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Life is a precious, short, painfully short journey. For the longest time I had thoughts that I couldn't get out of my head, and they were truly depressing, and if they weren't depressing they simply made me angry. As of June 2015 I quit teaching English and I took up an office job. The environment lost its luster and I perceived it as rather depressing after about the first week. To escape that environment I would listen to music while working, but that just didn't cut it. So, I started listening to motivational speakers, then I ran across this speech on a playlist. I beg you all to listen to this speech if you are ever at work and it's just one of those days. Then tell me you don't feel just a little bit better. + Show Spoiler + I don't want to go back to being spiteful or angry any more, or depressed. What's done is done. What happened, happened. Regardless of how much (or little) control you may have had over a situation. Alright enough with the sympathetic bull-shit. So here's how I quit smoking: I remember watching CatZ's stream now and then and he would always use an e-cig. On stream. I remember I used some other kind of e-cig back in early 2011 or something like that, but nothing to the grade of what I use now. There are few complaints I have now about using an e-cig here in Taiwan. Technically, it's illegal to sell "juices" that contain nicotine in Taiwan. Possessing and using juices that have nicotine, however, is not going to get you in trouble. It is about twice as expensive as smoking ordinary cigarettes in Taiwan (the most expensive pack of cigarettes (which I always bought) you can buy here costs about 110 Taiwan Dollars (32 TWD = 1 USD, so about 3.50 USD)). I, personally, used to smoke 10 cigarettes a day. so figure in 1 pack every 2 days, that's about 15 packs every 30 days. so, 110 x 15 = 1650 TWD (45 USD give or take). Buying a good quality, reliable starter kit for an e-cig costs about 60 USD (including 1 30 ml bottle of juice). Then every month you have to buy juices as yours start to run out, so that costs me like 3,000 Taiwan dollars (100 USD). The final drawback is, some juice flavors will hurt your throat, so I just learned by trial and error which ones hurt and which ones did not, and I never bought the ones that hurt again. Some of the stuff I like to vape: Flaming Skull (cinnamon), Apollo French Vanilla, Voodoo (passion-fruit + mint), Fanta Orange, Fanta Grape, and Vanilla Coke. Is it worth it? To avoid further pain to my chest and lungs, and other parts of my body absolutely.
Some problems I had with my body while I was smoking:
- Pain to my lungs (before, during, after smoking, could especially feel this in the morning after waking up).
- Numbness in the very tips of my fingers.
- Sexual side-effects.
- Smoker's cough.
- Unattractiveness to women.
The only issue that I have right now is my dependence on nicotine. Not necessarily a bad thing because Alzheimer's disease is in my family's gene pool (and nicotine can push that back), but then again nicotine can lead to heart disease, and it's not all that great for your kidneys.
Anyone else here got a great story about quitting smoking?
 
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I did much the same, though I did smoke when I was in China/Korea this summer because my e cig crapped out on me the week before and to be honest I am not sure I'd trust what I was able to find for liquid in the mainland. I barely trust some of the stuff you'll see in shops here in Minnesota.
I honestly think it is probably the best way to quit for a lot of people. I'm down to 10 mg nicotine when I was up at 18 to start back in the spring.
How is the regulation over there for the liquids beyond not being able to add nicotine.
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On December 16 2015 22:46 ThomasjServo wrote:
I honestly think it is probably the best way to quit for a lot of people. I'm down to 10 mg nicotine when I was up at 18 to start back in the spring.
How is the regulation over there for the liquids beyond not being able to add nicotine.
I use my e-cig right in front of the cops here. There's nothing illegal about using one, regardless of whether or not there is nicotine. The only part of e-cigarettes that is illegal in Taiwan is selling juices that contain nicotine.
18mg down to 10mg? Did you use one of those e-cigs that looks like a fat pen or do you use a box mod?
I used to use the thick-looking-pen types, but now I use a battery-box with big fat tanks and inhale on bottles that have 6mg of nicotine. Most of the stuff I vape was made in Malaysia.
Nowadays ordinary cigarettes taste awful to me, and I can't stand to be downwind of a person smoking real ones.
