I’m a couple days into a major life change, one that I can only pray sticks around. I am a cigarette smoker, no I’m more than that- I am the mother loving cigarette dragon. You give me a stogie and I will make it disappear into my dragon-lungs with my dragon-magic. But that dragon-magic comes at a cost, not only to my health. Even more alarmingly, it eats huge chunks of my time that I could be spending painting, writing, cooking, and gaming.
This is the fact that I am concentrating on when those sweet cigarette sirens call out to me. Assuming I spend 7-10 minutes smoking a cigarette, and I do so around 15 times a day, then according to my calculator I spent around 2 hours a day smoking my life away. That’s 2 hours I would rather spend writing for my blog.
Most current/ex-smokers know that having a strategic quitting plan is super important. So how am I tackling this horrible addiction-dragon? I’m switching over to vaping. Now before you start spitting on me, and telling me the dangers of vapor, and how it’s really not all that different than smoking, let me present my plan and why I chose this method.
So clearly this is a cigarette replacement, I’m still puffing like a magic-dragon. There are a few major differences that I am going to touch on later. For now it is important to note that the similarities between vaping and smoking are helpful in making the smooth transition away from cigarettes. I still get to have some puffs, a nicotine rush, and I feel similar to how I did smoking those death-sticks. I tried all the other quit-smoking-aids (patches, gum, pharmaceuticals, and of course cold turkey) this has by far been the easiest first two days without a cigarette. This along with the fact that I can vape in my home, in the dead of winter, is very helpful to my quitting plan.
What made vaping stand out to me as a quitting method is the variable nicotine levels in the juice. I have tried to quit countless times, and have always failed when I get to the point when I have to cut down on my nicotine levels. I believe this is largely to do with the huge jump down in nicotine levels more cessation tools have. Patches and gum nicotine levels drop by half from step 1 to step 2, for me that is too big of a drop. With e-juice you can start with vaping an e-juice with a high level of nicotine, and work your way down to an e-juice with no nicotine a tiny bit at a time. That was the selling point for me, slowly and comfortably working my way away from nicotine addiction, while still puffing and getting that hand-to-mouth psychological comfort.
While many people go for the ease and initial cheapness of disposable tobacco flavored e-cigarettes, I do not recommend this. The disposable e-cigarettes taste gross, stop working randomly, turn out to be a much higher cost over time, and studies are starting to suggest they are worse for you than vaping a premium e-juice out of a box-mod. I know it feels like a lot of money to drop on a high-to-mid quality box-mod and tank, but you will end up saving money down the line, and enjoy your vaping experience more. With a nice box-mod you get the benefits of changing your e-juice flavors regularly, box-mods last longer than vape-pens and e-cigarettes, you get more control over your nicotine levels, longer battery life and changeable batteries. I am loving my e-juices, I have about 5 different flavors to get me through the first few weeks of the change. While some lower quality e-juices come in generic flavors like “blueberry” or “vanilla”, most premium juices come in really exciting flavors. I have some “apple pie” flavored juice in my tank right now, and I am absolutely drooling over it. Yesterday I vaped some e-juice that tasted EXACTLY like “Cinnamon Toast Crunch” the breakfast cereal. YUM!
I have only been cigarette free for a few days, but I have been vaping for a few months. I slowly started reducing the cigarettes I smoked a day, and increasing the times I calmed cravings by vaping. So far this has been the easiest transition away from cigarettes I’ve had. I highly encourage you to try this if you are interested and want to quit. In my next posts I will go into much more detail about the e-juice and mod I use, RBA vs tank vaping, the big myths about vaping, and the differences between e-cigarettes, vape-pens, mech-mods, and box-mods.
The Sleepy Dinosaur 