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Congrats Wheat, that is a huge step to take and well done.
Just a little note for any fellow swedes out there, the E-cigs you can buy from swedish retailers/sites are nikotine-free since it is illegal to sell nikotine in liquid form in sweden. So E-cigs has a bit of bad rep as "useless" from swedes and i have not met a single one who managed to quit when trying them (the nikotine-free ones that is).
Then again, we have snus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus
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Just thought I'd write up quickly about my mum...
She started smoking very young, 13 or 14 iirc. "Stopped" from 16 to 19 because nobody on the soccer team was allowed to smoke. Used snus instead during that time. Went back to smoking as soon as she quit soccer. Smoked for another 20 years, and then got a heart attack and had to have surgery. After the surgery, she immedietly stopped, and the money she normally spent on her pack per day was put in a glass jar as a motivator. After a little more than a month she thought it was a bad idea to have such a big pile of money on display in the kitchen, so she hid the jar in a cabinet.
10 years later and she still hasn't smoked again, even tho we have a neighbur who is a very heavy smoker.
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My grandmother has early stage COPD from smoking. She has said ( not in these words; I'm paraphrasing ) that not one cigarette in her whole life was worth what she's going through now. She's tried to quit, but just can't do it - she did successfully cut down from a pack a day to 1/2 a pack at most ( sometimes as few as 2 cigarettes a day ) - but then her husband unexpectedly died from cancer and it looks like she's back to her old rate. It takes a lot of motivation to quit cold turkey and not everyone is going to have the incentive and need to quit like that - in fact, most won't.
But she loses her breath when she laughs and has the most horrible sounding cough. She's at so high risk of heart disease that missing her blood pressure medicine for 1 day puts her in to the 20%+ risk category. Going up and down a flight of stairs is not in her best interest. She recently moved and had to take frequent breaks just putting clothes and valuables in boxes. It's an absolutely miserable experience that's so difficult to explain, but if you run for about 5 minutes or so and then only let yourself breathe in half of what your body asks for: that's what it's like for low-grade COPD.
Congrats djWheat! No cheating and I think 100% you can do it! The great thing about technology is that it helps you overcome the terrible addictions like this. There's really no way to describe how difficult quitting something like this is. Smoking appeals to most people's most basic reward system, so replacing it with something else seems absolutely the best idea :-)
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When I got to uni today I had to walk eleven flights of stairs because the elevators were grossly overpopulated. Even though I am in pretty good physical condition I arrived at my class huffing and weezing like an elderly man. It hit me like a ton of bricks.
I have tried to quit before using sheer determination, patches, gum, everything you can think of, really. Needless to say I couldn't resist the urge to smoke an afterdinner cigarette, believed I could only smoke one cigarette at that party etc and before I knew it I was smoking a pack a day again.
I will probably have to face being ridiculed by my friends, but I am willing to give this a try if it really works. Only thing I am curious about is the pricing and availability. Gonna do some googling.
Keep up the good work though, you are truly an inspiration.
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Hey man congratulations, seriously man I and everyone here truly respects you. I'm still smoking newport hundreds, maybe one day I'll have the same epiphany and determination to quit for good.
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Ciggarettes are expensive, make you ugly, and smelly. GJ
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This is very interesting and congrats to everyone. I'm sorry but I'm missing a few things:
-Do people still use the eCig long term? Like crave it I guess? -Isn't it just as bad because it still has the nicotine right?
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A friend of mine got completely of Cigs with that thing , but I am not that far yet . The only thing that is a bit worrying to me is that , while I was working as an Intern in a big pharmaceutical company, some guys explained to me that the E-cig might have some severe health dangers as well, even though I could not exactly tell why. That being said, it still must be far more healther than the normal cigarettes I am smoking right now -.-
After having observed my friend go completely without a normal smoke for more than 3 months not I am convinced that it works and strongly urge everyone to try it out
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Oh and another thing that everyone should hear about is that you will become the coolest person in the room for every smoker who has not seen the electriacl ones yet :D Everyone wants to try it out, so don't ever think about it being "uncool" or shit like that , if that may be worrying you
E: sorry doublepost , already in mafia mode ^.^
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Grats on finding these. I had a teacher in a class who used them as well. He just used it so he didn't have to go off campus to smoke but he said it definitely helped.
Glad for you and your family!
Also on ITG vod you grabbed it and took a big puff from it.. You looked so bad ass <3 djWHEAT
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You deserve a lot of respect for getting over smoking.
I don't even understand why smoking is considered cool these days. I remember at school being pressured into smoking a fag (the British slang word for a cigarette, not to be confused with the slang for homosexual) and I refused to do it not because I was a pussy but because I just didn't see why it was cool.
