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Comment by nemacol | Hacker News Reader

This is my experience as well. 10 years of smoking analogs lead me to ecigs. Used ecig for 3 years. Went from 18mg to 0 in the last 6 months of me using. Continued using 0 nic for 2 months. Now I am 8 months clean of all nicotine products and 6 months clean of ecigs in general.

It was easy because of how gradual it was and that I was still able to satisfy the oral habit of smoking while kicking the chemical dependency. Smoking while driving was a huge hangup.

As a side note - if you buy good hardware and good quality liquid, the whole experiene is better than smoking as well. Forget the vape "culture". IMO ecigs are more convenient, taste better, feel better, and so on.

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Personally, I didn't want to give up nicotine. I just wanted to give up cigarettes.

So that's what I did. I took my carton money for the month and invested in a proper setup after doing my research. I spent time trying different juices until I found one I could use all day, every day.

That was 2 years ago. Everyone around me still smokes, but I've never even been tempted to go back. I smoked for 10 years as well.

That is wonderful. Glad you were able to kick the habit. Same with me- my intention was never to stop smoking... it just kind of happened. :D

Same story here. Smoker for 20 years, been vaping for 2. Started at 18 mg, went to 12, then 9 (made this myself by mixing equal parts 12 and 6). Currently at 6 mg. Already have large quantities of 3 mg and 0 mg juice purchased. When my supply of one strength runs out, I move on to a lower one.

I always make a point of sticking at each level for at least 2-3 months. This way I can be sure I've grown fully accustomed to one step before taking the next. In my view, reducing the nicotine content too quickly would increase chances of a relapse.

I noticed the same - I tried to jump too quickly from 18 to 12 to 6 to 3, once I hit 3 I started smoking again. It's a nice way to wean yourself off and gives you a ton of options for flavor, ingestion, and strength

> Went from 18mg to 0 in the last 6 months of me using. Continued using 0 nic for 2 months. Now I am 8 months clean of all nicotine products and 6 months clean of ecigs in general.

Congratulations!

But being a non-smoker, I don't understand. Can you explain why you couldn't have cut down on nicotine by just smoking fewer cigarettes per day?

Because cigarettes deliver nicotine very, very fast, giving an instant and pleasant rush. After an hour or so the nicotine level in your blood has fallen quite a lot and you'll be craving another one.

E-cig nicotine delivery happens slower and you avoid both the highs and the crashing lows. That makes it a lot easier to cut down to insignificant amounts of nicotine over a few months.

Tobacco smoke also contains monoamine oxidase inhibiting compounds, which are believed to drastically increase the addictive potential of nicotine. Rats are largely indifferent to nicotine alone, but will compulsively self-administer nicotine in combination with an MAOI.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320506... http://jneurosci.org/content/25/38/8593.long http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305703...

Cigarettes do give a more immediate and intense nicotine 'hit'. Ammonia compounds are added to cigarette tobacco, which increase the proportion of freebase nicotine to nicotine salts. Cigarettes are, in a very literal sense, the crack cocaine of nicotine delivery.

http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_623.pdf

In a lot of drugs, euphoria is at least partially proportional to the rate of blood level increase, e.g. [1].

[1] http://www.dddmag.com/article/2009/07/question-opioid-euphor...

As other have said better than I could have - analogs are more of a one size one dose kind of thing.

PLUS To change your dose you have to change your habit. With Ecig, to change the dose you just buy a different product, but your day to day (hour to hour) habits are the same as always.

Can you recommend any resources for this? I'd love to encourage some family members in this direction.

the ecigaratte subreddits are extremely helpful... they seem to have changed since i was using it (similar story to others.. smoked analogs for a decade, after about 2 years on ecigs I am not vaping or taking any nicotine).. this seems to be the best place: https://www.reddit.com/r/Vaping/

you can get a good setup for ~$50 then the heaviest users will spend like $30/month on juice (most users will spend a fraction of that)

/r/electronic_cigarette is the primary ecig subreddit. /r/diy_ejuice is a good resource for people interested in making their own eliquid. can't access the spreadsheet i made at the moment to check, but i pay somewhere in the order of a dollar worth of ingredients for 30ml of juice.

