<p>Has anyone out there had any experience with the new e-cigarettes. I am a heavy smoker who knows it is bad for me and have tried 9 times to quit. I did hypnosis, the patch, the lozenze, cold turkey. I was not successful. I’m wondering if this will help. Any experience?</p>
<p>Will it help at what?</p>
<p>The root issue here, as it is (was) for all of us smokers, is a junkie drug addiction to nicotine. The nicotine is a blisteringly addictive drug that hijacks key receptors in the brain, thus altering brain chemistry and causing a physical need to maintain high levels of the drug in the bloodstream. It’s the exactly the same as being a heroin junkie, except that nicotine forces the need for a fix all day, every day, for our entire lives. It’s a horrible way to live.</p>
<p>If your goal is to remain a nicotine junkie, controlled by the drug all day every day for your entire life, but to smoke fewer cigarettes, then switching to an alternate delivery mechanism for your drug (such as nicotine gum or the e-cigarette) is a valid approach. It probably won’t help you permanently stop smoking, because as an active nicotine junkie, you will eventually return to the best delivery mechanism that gives you the biggest “pow” to the brain receptors – cigarettes. But, it may help you smoke fewer and delay the health issues. </p>
<p>If your goal is to get freedom from a horrible life of drug addiction controlling you like a ball n’ chain around your ankle, then e-cigs aren’t going to help with that. The ultimate solution is to stop using the drug. Then, the craving goes away. You’re done with it. Nicotine addicts are the only people who crave cigarettes. Each dose relieves the craving, but guarantees that new craving will begin in an hour or so.</p>
<p>The secret is to change the way you think about smoking. Instead of feeling like you are “giving up” something if you quit, you want to realize that you are gaining a wonderful new life, one that is better than being a junkie in every imaginable way. </p>
<p>Here are some resources. The first group are some selected links from the best free nicotine cessation website:</p>
<p>[WhyQuit</a> - the Internet’s leading cold turkey quit smoking resource](<a href=“http://www.whyquit.com%5DWhyQuit”>http://www.whyquit.com)
[Joel’s</a> Jukebox - Audio Quit Smoking Lessons](<a href=“http://whyquit.com/joel/mp3/listen.html]Joel’s”>Joel's Jukebox)
[Free</a> PDF Version of Freedom from Nicotine - The Journey Home, by John R. Polito](<a href=“http://ffnicotine.com/free.html]Free”>http://ffnicotine.com/free.html)</p>
<p>You also probably want to read a book called “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking” by Allen Carr. Or, instead of wasting money on an e-cig purchase, spend $149 for the on-line webcast version of the Allen Carr seminar:</p>
<p>[Quit</a> smoking online with our stop smoking web seminar](<a href=“http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/Webcast.aspx]Quit”>http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/Webcast.aspx)
[Allen</a> Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking > Webcast > FREE clips > Video Example 2](<a href=“http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/Webcast/FREEclips/VideoExample2/tabid/128/Default.aspx]Allen”>http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/Webcast/FREEclips/VideoExample2/tabid/128/Default.aspx)</p>
<p>What’s an e-cigarette?</p>
<p>An e-cigarette is an electronic device that looks like a plastic cigarette (even down to a glowing red LED at the end). It has a heating element that vaporizes liquid nicotine, allowing the nicotine to inhale the vaporized nicotine (like water vapor or steam).</p>
<p>The are being pitched as “healthy” cigarettes, disregarding the fact that nicotine is an insectide poison, more deadly drop for drop than rattlesnake venom. Actually, as a long-term addict maintenance delivery system, the e-cig may have some advantages over the nicotine gum and nicotine patch. I just hate to see people afraid to quit because they are bombarded with advertising (from tobacco and pharma) that quitting is impossible.</p>
<p>It’s a drug addiction. Fundamentally, all you have to do to quit is top taking the drug. There’s no monster. It’s no worse than healing from a broken arm. Six weeks “in a cast” that is not real pleasant. Then a few months of “rehabilitation”; in this case un-brainwashing yourself. Anyone can do it. We should be telling them they can; not bombarding them with messages that they can’t.</p>
<p>The e-cigarette also delivers “no nicotine” vapors as well.</p>
<p>a) Why would anyone smoke no-nicotine cigarettes or e-cigs? The tobacco companies have marketed no-nicotine cigarettes before. Nobody ever bought a second pack. The whole point (whether a smoker chooses to admit it or not) is to deliver the drug. Like a syringe or a crack pipe. Think about it. You would have to be literally insane to inhale smoke or vapor into your lungs unless it were giving you the dopamine release of nicotine binding to your brain receptors. Burning leaves? Vaporized glycerine? That’s insane.</p>
<p>b) To anyone who has kicked their nicotine addiction, I wouldn’t trust the marketing phrase “no-nicotine” for as long as it takes to say Joe Camel. “No-nicotine” often means trace nicotine which is deadly to a ex-nicotine addict. For example, the placebo patches in nicotine patch trials contain trace nicotine.</p>
<p>I was a smoker for 23 yrs. While I personally don’t agree with an e cigarette, I can see why someone would opt to try it. I just wanted to point out that the “no nicotine” one is only water vapor.
