March, 4 2010 - How I Quit Smoking with Electronic Cigarettes
Written by K K Thornton - Original post is here
How I Managed to Stop Smoking and Learned to Love the E-cig
I started smoking when I was sixteen years old and I kept on smoking for almost 30 years. When I bought my first e-cigarette one year ago, I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day and I thought I would never be able
to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes. Two weeks later, I switched to e-cigarettes and kicked the tobacco habit for good. Here is how I quit smoking with electronic cigarettes.
When I ordered my first e-cigarettes, I did not expect to quit smoking.
E-Cigarettes- also known as smokeless cigarettes, e-cigs or personal vaporizers- are advertized as allowing you "smoke" without actually smoking. Electronic cigarettes do not smell and the vapor dissipates almost immediately, so you can smoke them almost anywhere, including bars and restaurants where smoking is prohibited. To be honest, I never thought I would be able to quit smoking with e-cigarettes although I did hope that I could at least cut down on my smoking with an e-cig. But I do love gadgets and electronic cigarettes are undeniably healthier than smoking tobacco, so I ordered an e-cigarette online.
Until I bought my first e-cig, I thought I would never be able to quit smoking.
When I started smoking in my teens, I thought I could quit smoking whenever I wanted. I was wrong. Over the years, I tried to quit smoking many times but nothing worked. Nicotine patches itch and gave me scaly rashes, but that is not the only problem with using the patch to quit smoking. Nicotine patches deliver a steady dose of nicotine, but that is not how you get your nicotine fix when you smoke tobacco cigarettes.
There are drugs designed to help you quit smoking and they terrify me. Friends have had bed experiences with smoking cessation drugs and I have never considered a raft of nasty side effects, including depression and the risk of suicide, to be preferable to being a smoker-- even my doctor agreed with me on that one. If I had not been able to quit smoking with electronic cigarettes, I would have been perfectly happy to spend the rest of my life smoking in the rain and sleet and driving wind with the rest of the nicotine addicted social outcasts. Cold turkey is a time honored method of quitting smoking that has never worked for me, especially since my husband was a heavier smoker than I was. I have also tried nicotine gum and nicotine
lozenges. Those kind of smoking cessation products do knock the edges off of nicotine cravings, but as an aid to quitting smoking, neither is terribly effective. On the other hand, I found quitting smoking with electronic cigarettes surprisingly easy.
Why I decided electronic cigarettes could help me not just cut back, but quit smoking completely.
When it comes to quitting smoking, e-cigarettes have several advantages over nicotine patches and other nicotine replacement devices. Electronic cigarettes allow you to inhale and exhale a smoky looking vapor without the tar and other carcinogens of traditional tobacco cigarettes. It is not exactly like smoking real cigarettes, but it is close.
You can buy electronic cigarettes that look like anything from a fancy silver pen to a sleek black lipstick to a real cigarette. Instead of a cherry, e-cigarettes have a bright blue LED lights on the end that light up bright blue when you inhale. E-cigarettes look modern and cutting edge--which I like -- and the taste is much cleaner than tobacco cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes are rechargeable, so you still have the ritual of getting ready to go out, but it is a different ritual. Instead of making sure that you have an extra pack of cigarettes and a lighter, quitting smoking with e-cigarettes entails making sure your batteries are charged and you have enough e-liquid.
It did not take me long to fall in love with smoking electronic cigarettes. You can control the amount of nicotine in your e-cigarettes. Not only that, but I like the fact that with an e-cig, I know exactly what I am smoking. E-cigarettes vaporize the same propylene glycol used in everything from medicines to frosting and do not produce dangerous second hand smoke. In fact, you do not smoke an electronic cigarette: you vape it. And electronic cigarettes do not smell at all- not in the air, not on your breath, not on your clothes and hair and furniture. Electronic cigarettes make it easy to quit smoking because they are not cigarettes at all. E-cigs are better.
How I used electronic cigarettes to quit smoking tobacco for good.
The first week I had my electronic cigarettes, I made a conscious effort to swap it for tobacco cigarettes at least half the time. Pretty soon, I realized that I was reaching for my e-cigs more often because I actually
preferred vaping to smoking cigarettes. I decided to see if I could replace my smelly and expensive tobacco cigs with electronic cigarettes and stop smoking entirely. A week before, quitting smoking seemed impossible. Once I got used to my electronic cigarettes, quitting smoking seemed doable and almost painless.
The next week, I cut back on tobacco cigarettes even more. It was not as hard to stop smoking tobacco as I thought it would be- at least in some cases. Not smoking in my car and on the computer was pretty easy, especially since I had my electronic cigarettes to fill in the gap in nicotine. Bars and restaurants in Dallas are pretty much smoke free as it is, and I certainly did not miss going outside for a smoke. I soon discovered that the advantage of quitting smoking with e-cigarettes is that you are just giving up smoking, not the habit.
Even so, there were still a few areas that I had problems. I could not seem to give up that first cigarette of the day or the traditional post-prandial smoke after meals. I also realized that I was not just addicted to nicotine- after all, I was getting plenty of that from my e-cig. Quitting smoking means getting over your addiction to carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and the other 600 or so other chemicals the big tobacco companies have thoughtfully included in their cigarettes to make them more addictive. When you quit smoking with an electronic cigarettes you are forced to give up those nasty toxins, too.
Two weeks in to my experiment, I decided to go for it and just quit smoking tobacco cigarettes for good. On March 15th, 2009 I smoked the last of my cigarettes- almost half a pack- and decided to rely on my electronic cigarettes to quit smoking for good. The next morning I woke up with a headache and the haunting flavor of ashtray in my mouth. I have not touched a cancer stick since and I feel great. I truly feel that e-cigarettes saved my life.
When I decided to quit smoking with electronic cigarettes, I did not expect it to be a picnic and I was not disappointed. On the other hand, quitting smoking with e-cigarettes was certainly manageable, I gained a minimal amount of weight and I feel fantastic. If you, like me, have tried and failed to kick the habit in the past, I highly recommend that you consider trying electronic cigarettes to stop smoking for good. If it worked for me, it can work for anybody.