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eCigs changed my life too. Lead to better relationships with my gf and family. I started out back on a crappy DSE-901 Penstyle, didnt work, went back to analogs for a year. I decided on a whim to start again and ordered a powerful "Mod", the Puresmoker Prodigy v3, which hits like a hookah. After that, never looked back.
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Congratz Wheat... thats fantastic to hear! I hope you can keep with it!
At my worst I was sometimes smoking up to 60 a day. I too am one of those habitual 'habit' types with an extremely addictive personality. If there is one thing that I found... quiting is only 1/2 the challenge. It's staying quit that can be harder then most think.
Having quit for various amounts of time (2 years was my best run previously) I always ended up finding myself slowly sliding back into it... and the best advice I could give you now is to never ever ever have another cigarette... not one... ever!
If all of my attempts taught my anything it was: once you can justify one smoke, you will be able to justify and forgive the next one, and the one after that becomes even easier. My recipe for success in staying quit this time round:
I havent had a single cigarette in 6 years now.
Well done and keep it up!
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i hear cold turkey has consistently been the most effective method for quitting cigs, just gotta chew gum and stuff to quell the oral fixation
worked for my grandma at least
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thaks for reminding me, now to choose which ecig to order online...............
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FuDDx
United States5006 Posts
O DjWheat Im looking into these...Smoking since I was 16 I am 34 now.
I love smoking but I am getting scared of being there for my family in the future, and even if I do happen to survive I do not want to be pulling an oxygen tank with me. I have never tried to quit smoking ever, Ive thought about it but never tried. Your story is inspiring me and I think ill be getting the Blu trying to figure between the Blu and V2 but Blu seems easier to replace as they are sold at walgreens etc where I have yet to see anything other than online ordering for the V2.
Any tips or recommendations to a smoker who has been smoking consistently for the last 18 years about a pack a day ( last 2 years or so Ive been smoking roll your owns OO)
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What a good birthday present for my dad. Thanks!
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How goes the non-smoking Mr WHEAT? Any updates/progress?
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Awesome blog Marcus. I am happy to see that many people in this thread are inspired to quit smoking. My Story: I've been a Pack-a-Day smoker since I was 17 (25 now). I've tried slowly reducing how much I smoke, Nicotine Patches and going cold turkey and nothing lasted more than a week. But about two months ago my father (who never smoked) bought me an E-Cigarette because one of his colleagues recommended it. At first I was like "well this tastes like shit... I'll never get used to that...lets sell it on ebay." But after two days I had no desire to smoke a real cigarette anymore. The hardest thing about quitting always was that cigarette after a big meal or that delicious cigarette with the morning coffee but the eCig totally took care of that. I realize that I am still addicted to nicotine but it's an amazing feeling to just run up a couple of stairs without having to catch a breath (this may sound stupid to non-smokers but every heavy smoker will know what I am talking about). If I could go back in time I would smack myself in the head the moment I lit my first cigarette. To every smoker: Just give it a try. If you don't think you should quit for the health reasons just do it for the money. My eCig (EGO-T) was 59 Euros and I am spending ~5 Euros a week on Liquid. In the last two months I would have spend about 275 Euros on cigarettes ( 4,90 a day). Once you quit smoking you realize how fucking disgusting and smelly cigarettes are.
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I stopped smoking 4 Weeks ago..
How long did I smoke? 12 Years.
How much did I smoke? About 40 cigs ( ~2 packs) a day, more on weekends.
Why did I stop? I woke up with a huge hangover and did not feel like going out to grab cigs and was annoyed by the fact that I would have to grab cigs to feel "normal" (would have taken about 10 minutes). 100% spontaneous.
How did I stop? Cold turkey, no little helpers (but I would recommend sleeping pills... That would have made the nights "better" in the first Week.
Symptoms when stopping? All of them (but the only troublesome one was sleeping problems).
Feeling better? Actually no... Not a single bit.
Saving money? Tons... 12.5 Euros a day and that’s a very conservative estimate...
Eating more / gaining weight? A little, but nothing drastic / I don't think so but haven't checked yet.
Toughts on stopping? Only two things are hard: 1: The first 3 days/first week is hard/horrible (sleeping a whole night whiteout interruption is SO nice :p). 2: To never smoke a cigarette again because I would get "into" it again immediately and be back to the "first 3 horrible days".
Btw: When I cleaned my car in the second week I found a pack of cigs in there... Took it with me for like a week and than gave it to a still smoking collegue that was out of cigs.
Btw2: I know that 4 Weeks is nothing.
Btw3: I think E-Cigs are not helpfull in the least. I never have problems around smokers, i actually have have cragings when i'm alone/bored/have to wait on something. The E-Cig would act exactly like a normal cigarette fo rme... As soon as i would set it aside i would "crave" for the (E)-Cig again... So i doubt that would help me in any way (except not really stopping). I actually also "watch out" to get NO substitute for Cigs in any form.
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