With smoking, we know all to well about the times of counting the hours we could refrain from lighting up another cig. If you were a chain smoker, then even making it an hour-long without taking another puff was an accomplishment. Once we switched to the electronic cigarette, we felt more at ease not only with ourselves, but with what we’re inhaling too.
When you first looked to or had the thought of quitting the tobacco cigarette, you more than likely tried to go the ‘cold turkey’ route. I’ll take a wild guess and say you failed. You counted the hours you could go without lighting up again. Just like many of us, you fell back into the trap of addiction as we all have faced. It’s okay, we know you didn’t give up. Your determination and will brought you to the wonderful world of electronic cigarettes.
For the past week, it’s been on my mind. I’ve been thinking “How much time could I go without using my e-cigarette?”. With many of us electronic cigarette users, we’re not trying to quit using the ecig. We’re content, it’s literally being proven its healthier than the tobacco sticks, so what’s the need to go through the whole timing ourselves thing again?
Just out of interest, I want to know how long I could go without using my PV and still feel comfortable. With tobacco cigarettes, we were not only addicted to the nicotine, but to the other 4,000 chemicals also. With that being said, many of those chemicals are the cause for those headaches, jitters and cold sweats just to name a few – that we used to have when going any lengthy time without another puff. Going a good 5 hours without using my ecig, I didn’t get those jitters nor the headaches. To be quite honest, I was perfectly comfortable and content other than it just being on my mind.
Mind power… mind power I tell ya!
Now I wonder, is my addiction so severe? or do I really need my daily vapes? – I don’t think I’m so reliant on the nicotine anymore, but maybe I still am more drawn to the hand to mouth fixation and actuality of exhaling vapor. I’m still not perfectly sure what exactly draws me to using my electronic cigarette as much as I do, but I can tell you there is nothing pulling me away from it. I’m content with my PV and juice, I’m comfortable… I’m a vaper.
Do you go any lengthy amount of time without your ecig? – Let us know in the comments below!
I was a 28+yrs smoker b4 e-cigs came along; even worse, I went through approx 2pks a day unless I was upset, stressed, or outright pissed off. This kicked me up to chain smoking upwards of 3pks a day. It also lead to severe crackles, wheezes, franks, & thrills in my lungs, constant bronchitis with sinus & chest infections with added muscle-pulls in the pectoral area from the harsh coughing spasms. In 3 words: I was miserable. It was a rarity for me not to have a cigarette in my hand. Then the e-cigs came to my attn.
The first day along w/first 3wks of using the e-cigarette explicitly are forever burned into my brain. At first, I chain-vaped but once I learned I could separate my e-liquid into 2 separate bottles and marking one that contained a higher nicotine dose while keeping the regular vaped bottle at 24mg, I was doing so much better. The only time I used the higher (approx 36mg-40mg of nicotine e-liquid) was after getting up in the morning, after meals, before crashing for the night, and if I got upset and irritated although after a couple of weeks even during the times when I was irritated & would have normally gone through 3pks of tobacco cigarettes, I didn’t need the stronger nicotine levels at chain-vaping speeds. It was enough to get through one carto/atty fill and I was back down to earth and calm again without the splitting headache or hoarse cough I had with the tobacco/analog cigarettes.
The entire 2nd & early 3rd week I spent coughing so hard that I honestly felt as if I were going to cough up a lung. My chest was sore from all the coughing; hwr, I never developed bronchitis as I had in the past. By the end of the 3rd week, I was back at my doctor’s office for the monthly checkups (Lupus (SLE), Sjogren’s, & Fibromyalgia). My doctor kept checking my chest and back with the stethoscope and I could tell he was outright puzzled. Out of all that time coughing, I had been coughing up dark mucus until finally there was nothing left to cough up and it stopped. I’d even noticed that the crackles and wheezes were gone.
Ending his perplexed notions, I came clean with the whole e-cigarette use and handled him several pages or more of documentation I’d found online regarding e-cigs including the Auckland University Study and many articles I found through the former medical transcription journals I used to read before I had to resign from the field due to the autoimmune diseases. Many pulmonologists were supportive of e-cigs and didn’t mind lending their views and what they felt was happening in the lungs during e-cig use vs tobacco/analog cigarette use.
