Been trying to give up, or at least cut down smoking for a very long time, and failed. It's getting a bit stupid now (unbelievable levels of wheezing and health paranoia), so I splashed out most of the money I had left on one of those electronic cigarettes, with the vapour "smoke" and the silly little glowing end.

Anyone tried them? I've heard lots and lots of good stuff about these weird things, but I seem to be having a few teething troubles. No problem with the basic function - to transfer nicotine into my body without a load of tar and shit going with it. A few experimental puffs and I've got that full-on nicotine poisoning feeling, like at the end of writing an article when I've got through practically a whole pack. Not fancying a real cigarette right now.

And yet I sort of am, because there's something predictably unsatisfying about these things. They're supposed to give you a real sense of smoking, and that's not just ad-blurb, I've been assured by lots of real people that this is indeed the case. Well it didn't give me a real sense of anything, but I think I might be doing something wrong. When I try to draw on it, I hear the sound of air rushing, and it's like sucking up glue through a straw - I practically go cross-eyed, and still barely get a few wisps of vapour. Figuring there must be a leak, I unscrewed it all and put it back together, but clearly this must have disturbed something: I sat back to draw on it again, and got a mouthful of nicotine liquid, which wasn't terribly pleasant. Undaunted, I put in a new cartridge, and found it still wasn't really giving me much. Rather like smoking a spliff that's been rolled much too tightly, if anyone's familiar with that. Quite frustrating. And still that hissing sound, as if the air's escaping somewhere.

The concentration of nicotine in the cartridge must be incredibly high, anyway, as just this sparrow-puffing has made me feel all smoked out (but then I got that from the horrible Nicorette "inhalator" which came free from the NHS). What I don't have is the satisfied feeling that comes from smoking real cigarettes - the sense of something having been through your chest, if you know what I mean. Which means that right now, even though my physical cravings have been knocked into the middle of next week, I'm still psychologically desperate for a smoke. I shall try to persevere.

Didn't Matt P mention them on another thread recently?

Can't remember.

Pointers and laughers will be interested to hear that I'm just about to light up an actual cigarette, in desperation.

Indeed he did.

True poetic justice here: I've managed to spill the contents of my ashtray all over my desk.

Matt P to thread, then.

Yes Matt, I even PMed you about it...

I have a friend who swears by them, and I had a go but they didn't really fill the void.

Rather like smoking a spliff that's been rolled much too tightly

Ding! Exactly that.

"give up"

I know it's just a phrase, but it has always struck me that thinking of stopping something which will kill you as "giving up" is unlikely to help. And in the case of smoking, what is the giving up-ness?

I could give you a couple of the techniques I give to people doing smoking cessation hypnosis (which I hate doing, by the way), but I'm not sure if it'd frustrate you more.

That might be good, actually. Although I'm one of those unhypnotisable people, partly because I know how it works and I'm conscious of that, and partly because I'm just incapable of any kind of relaxation.

I've just started a course of Champix. And it's working perfectly. If the intent is to make you so nauseous that you don't want to put anything in your mouth.

An annoying ex-smoker writes:

I appreciate that many people have successfully given up using nicotine replacement, but I wonder sometimes if it's the best approach.

The reason I say that is the nicotine withdrawal isn't actually that uncomfortable. My personal breakthrough moment was when I realised the things that kept me smoking (and made me fearful of giving up) were overwhelmingly psychological.

I'd had two previous attempts at giving up, which were awful, but the third attempt -- where I approached it from a completely different psychological viewpoint -- wasn't that bad at all.

(I will add at this point that I'm a disciple of Allen Carr.)

Allen Carr is, or rather was, an annoying git with a horrible writing style. But he was right about smoking, pretty much.

(Which is not to say that his "method" can or should work for everyone)

Stumpy Pepys wrote:
My personal breakthrough moment was when I realised the things that kept me smoking (and made me fearful of giving up) were overwhelmingly psychological.

I realised that ages ago, but rather than being a breakthrough moment, it was the moment I got really, really gloomy about my prospects of ever giving up. I'd rather just put my head down and sweat through a week of misery than have to retrain myself psychologically, which not so very great at.

I've been a very keen smoker for fifteen years or so, but think I might have accidentally given up. It's been about a month now and I've not really missed it.

This will be my current circumstances: I'm halfway through a five-month contract (after some fraught months of unemployment) in a job where I don't have a lot of work to do. No stress, money's coming in, and I don't have to look for another job just yet. Plus I'm not trying to write, edit or research five separate articles in the spare time I have, which has been something of a (generally fruitless!) habit I've picked up over the years. My previous conscious attempts to give up never really got off the ground.

It's a psychological addiction, all right, but as Taylor says, that's the problem. I do know a couple of people who've successfully used those inhalers as emergency measures rather than regular substitutes - just for that moment when you crack down the pub, remember a couple of drags in that cigs are just a bit crap, but finish it off anyway and get drawn in again. But I also know one who'd wake up in the morning and stick three in his gob at once, desperate to get some kind of kick from them.