Research has shown the majority of people that have quit successfully have done it after trying several times. I believe in do whatever works. The e-cigarette has graduated nicotine levels in the cartridges as well as a 0 level of nicotine in a cartridge.<br>
I honestly know of no one who has used it and I have never seen one in public, even though they are allowed in places becasue they are not real cigarettes.</p>
<p>When I first saw them come out(several years ago), I contemplated getting one, but then had a moment of clarity of , why would I even imitate the motions of a habit that was hard to kick. Part of the addiction is holding the cigarette, seeing the lit head, inhaling, etc.
Personally, I don’t see it as a way of quitting, but rather away of doing something that can be done in public and private spaces where real smoking is banned.</p>
<p>thanks for the links interesteddad- did you use the allen carr stuff when you successfully quit smoking?</p>
<p>No. I didn’t hear of Allen Carr until several months after I had quit smoking. I was fortunate enought to stumble (Google saved my life!) on [url=<a href=“http://www.whyquit.com%5DWhyQuit.com%5B/url”>http://www.whyquit.com]WhyQuit.com[/url</a>] on the evening of my first day without cigarettes since Nixon was in the White House. Their no BS look at nicotine addiction and how to break it gave me the confidence to know I could quit. Their approach was developed by a guy name Joel Spitzer, who was the one of the first stop-smoking group leaders in the United States, doing his first 2-week group meetings in Chicago hospital in 1976 and soon thereafter for the American Cancer Society. Before that, I believed that I could never quit. I mean that message is pounded home with the combined marketing clout of tobacco and pharma. Look at their ads about quitting, going back decades. “You’ll turn into a shrew!” “You’ll be a nervous wreck!” “The stress will be overwhelming…” Nonsense. </p>
<p>The real truth is that being a nicotine junkie is incredibly stressful, especially now that it is shunned by society. Having to live your life from dose to dose, all day, every day, progressively unable to exercise and avoiding physical activity. The toll on your heath. Those looks from friends and relatives as you slink outside to smoke in the rain. Of course, I thought I “enjoyed” it. I wanted to keep smoking, but I just couldn’t handle the stress any longer! I had to quit. You’ll never hear that from a SmithGlaxo advertisement, but it’s the truth. </p>
<p>Allen Carr’s approach is virtually identical except that it costs money for his seminars, DVDs, and books. I recommend them both. His book is a must-read. I had a chance to watch the web seminar with a buddy and it’s just excellent. If a smoker has the money, I’d start with that to walk me through the final four hours of smoking and then shift immediately to the Spitzer day by day audio lessons and downloadable books.</p>
<p>I think Carr’s stuff is the best, bar none, at intially peeling away the blinders about nicotine addiction and changing the way a smoker looks at being a junkie. They would be the first place I would go to walk right up to the moment of quitting. I think [url=<a href=“http://www.whyquit.com%5DWhyQuit.com%5B/url”>http://www.whyquit.com]WhyQuit.com[/url</a>] does the best job of walking alongside a quitter through the first days, weeks, and months after stopping the use of nicotine. Carr tends to gloss over the real hurdles that people face while quitting, whereas [url=<a href=“http://www.whyquit.com%5DWhyQuit.com%5B/url”>http://www.whyquit.com]WhyQuit.com[/url</a>] has an article or podcast or video on every imaginable problem or issue someone could face. They are especially good at presenting the brain chemistry research and the physical aspects of the addcition. After giving clinics for 35 years, Spitzer’s seen it all.</p>
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<p>I can, too. I think that switching from cigarettes to other drug delivery devices (gum, e-cig, etc.) on a permanent basis is a significant net plus for any nicotine junkie. If they are going to be nicotine junkies, then finding almost any mechanism other than inhaling smoke will reduce the damaging effects of the junkie’s life. I’m totally supportive of that.</p>
<p>What I don’t support is the notion that switching to a an alternate nicotine delivery mechanism is likely to lead to quitting. Sure, it does for some people, but the bottom line is that this is a classic drug addiction that works on the addiction centers of the brain in exactly the same way as heroin, only more viciously because it’s reinforcing the addiction cycle 20 times a day, day after day, week after week, year after year. Smokers are trained by dopamine releases in their brain to be Pavlov’s dog on steroids. Ultimately, you’ve gotta stop using the drug.</p>
<p>I don’t like the message that e-cigs and other nicotine maintenance products send: that nobody can quit smoking without these crutches. IMO, believing that you do have the power to break the addiction is the key. It’s empowering. Plus, 90% of all ex-smokers have quit without these crutches, so it’s obviously not impossible.</p>