My doctor sat there and perused over the paperwork giving an ahhh or owww every now and again then he turned to me and literally declared that he wished his other patients who smoked would make the switch to this new e-cigarette! He even let me demonstrate how it worked and assured him there was information in the documents I left for him that explained the smoke-appearing exhale was nothing more than water vapor. I don’t think he really cared because he was so stumped by the fact that I had only used the device for 3wks prior to seeing him and I go to his office every 4wks so he heard and had perfect recall as to what my lungs sounded like the last time I was in his office and the difference this time was staggering!
It’s been over 3yrs now since I picked up my first e-cig and I never strayed from them in all that time. I did attempt to find out if I could handle a draw from a tobacco cigarette but I didn’t even get so far as a slight draw before I was coughing horribly and found that my nose, sinuses, and mouth was on fire not to mention the smell of a tobacco-cigarette-filled room gives me a major headache that will lead to a migraine if I don’t step away from the tobacco cigarette smoking. In all honesty, the only “tobacco-product” I can tolerate but only in small doses is a fine cigar (Pure imported real-deal Cubans – don’t ask). Yes, women can enjoy a fine cigar just as a man can! But, it begs to be explained that enjoying a cigar with a glass of fine brandy or well-aged single-malt scotch is a far cry from smoking a tobacco/analog cigarette! It’s like comparing apples to seaweed b/c they are so far removed from one another. It’s not something I make a habit of doing; I couldn’t afford to do so even if I wanted to do so. The occasion I indulged in the Cuban cigar was a party of sorts among friends sort of as a pre-bachelor party where his close female friends were able to attend without having to attend a female strip club or hired stripper. We just had a great night in a private back room with brandy, scotch, cigars, a few snacks, and a pool table. I’d be remiss to say that there are e-cigars available along with Cuban cigar e-liquid but I couldn’t pass up the first chance in some 10yrs to enjoy such a delight as a Cuban cigar, not on that special night!
I’ve worked to get through anger management issues from growing up in an abusive childhood with an abusive alcoholic birth father, always jumping to the defense of my younger sibling without giving the sibling a chance to put up a defense without my taking over b/c it was second nature when our birth father decided to forgo picking on someone who would actually fight back: Me. It took a lot of therapy to get beyond these issues and to face the fact that our father was to blame for the nightmare of a childhood we endured but also our mother was to blame as well as it was her place to protect us from such abuse but didn’t. She was an enabler. It took a long time to put part of the blame on her as well but I got there.
Therapy is 10000x easier than attempting to quit smoking tobacco/analog cigarettes cold turkey. I’d tried many times over the 28 years of my life and failed miserably until the day came that I found e-cigs and began working and tinkering with dosages to make it easier until I got the hand of how they work and how to handle my own cravings but I must also admit that it is much easier to walk away and not think of vaping as much than it is lighting up an analog cigarette.
My longest time without using my e-cig is 6 and 1/2 hrs! Granted, I was jonesing for a vape by the 4th and 5th hour but I wasn’t terribly uncomfortable nor was I irritable and difficult to speak with in that time period. The truth of the matter is that I could likely quit e-cigs if I put my mind to it and weaned down on the nicotine levels gradually but I don’t want to quit. This is simple 1 of 2 vices I have left that my health will allow me to keep and it doesn’t damage my body. My lungs after 3+yrs are the healthiest they have been since the first years I was smoking analogs! The only damage that remains in my x-rays are lesions/scarring from multiple bouts of pneumonia I suffered from as a child, which left me hospitalized each time. These lesions/scars as I am told will never go away. I’ve had them since the pneumonia gripped hold of my body many times over and they left their mark; however, I have not had to use a nebulizer or the emergency asthma inhaler since I began vaping. I had childhood asthma, which I outgrew but it came back for several years or more during adulthood and forcing me to carry an emergency inhaler just in case I had an attack but now, even that is gone and there is no need of a nebulizer machine at home b/c my lungs are so clear. The only problems I have with coughing involved comes from seasonal and year-round allergies. The post-nasal drip makes my throat sore when it’s at its worse and I sneeze constantly when I am out during the spring when pollen is at its height then again in the fall when the trees begin to blow their pollen around. The year-round allergies I have are to things like dust, etc… So I have to be rather vigilant when it comes to keeping up with the dusting and changing out the central unit’s allergen-free filter or I find myself in sneezing coughing fits that don’t clear until dusting well, then changing the filters to the central unit, and allowing the air to circulate throughout the house pulling dust from the air to ease the symptoms. It is why we bought the Dyson DC Upright Animal Vacuum with the purple ball. I have a guide dog and a short-hair domestic mutt cat – both are up in age and haven’t got many years left before they cross the Rainbow Bridge; hwr, I have no allergies to cats, dogs, or even birds. It’s all dust, various types of pollen, and something like 5 types of trees – all of which are native to where I live! Go figure.
