Vaping works wonders because with custom mixed juice you can dial back the nicotine content to barely anything over time, then eventually to 0. In the meantime you just keep using it the same way.
Having done this myself, you’d be amazed how quickly you start going “WTF am I doing this for?” after that final step to 0.
There seems to have been a coordinated attempt to stomp out the idea of vaping as a smoking cessation tool, but given how relatively cheap and easy it can be, it’s hard for me not to pull out my tinfoil hat when I wonder why that was.
I tried cold turkey, gum, patches, wellbutrin, and probably other methods I’ve forgotten about over decades. With vaping it was a no brainer.
Not saying these other methods may not also work but I feel like technology has handed us the obvious solution, and while many ex-smokers have figured it out, seemingly no one else has.
That was my experience as well. I smoked for 20 years. One month, 6 years ago, I decided to take the money I would spend on cigarettes and instead use it to buy a really nice vape and juices. This was about $200 at the time since I felt it was the best way to make sure I didn’t give it up because I was being a cheapskate and not really giving it a fair shot.
For 2 weeks, I vaped 3mg juices and really liked it. I used menthol juices even though I never smoked menthol because it gave me that good throat hit and really scratched that itch. I then stepped it down to 0mg with my next purchase and went on vacation for my anniversary a week later. I didn’t want to damage my nice vape, so I left it in the room for most of the day and used it only in the mornings and evenings but started to get annoyed by the effort I was taking to “make time” to smoke. I never recharged it after that trip and haven’t had a cigarette since.
The stepping down that vaping offered me was invaluable, and even though I didn’t get the value use of my vape, I was worth it in the long run.
I am still not at 0 nicotine but even the health benefits from switching to vaping are impressive. You don’t need a tinfoil hat. It is pretty clear what the strategy was and it is disgusting.
As someone who has found themselves becoming slightly addicted to/fixated on the mechanical motions associated with vaping THC cartridges, I can imagine having some difficulty stopping that even if the vapor contained no THC. There is something soothing about the whole thing that keeps my mind occupied in a way. It’s hard to describe.
I felt exactly this way, but within a few weeks of yanking the nicotine out it started feeling dumb to me. YMMV of course, but you might be surprised at how your viewpoint changes once the active ingredient is no longer there. (I’m not claiming THC is like nicotine, just to be clear.)
“Inserting one firecracker at the end of one cigarette in every pack was effective at curbing smoking habits in .1% of the surveyed population. However that number skyrocketted to 99 5% on the cohort who suffered from PTSD”
Came here to say pretty much exactly that! Great minds etc
“using intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) applied to a specific brain region”
This research was funded by the US government
Or ya know, just try psychedelics
As someone who has had positive results from mixing ptsd and psychedelics without professional guidance, it’s a stupid thing to do. Psychedelics are great and when done properly they’re great for ptsd, but also a veteran having a challenging trip alone will be in a pretty bad position, but not all unpleasant trips are ultimately positive, and with ptsd it could make your trauma actively worse.
There’s other treatments as well, but “just try psychedelics” is a dangerous statement
Dangerous is a strong word.
I didnt say “do random drugs without thinking about consequences or set&setting”, but I also didnt think id need to explicitly tell people what to do and not do when I was trying to insert an alternative option. Certainly someone wanting to try a new drug MIGHT consider the effects of said drug before consuming. Or ya know, do their own research on why its an alternative option.
Tbf tho, I want to ty bc you gave a detailed response. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
Yeah I’ve just seen a lot of positivity without acknowledgement of the fact that there are serious functional differences between following best solo trip practices and what is being tried as a therapy. The main danger I see is that I have seen people who see the positivity without nuance and start to see it as a miracle treatment or who think that when we talk about it it’s more like taking most medicines as opposed to the reality that there’s a good chance it’s gonna be fuckin rough and part of how you get positive results comes from having a background in healthier coping mechanisms and practices. CBT techniques for example are something that really helped me get through the rough parts of my last challenging trip. One of the suspected mechanisms of action last I checked was exposure while in an altered state. The trips that help are sometimes not terrible, but they’re not the fun trips. I did research on lsd before I tripped, but I didn’t get much warning of the fact that the healing would involve confronting the trauma.
But yeah I know people who did psychedelics for years and recommend against them because of bad trips.
It’s an effective and powerful tool, but I’m grateful we’re pursuing other tools as well as destigmatizing and refining it.
PTSD can very easily turn into schizophrenia (I’ve seen it happen), and psychadelics are known to be one of the leading causes of schizophrenia. So I’m sure it has potential but I feel like there should be a less risky solution or at least more things to try first.
Sounds like youre talking about HPPD which can be triggered by psychedelics OR modern medicines like SSRIs
A lot of the bad stuff that can happen with psychedelics also happens with pharma meds of the same ilk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogen_persisting_perception_disorder
