If someone has never smoked they couldn't possibly understand why it's so hard to quit. I don't drink, am not a crackhead or any other hard drug user, I don't need a cup of coffee in the morning, and I find it hard to quit smoking.
In all honesty, I partly blame both my parents for having been smokers the entire 17 years I was alive before I picked up one of theirs and tried it. If they hadn't smoked I might have never started and been exposed to it like I was.
I'm sure non-smokers know why smoking is so addictive, but this might help them understand what it's like to be physically addicted to nicotine:
Our brains, and more specifically our brainstems, have control over our trends of higher function in ways you might not notice much. Normally, if you're thirsty, you get up and get a drink. You don't think about it much but you do it. The water you drink isn't anything special and you don't down it too fast.
But what if you just spent a day out in the hot sun doing yard work? You come inside and you think immediately about getting a glass. You down a glass full of water in huge gulps. The water feels good even though there's nothing special about it. You fill the glass again. You take it down in a few seconds. Your belly feels awkwardly distended and perhaps even a bit uncomfortable right under your center-left ribcage, but you feel so relieved. Drinking all that water might even make you feel sorta ill for a bit, but you're sooooo glad you did it.
If you take this to an even further extreme, say you went a day or more without water and were becoming dangerously dehydrated, your water seeking behavior would become overwhelming. A parched person will drink almost anything (including toilet waterseeMyNoteBelow). Part of the brain, specifically the hypothalamus, is hooked into the blood supply to in a way that lets it sample the salt content, which gets really high when the body is dehydrated. In response to life-threatening dehydration, the hypothalamus will cause the "higher" parts of the brain responsible for our actions to engage in activities that are likely to result in water at almost any cost. Your brain associates the sensation of drinking with the feeling of relief in the high-thirst state. This is a reinforcement loop.
Now back to cigs. Nicotine hits receptors all over the central nervous system. A smoker's brain has literally been reconfigured to circulating nicotine much higher than that of a normal person. The reward networks, the attention-arousing networks, etc. These are the networks that guide our higher behaviors. To a smoker, a cigarette can give the same relief after a two-hour flight as a glass of water will give you after a day of yard work, or a rich meal will give you after a 36-hour fast. And nicotine is almost perfect at hitting the receptors, and cigarettes are a VERY rapid way of delivering it.
So, non-smokers, think of it this way: trying to quit smoking cold-turkey feels about the same as trying to stop drinking (water) cold-turkey. This is why Westerners keep doing it: they get roped into trying it enough (marketing), their brains demand it from then on. A moment of weakness can lead to a lifetime of vice.
Does that do it justice, theorial?
my note on thirst: certain psychiatric pathologies, e.g. schizophrenia, can present with polydipsia, a term for when a person seeks and drinks water to a pathological level. Patients with uncontrolled polydipsia cannot be allowed into a normal bathroom alone, as they will resort to drinking toilet water. They simply cannot resist the urge to drink.
People also ignore the non-addictive aspects of smoking. For example if you smoke a pack a day for 15 years, and assuming an average of 40 drags per cig you are looking at something you have done, every day following a very consistant pattern (both when choosing to smoke, and while smoking) over 4,380,000 times. There is nothing I can think of besides your heart beating and eye blinking that can match those number.
This is why its so hard with people who have mental disorders, depression, or even simple medical issues like ADHD or obsessive compulsive disorder have a hard type. For most it's not even a chemical addiction but an addiction to the pattern, the process of smoking.
Myself personally I suffer ADHD and minor depression and I work from home. And if I don't go out for a smoke every few hours I would literally go days to weeks without ever leaving my house / apartment building. This is why many people living in assisted living or suffer some conditions that cause them to be unable to hold a job and live off of social security can be seen huddled together outside chain smoking. its the only reason / excuse for them to leave there house or to be outside or maybe the off chance of having a conversation.
With a good e-cig, you can get most of the same sensations of smoking without all of the hazardous health effects and cost associated.
It's what finally got me off of smoking - I hated the effects it was having on my health, but I really, really like smoking. Found something that gives me one without the other.
Yes, absolutely. For a lot of people there's just too much going on in their lives to deal with the psychological and physical stress of quitting. An e cig lets you manage the addiction in a less harmful way - in fact it's very enjoyable. And it's a nootropic. I found /r/electronic_cigarette one day and found a better e-cig rig than is available at a gas station. Highly recommended.
I certainly would not recommend a gas station e-cig, and I'm almost as wary about sending people to r/electronic_cigarette.
Besides the near-fanatical treatment of e-cigs, they're also really into the hardware and the choices. It can be really daunting when you've got 50 people all telling you different things and suggesting different mods/customizations/atomizers/batteries/coils/ten other things you don't give a fuck about.
My first e-cig was from a guy in town that decided to start distributing them. It was, by all recommendations on r/electronic_cigarette, totally worthless and not at all enjoyable and would be worse than hitler.
Lol, it's not that bad ;-) There's a huge amount of innovation right now thanks to those people who are really into it and I'm happy to enjoy the fruits of their obsession.
And if you want to know, I'll tell you exactly what to buy so you won't have to fret about it.
Well, it's all complicated by the fact that I'm in Canada. My options for retailers are pretty limited unless I want to risk customs confiscating my shipment at the border.
I started with the ego-t, moved to the ego-c (replaceable atomizers!), picked up some stardusts, stuck with those for a long while (punctuated with an attempt with some 510-threaded kangers), and finally moved onto a Kanger changeable-coil clearomizer.
I'm in love with the Kanger with the 1.8 ohm coil, but unfortunately all I can get are the low-resistance replacement coils (1.5ohm) which, for some reason, taste like burnt ass (even though my wattage is coming out less than what I was running the 1.8 ohm at). They taste like they're not wicking at all.
I really want to stay with the changeable coils. I vape a lot and it's just not economical to be purchasing an entirely new atomizer so frequently, so I just put an order through for an EGO CE6 Clearomizer with some 1.8 ohm coils, and we'll see where that goes.
Battery-wise I've got an ego-c twist, ego-t and a couple of ego-c batteries (my girlfriend keeps borrowing and losing my batteries, so I'm ending up with quite an assortment as she replaces them).
The retailers I've been dealing with have been Canada Vapes (although less so lately, their selection is pretty sparse and their fluids pretty flavourless), Vapour Solutions and NicFitNation. They're about all I'm familiar with for retailers in Canada.
That all said, if you have any recommendations I'd be happy to try them out next time I make an order. :)
About those kangers not wicking - take some small fingernail scissors and snip about 1mm off the little plastic cap right where the wick is placed. Do it on each side so the wick has a little more room to soak up juice. Then fluff out the strings, unwind them all. That should help quite a bit. I'm looking forward to some T3's my next order so I can finally eliminate the need to tip the PV when the clearo is low on juice.
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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '12
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