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On December 16 2015 22:57 BreAKerTV wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2015 22:46 ThomasjServo wrote:
I honestly think it is probably the best way to quit for a lot of people. I'm down to 10 mg nicotine when I was up at 18 to start back in the spring.
How is the regulation over there for the liquids beyond not being able to add nicotine. I use my e-cig right in front of the cops here. There's nothing illegal about using one, regardless of whether or not there is nicotine. The only part of e-cigarettes that is illegal in Taiwan is selling juices that contain nicotine. 18mg down to 10mg? Did you use one of those e-cigs that looks like a fat pen or do you use a box mod? I used to use the thick-looking-pen types, but now I use a battery-box with big fat tanks and inhale on bottles that have 6mg of nicotine. Most of the stuff I vape was made in Malaysia. Nowadays ordinary cigarettes taste awful to me, and I can't stand to be downwind of a person smoking real ones.
Oh I understood, the legality of it, though it does seem strange to me that you can't sell it with nicotine. I don't know much about Taiwan relative to the mainland though. It was strange enough I didn't see people smoking in restaurants in Beijing this summer
I just was curious if you had any insight as to how the liquid you are using was made. The anti smoking groups have upped their efforts with liquid in the states and made some valid points about the potential for flavoring to contain some harmful chemicals albeit not at the levels your average pack of smokes would. Was on my mind this morning, even wrote the shop I go to about how they make theirs.
I have the Kbox mini so I guess that is a mod rather than the pen style ones. I opted for whatever took the least amount of attention. I even broke the first tank that came with it, went into a shop and said, I want something at a slower speed because I don't care to rebuild everything every time I want to change whatever. It is more a nicotine delivery device than the hobby some folks have made it to be here in the states, at least for me.
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compositions I'm not so sure of. What I can say is most of the malaysian stuff I vape uses all natural ingredients.
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On December 16 2015 23:54 BreAKerTV wrote:
compositions I'm not so sure of. What I can say is most of the malaysian stuff I vape uses all natural ingredients.
Fair enough, like I said, was just on my mind this morning. Gl keeping it up. I know I have trouble even touching cigarettes anymore as well. best of luck at the new job as well.
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I need to quit too, thanks this blog was awesome.
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I thought the title was a Hedberg-esque joke at first.
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My brother tried to stop smoking about 5 times in the last two months, each time proudly declaring that he's confident that he's doing it for real this time around. Longest time he's lasted is about 36 hours, lowest was literally 15 minutes. Median would be about 4 hours, I would say.
He's increasingly having issues breathing and coughing blood and all that he works in an environment that has a lot of dust and requires him to wear a mask so he basically tells himself "it's not the 20 cigarettes a day, it's the cement". To be fair the cement certainly doesn't help but -_-.
He tried vaping but the studies that showed that vaping is bad for your health and the media spinning it as "vaping is just as bad as smoking and maybe worse" killed it for him. Yay.
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I haven't really tried to stop smoking, but there are times where I'll be too poor to afford it and go a few weeks without. I mean, I'm not coughing up blood, can still ride my bike a great deal without any physical side effects...I know I'm being stupid but I just can't get motivated to quit. And this is from an almost pack a day smoker for the last 5 years or so.
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I started smoking when I was 15 or 16. Gradually built up the amount of smoking until I was averaging a pack a day when I was 19 or 20. Combining that with friends that smoke and working in environments where smoking is normal a lot made it very much a part of my every day life.
Then about a year ago, when I was 27 I decided I wanted to quit so I just quit cold-turkey. Haven't smoked a cigarette since. In my opinion the e-cigs, vaping, nicotine gum, or just simply trying to "decrease the quantity" bit by bit is a stupid approach and I have rarely if ever heard that turn into a success story.
What worked for me was that when I quit I just completely banished smoking from my life. Didn't talk about it, didn't think about it. Didn't even tell any of my family and friends until they found out by themselves. Smoking is like a cheating girlfriend that probably has STD's but you have been with her so long it's too hard to let go. Best solution is to dump her ass and not spend every night looking at a picture of the two of you while crying in your room but to move on, and not think about it.
