Update on E-Cigarette

Realized maybe I should tell those who have attributed my bitchy behavior to quitting smoking -- Yeah, I'm kinda quitting. Though I don't know if I can blame that for shortness of temper and low frustration tolerance. I've always had those. (Edit: Though I remember now-- sometimes I forget to smoke or hit the e-cig for a couple of hours, and I do wind up with some nicotine debt, and get a little snippy-snappy.)

Anyway, an update on how the e-cig is working in week two.

I've more or less stopped habitual smoking of actual cigarettes. On Saturday I had only one cigarette, and that one only after I felt a little frazzled over something. On Sunday like two; yesterday, three.

I gave away my last pack of cigarettes yesterday (something smokers don't often do) and had none today... well, except or a couple nasty butts I found in an ashtray.

So pretty much I'm mostly using the e-cig.

To update: I got the Titan 510 model that smoker-milf was praising on YouTube. At about the same time, I'd learned how to properly drag off the Smoking Everywhere model, and so I wasn't having much trouble with it anymore, and in fact had pretty must stopped cigarettes. My initial complaints about how hard it was to get vapor out of it were corrected; I just had to learn how to do it right.

The Titan model seemed at first no big shakes -- again, I had learned to like the other one -- but now I like it more. I like both though. The Titan's notably better, though. Not a huge amount better, but better. More vapor, longer-lived batteries. Cheaper, too.

At first, I was treating the e-cigs like a smoking cessation product, in that I would use them most of the day, and then give myself the dubious reward of a real cigarette. I did that last time I quit, with nicorette, until I kicked both.

And so I would look forward to the real cigarette.

But then, little by little, I stopped thinking about actual cigarettes at all, and began going pretty much all day without one. So, as far as that goes, a few days in and you've adapted to the e-cig and don't really crave or miss the real thing.

Oh, sometimes I do. But... I still have a real one on occasion, but I always expect it to be better or more satisfying, and it's just not. I think "Okay, here comes the real cigarette buzz," and it's not really any different. Worse, in fact, because then I start coughing again.

The real craving comes when I have a headache or have too little sleep. I figure the real cig will help. It doesn't really. But that's an old conditioned response.

Now, at this point, I don't know what to call myself. I am obviously still a nicotine addict (but less so, since I'm having less of it, and sometimes will forget about nicotine for a couple of hours straight; that right there is a weird thing for me).

And I am sneaking smokes, but I'm not really a full-time cigarette smoker.

I mean: If you're a smoker, you must have cigarettes in the house. As of now I don't, and I'm not planning on running out to get more.

Though I kind of wish I had that last pack.

Anyway. Overall, unless these things are as bad as cigarettes, I have to recommend them. Once you get past the start up costs (the Titan can be had for $70; replacement nicotine fluid that'll last for a month or two is $30) the cost spent on this dirty habit drops pretty low.

It's a really great thing, I think, that I haven't bought cigarettes now in over two weeks. I smoked one pack I already had bought over that period, one cigarette here and one there, and then gave away my last one. $45 a carton? No more, not for me.

I'm not sure yet, but I think because I'm becoming less conditioned to want or need nicotine I'm slowly giving up that aspect of the addiction too. So I may just stop completely in a few weeks. Given how hard it is to quit cigarettes, this transition has been relatively easy. And something about it discourages oversmoking, so I'm reducing my nicotine intake too.

Gotta say: If you're a smoker, try it. Big warning though on the first few days: You will not know how to properly smoke the things and will curse them for not giving you any vapor. And you will want to put it down and go back to cigarettes.

Once you habituate yourself to the right technique (which mostly comes naturally), you won't have a big problem with that. You'll have as much vapor as you want. Takes about three or four days, but it is kind of frustrating over those three or four days.

And one more thing: These things are still geared low as far as delivering nicotine to your system. So it's hard to get a real big blast of nicotine all at once, as you can easily do by just dragging harder on a cigarette and downing it quickly.

So at first you'll find you're in low-grade nicotine debt much of the time. You're not in withdrawal, since you do have nicotine in your system, always being delivered; just not as much of it, and not in the big spikes that cigarettes deliver.

That goes away as you start craving a bit less nicotine. Somewhat-- sometimes you'll really want a real dose and then the trusty cigarette looks good again. But the other thing is, like today, you might end up just forgetting to smoke, so you go into withdrawal without having intended to.

BTW: I ordered from Totally Wicked on a reader's suggestion. I don't know if the have the best prices or anything. I went with them just because I wanted the stronger dose of nicotine they offered.

No problems at all. Put in the order Tuesday night, got it delivered Wednesday Friday (corrected; brain isn't 100% today).

posted by Ace at 08:08 PM

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