But over all, I must say these last 3+yrs have been much better all around with regards to my health considering the autoimmune diseases have worsened with time as is the normal progression, and even more so is the fact that my husband and I don’t fight over my vaping the way we did when I was smoking analogs. We would have some knock-down, tear-down harsh words for each other nearly every day when I smoked analogs b/c he thought he was going to “bully” me into quitting but he should have known that was the wrong approach as my favorite aunt/surrogate mom told him many years ago – you don’t bully or pressure any of the women in our family into doing anything we were not ready to give up on our own and in doing so, we’d keep to our vices on sheer principle alone! The worse he bitched and moaned, the most I smoked analogs out of sheer defiance as well as for the calming effects it always helped me handle. I’d much rather chain-smoke than commit spouse-o-cide! So, I smoked analogs even more. He got the picture eventually and once he shut up, I bought the e-cig and made the switch on my own.
In over 3 years, the most he has said about my vaping is when he walks in the door asking if I’d made sweets such as cinnamon rolls or bought cotton candy, apple pie, blueberry cobbler, etc… as I stay more with the exotic fruit and candied flavors than the tobacco ones. I stayed away from tobacco e-liquids the first 2yrs out of fear I might slip but once I began using tobacco e-liquid, which I do on occasion, I don’t have the urge to pick up an analog cigarette. It’s quite the opposite.
I can enjoy the tobacco flavor without fear of the return of that dreadful crackling/wheezing lungs, coughing excessively, and the constant onslaught of bronchitis. In fact, I have not had an episode of bronchitis since the month prior to making the switch to e-cigarettes and it has been wonderful!
The hand to mouth oral fixation is a problem for me as well.I often keep one of the lighter e-cigs I have sort of held between my teeth at times (the thin 510 models) without even vaping. I believe it does have more to do with the fixation of the psychology of smoking than the act of actually smoking…
Wonderful article by the way. Thanks for writing it.
I can see you like writing just as much as I do! – 6 hours going without the e-cig is pretty good and just knowing you can go longer or even quit for good is better. You’re like me, you don’t want to quit and you feel comfortable with it… there isn’t anything wrong with that at all.
I tend to use my Smoov every once in a while just because it sometimes feels better to hold. I hold it like I used to hold my tobacco cigarettes, so that goes along with the actual ‘holding’ part of it all. I love vaping and how much it’s done for me and I’m glad it has helped you Sammy through your long journey.
Thanks for your amazing story and information!
I switched to vaping over 4 years ago after being plagued with phenomena and frequent colds. The first year I was vaping and smoking, but my tobacco addiction slowly turned into a habit. I still get a slight wheeze in the morning which I think is caused by my girlfriend’s tobacco addiction. The only time she vapes is in my car, because, I don’t want it stinking or burnt.
I can’t say that quitting vaping would be easy for me, because I really enjoy the hobby side. I have found myself working through brakes at work and not even caring about vaping. When I go to my girlfriend’s parents I don’t vape. They saw that news clip where the kid had a mod in his pocket with; a missing battery cover, torn battery wrappers, and his keys. Well something made contact where it wasn’t suppose to and the batteries went into thermal runaway causing him to receive third degree burns to his upper thigh. Now they think all mods are ticking time bombs no matter what I say or send them to read. What I get a kick out of is that they have laptops and smart devices, which have been known to catch fire and even burn down a house.