Yeah, what stumpy said basically. After trying numerous replacement techniques and failing, I went cold turkey about 18 months ago and it worked.

You just need a really strong incentive. Mine came when I was coughing up flecks of blood and became paranoid I had lung cancer and terrified I wouldn’t get to see my daughter grow up. She happened to walk into the room when I was having a particularly heavy coughing fit and the self loathing her concern for me induced, was incentive enough for me to pack it in.

I live with a smoker and I still get the odd craving, but it's amazing how quickly those daily milestone fags no longer seem so important. The cigarettes that act as punctuation marks throughout the day, well, the good news is that after a while, you just don't think about them any more.

I think the thing to remember is that people are different.

Hey Taylor, the vaping community found you. We have a professional stalker; her name is Treece (hi Treece!)

Using an e-cigarette is a very personalized experience, as evidenced in another of their monikers, "Personal Vaporizer".

Get thee to vapersforum.com, if you want to be relaxed, or e-cigarette-forum.com for strictly information. There is a LOT of information to be had; more than I personally know, or can convey here in this little text box.

Part of the reason you might be having trouble with vaping is because you're not getting enough throat hit (the feeling at the back of your throat when you inhale smoke), but are getting too much nicotine if you're feeling dizzy and nauseous. There's quite a bit of a learning curve to figuring out e-cigs.

Regarding Champix: If you have underlying mental health issues, or might have one but it hasn't been diagnosed, DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT (Champix). Not all doctors are infallible, and some may incorrectly prescribe it to you. PLEASE do research into it before deciding you might want to try using Champix to quit smoking.

When I picked up an e-cig, it was not my intention to quit smoking, but 4 days later I did so quite by accident. Vaping is a way to give up smoking without giving up nicotine.

And it tastes way better than the patch ;)

Edit: Here are some vendors that ship in Europe:

www.vapornine.com
www.totallywicked-eliquid.com/
www.ivapour.co.uk/
www.e-cigs.co.uk/

I'm not sure whether that's just sophisticated spam or a genuinely nice personal message, but hello anyway. I do need to look into this stuff, as it happens, as despite my unfortunate first day on the fake fags (getting a capsule-load of nicotine liquid in my mouth and almost poisoning myself), I can really see the appeal, and it's certainly true that after puffing on the stick for a while I didn't need the real thing for several hours. Not sure it tastes better than a patch, though - the sickly-sweet taste of an Intellicig is its major failing, as far as I can see. Apparently you can get different flavours... mint choc chip etc. Not sure about that, to be honest.

But I'll certainly second this:

Orbdragon wrote:
Regarding Champix: If you have underlying mental health issues, or might have one but it hasn't been diagnosed, DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT (Champix). Not all doctors are infallible, and some may incorrectly prescribe it to you. PLEASE do research into it before deciding you might want to try using Champix to quit smoking.

Champix is a re-branded antidepressant, promoted as a stop-smoking aid without reference to its primary purpose. It can make people go very odd indeed (suicidal, in extreme cases). Someone like Charlie Brooker wrote a thing about it in The Guardian a while back - it got him off the fags but had some really scary side effects, which sounded all too familiar to me from my own run-in with brain medication.

I'm definitely a human being; my username pops up all over Google and most of it is really me. For better or worse >.<

Most people get a drip tip and drip a few drops directly onto the atomizer. Since the Intellicig is an M401 (I think) you can pull off the cartridge and just dip the exposed bridge right into the juice. You might return it, as 401s are fairly uncommon, and hard to find budget replacement parts for, even online. The 510, 808, and 901 models are the most common, with the 510 vastly leading the pack. We're only just met, but I would personally vouch for the 510. It's extremely newbie-friendly, and veteran vapers like it, too.

The reason juices invariably tend towards sweet is because of the medium: both propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin are more synergistic (that's a terribly trendy word and I hate myself for using it, but it's appropriate in this context) with fruit and candy flavors. Savory flavors are currently vomit-worthy, but juice vendors are doing their very best to make one, because sometimes you want a crisp and not cake.

I have not personally tried ECOPure, but some vapers like it. I adore DIYFlavorShack, but they don't ship to the UK. The two juices I've tried from Vapor9 weren't bad, though.

Believe it or not, a cartridge full of juice probably won't kill you. It might make you very sick for up to 4 hours (the half-life of nicotine is very short), but it won't kill you. The LD50 for nicotine is anywhere from .5mg/kg for lightweights, to 1mg/kg for heavy smokers. You would have to have some VERY strong juice to hit the LD50 with just a cartful. If you stick with vaping, you will learn more about chemistry, electronics, and biology than you knew you wanted to.

Also, politics >:(

(Have you seriously licked a transdermal patch before? Yick!)

Edit: The Evolution of Vaping, from newbie to veteran. This might save you some money and significantly lessen your learning curve: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nWbOrWyJvQ