The mark up for juice at most vape stores is obscene, yet still manages to be cheaper than regular cigarettes. $15 for 30 mL at my local store, that lasts me on average 15 days. So it's still roughly half the price for a half pack a day smoker and 1/4 of the price for a pack a day smoker (assuming a very generous $5 a pack).

If you mix your own juice you're approaching savings that are better on an order of magnitude.

it's crazy how expensive some juices are, especially when a lot are pretty simple flavor profiles with lots of sweeteners and colorings added in.

once i found some diy recipes that i enjoyed, i made a pair of 120ml, and the cost savings from those two bottles alone covered all the ingredients and equipment (beakers, stirring rods, scale, bottles, etc). diy is especially worthwhile if your device guzzles juice like my geekvape griffin tank does.

diy or die on youtube is a great resource, here's one of the recipes i make regularly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlI8CvT8SCA

I'm a cheap bastard, so I just buy Chinese liquid. 50ml for 11 bucks.

If you're buying domestic juice you pay a premium for nothing special, from what I can tell. Also, the chances of it being made in a proper factory are basically nil. It's often someone else's DIY garage juice at a 10000% markup.

Yeah, I'd agree on the markup part for sure. From my experience the quality difference between "premium" and cheap juice is small but noticeable. These days I only buy juicse with flavors that are tough to work with, coffee and chocolate in particular.

I haven't kept up with the new FDA guidelines since starting DIY about a year ago, but from what I remember a lot of the little garage brands are going to be in trouble. My buddy used to work at Apollo out in Concord and I know they take their juice seriously. I think it's shitty, but it's not because the line is dirty haha. Molecule Labs out in Benicia has a pretty cool facility as well.

If they had established flavors before the guidelines were put into place, they will be fine for now - just no new flavors. Unfortunately the hamstringing of innovation will eventually lead to their demise.

For sure, I take it they're able to start making new flavors again upon meeting the guidelines? Seems like it'll just force people to outsource manufacturing to somewhere like Molecule or just fold, which is a shame. It's been a lot of fun watching the industry explode over the last few years.

I highly recommend Vapejoose, they have 120ml bottles for $23.99, sometimes $20, and they offer free shipping over $50.

Three 120ml bottles last me close to an entire month. Local stores around here are also a rip-off (near Austin, Texas).

Thanks for the rec - I also hail from Austin so we are venting about the same obscenties :)

You're welcome! I live "near" Austin in that I live in Red Rock (no no not Round Rock).

Vaping is something I do A LOT of while post-processing photos! Do you perhaps have a photographic interest?

Also check out Rocky Top Vapor! 145ml for that price, and sometimes have sales where it's only $17 for 145ml. GREAT juice too. I love their Cereal Milk and Strawberry Fruit Chew flavors.

360ml a month??

That's more than 10ml a day! I know you're going to disagree and try to convince me otherwise, but that is an INSANE amount of liquid.

Hah yeah I agree it's absurd! However I enjoy vaping and it helps to calm anxiety that I get from my bipolar.

I should try and cut back some and reduce my nicotine dosage of 1.5mg down to 0mg but I don't mind the nicotine.

I'm also addicted to coffee so about 2-3 full Yeti cups a day. Woe is me!

Different tanks consume different amounts. If you subohm on a 2+ coil rig you will use a TON of product than 20w mod ever could. Maybe his equipment plays a significant factor into his volume consumed.

I tried my hand at mixing myself but was not successful. Could not make anything that I considered good. With the goal of simplicity I chose to buy pre-made coils and buy pre-made juice.

My setup was...

Sigelei 50W Watt Box Mod Kanger-subtank with OCC Vertical coil. 0.5 ohm

liquids: Ultimate Kringle (every day juice) Castle Long (every now and then)

As others have replied and as might know, the world of ecigs is rather large, poorly detailed (mostly), and can be expensive to start. That equipment worked really well for me at the time. But the "go to" gear may be different by now - I would stress that you research before you buy.

I have learned everything i know about ecigs from friends, ecigforums, youtube rewviews, and buying a lot of crappy equipment.

best of luck.

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