Even a year after having quit I still think and dream about smoking at times, but the craving is gone. Even better yet, the smell of other people smoking is starting to become off-putting for me... Who would've thought xD
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On December 17 2015 16:13 B.I.G. wrote:
Even a year after having quit I still think and dream about smoking at times, but the craving is gone. Even better yet, the smell of other people smoking is starting to become off-putting for me... Who would've thought xD Congratulations on cutting your dependence on nicotine completely.
I basically just have a twice as expensive habit that achieves more or less the same effect.
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On December 17 2015 16:13 B.I.G. wrote:
I started smoking when I was 15 or 16. Gradually built up the amount of smoking until I was averaging a pack a day when I was 19 or 20. Combining that with friends that smoke and working in environments where smoking is normal a lot made it very much a part of my every day life.
Then about a year ago, when I was 27 I decided I wanted to quit so I just quit cold-turkey. Haven't smoked a cigarette since. In my opinion the e-cigs, vaping, nicotine gum, or just simply trying to "decrease the quantity" bit by bit is a stupid approach and I have rarely if ever heard that turn into a success story.
What worked for me was that when I quit I just completely banished smoking from my life. Didn't talk about it, didn't think about it. Didn't even tell any of my family and friends until they found out by themselves. Smoking is like a cheating girlfriend that probably has STD's but you have been with her so long it's too hard to let go. Best solution is to dump her ass and not spend every night looking at a picture of the two of you while crying in your room but to move on, and not think about it.
Even a year after having quit I still think and dream about smoking at times, but the craving is gone. Even better yet, the smell of other people smoking is starting to become off-putting for me... Who would've thought xD
Cold Turkey or via other means is mostly down to physiology not psychology. You're blessed in that you could stop easily. For a lot of people, they really can't. (Nicotine, beyond the addiction aspect, has beneficial aspects that a lot of people get adapted to, so it's akin to just trying to stop eating for a lot of people.)
On one other point, yes, being downwind from a Smoker is pretty terrible. As I happen to have both a sensitive nose and lungs, it pretty much prevents me from being around people smoking. Which is kind of why smokers lost the PR war in the first place. Externalities and all that fun stuff.
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Well, good luck to everyone trying to quit. Never an easy, but very much a noble goal and something you can draw great pride from when you succeed.
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Used to be pretty heavy smoker. Like, goddamn heavyweight. I can smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day (it's cheap dirt in here like $1 a pack). And then like half a year ago, out of nowhere I decided to quit (as a chain smoker at least).
It's funny when I remember now since I'm a HUGE fans of smoking. Tried almost every single brand I can find (local or import).
Now I only smokes when situation needs me to since smoking is something people (especially men) normally do in here. Kinda like an ice breaker, but even that I rarely smoke (about 4 times a month, 1 or 2 sticks every time I) so I guess I'm a social smoker now.
I never went nicotine withdrawal, or feeling like I crave one. Or at least that's what I feel.
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I like smoking a little but never sure if there are still side effects or how much. Not really trusting very one sided ads about how smoking regardless of frequency increases your cancer chance by this big percentage and whatever kind of smoker you are you must start quitting now (even heard there is a "health" industry making money out of people trying to quit smoking that finances these lines of thought in research, law and public communication from this website : http://www.freedom2choose.info/ ). But I wonder about other effects for smoking a little (like 3-5 cigarets a day), like skin or bloodflow mainly. Maybe it's nothing. I wish there was more serious research about this, the effects of smoking a little. It doesn't seem very well documented most of the time, very one sided about the worst effects only. You'd expect actual scientific research to explore the other side as well, how it can not be so harmful.. Someone told me some doctors tell pregnant women that 3cigarets a day is pretty much the same as not smoking because your body clears daily this amount of the toxins. So if you smoke 3 cigarets in a day it's all cleaned and gone... Don't know. Sometimes I stop, sometimes I smoke again, can't decide^^ When I just smoke a little, I enjoy it.
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EPT
