Quit Smoking By Vaping
I quit smoking the day I started vaping. My wife did the same. So did my sister. Vaping is the most effective means of quitting smoking tobacco cigarettes that I’m aware of.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientist, doctor, researcher, biologist or in the employ of any tobacco, vaping, pharmaceutical, anti-smoking or public health company or organization. I am simply someone who smoked tobacco cigarettes for over 40 years and quit on the very day I bought my first actual vaping kit.
Full Disclosure: Several months before I bought that first actual vaping kit (a Kangertech EVOD 2 kit) I had tried the Blu cig-a-like kit. It didn’t work. I continued to smoke tobacco cigarettes while I was using the Blu and the Blu kit crapped out within the first 90 days. Those cig-a-likes you see in the gas stations will in all likelihood disappoint you if you try to use them to quit smoking. Save your money and get an open source system.
It’s an unpleasant truth that we humans do not always exercise critical decision making skills. If we did, none of us would have ever started smoking. But here we are, millions of us still paying for the privilege of playing Russian roulette with our health when it comes to smoking. Once you’ve started, it’s excruciatingly difficult to stop. Difficult, but, for most of us at least, not impossible.
Used to be that if you decided to quit smoking you had to go cold turkey. Just stop. Oh sure, you could try chewing gum or eating candy whenever you had the urge for a smoke. And you could avoid the situations and places that you most associated with smoking. Unfortunately for many that meant avoiding coffee, work, eating, driving, sex and many other every day activities.
Then came Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRT), like nicotine gum, lozenges, patches, nasal sprays, inhalers and medications like Zyban and Chantix. Many of these methods require a doctor’s prescription. Most sources I found noted that support from others in addition to one of the traditional NRT methods was a key to success. The problem with these methods is that they aren’t very effective. The highest rate of success I could find was 17%. That’s a failure rate of 83%.
That begs two questions. First, why do so many organizations, both private and governmental, continue to recommend these methods. Second, why is the success rate of these methods so abysmal?
To understand the first why, why so many individuals and organizations continue to recommend methods and products that don’t work, simply follow the money. Big pharmaceutical companies, who make all of these products, have invested millions of dollars in their development, testing, approval and marketing.
Private sector non-profits and public health organizations highlight these ineffective products in their literature and on their websites. Why would organizations whose mission statements include helping people quit smoking continue to encourage the use of these products? Again, follow the money. Check the list of companies who make donations to those non-profits and you’ll find many of the pharmaceutical companies who make the NRT products we’re talking about.
So why are these products so poor at helping people quit smoking? They all contain nicotine, the chemical in tobacco smoke that everyone accepts as the addictive element. If quitting smoking was simply a matter of getting nicotine from a source other than tobacco smoke, then you’d excpect these products to be very effective. There must be more to this habit, this addiction than nicotine.
That’s where vaping comes in. Vaping provides the nicotine that all of those other products do, but also closely replicates the entire smoking experience, which none of those other methods do. You hold your mod in your hand, there’s the hand-to-mouth motion, the inhaling and exhaling of the vapor, the throat hit. Everything you experience while smoking tobacco without the dangerous, deadly chemicals that come from combustion. You can even blow vapor rings.
I remember a high school science class where we discussed smoking. The teacher mentioned a study that showed that when smokers were unable to see the smoke they exhaled they were more successful at quitting. I guess the makers of the nicotine patch, gum and other NRT methods didn’t see that study.
No vape industry companies or reputable vape shops make the claim officialy that vaping will help you quit smoking. That’s not because that claim isn’t true, I believe it is. And some public health organizations have even said that vaping can be as or more effective than more traditional NRT methods. The reason the claim isn’t included in the marketing of vaping equipment and ejuice is because to make that claim would put vaping products into the realm of theraputic products, which requires testing and approval by the FDA. And that would significantly increase costs and delay further innovation.
And vaping has a built in support system. Spend a little time in your local vape shop and you’ll find loads of friendly, helpful, supportive people, eager to see you succeed in your quest to give up tobacco cigarettes. Do a quick search on Twitter, Facebook or You Tube and you’ll be introduced to a growing online community of vapers, all who are more than willing to answer any of your questions and provide support.
If you’re a smoker who’s ready to quit, I can’t recommend vaping highly enough. It worked for me and it’s working for millions of others every day.
