousands each year.