brosh
Postman
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2014
- Messages
- 54
Hi guys,
My personal experience to date has been amazing with vaping, and I want to share it with someone else, whom it may help.
Background
I started smoking at 14. I'm now 24. I started vaping 2 months ago, and have no desire to smoke what-so-ever today. That's 10 years, at one point I was closing in on 60 a day (rollups), in the last 6 months of my smoking career I was on 20 straights a day (excluding the time I cut down to quit), and there were various times that I was pumping through 50g of pipe tobacco in 3 days. I had a few weeks a year of very expensive cigars, every year, and I've also squeezed into those 10 years several ounces of cannabis. I'm probably not what you'd define an addictive personality, but a habitual being whom knows what he likes and likes what he knows.
Getting started
I started smoking what I refer to as the "normal" way. I was a school kid, at the back of the field with a bunch of friends. I was offered a cigarette, and not to look ungrateful or to appear to have some superiority complex, I accepted and took my first cigarette with all the grace of Mr Clegg. Still, I felt cool enough, and next day had another, which inevitably led to the 10 a day from the shop by the school, bought on my behalf by a local who used to do just that. I didn't eat in the day, spent the money instead on cigarettes, and stole, lied and cheated to get the money for my habit. Life was bad, probably the lowest point I've been at was stealing money from my closest friends and family just to buy cigarettes.
The grip
Smoking isn't a habit, as much as it's described as one. Cigarettes are addictive, although the chemical addiction is minimal, if even noticable. I claimed to be addicted, I claimed to be in need of help, I told my GP I needed help, she referred me, the specialist "stop smoking" nurse told me not to bother quitting because she didn't think I was ready, and figured it would just weaken my moral. Everything I could see told me that smoking was addictive, and the only way to beat it was to spend the rest of my life looking at cigarettes as the cure to the pain of not smoking. This is what people would most likely define as an embedded impression. Something that is said so much, that one begins to believe it to be fact.
The trap
Smoking isn't actually all that addictive. Look at being a smoker the same way you might look at "having a cold". When you have a cold, you take lemsip, or whatever your go-to cold cure is. Lemsip, however, as with most drugs available for the common cold, isn't a cure, but a symptom leviator. It doesn't remove the illness, just the negative effects. Smoking is like that. The desire to smoke is cured, temporarily, by the process of smoking. It's not really a solution though, is it? The cure to the desire to smoke is not to smoke. The cure to the desire to smoke is the desire to not smoke, and the desire to not smoke can only come from your belief and acceptance that you want to not be a smoker any more. When you start smoking, you're gradually led to believe that each cigarette is a relaxing, rewarding experience. In reality, each cigarette is just one cigarette deeper into the trap that is smoking. You smoke because you smoke, not because you want to, are compelled to, or are addicted to it. We're told constantly that it smells fowl, and that it kills us, makes us worse people. It does all of these things, but the beauty of the trap is that cigarettes reduce the senses, they remove the ability to see how badly it really smells by damaging our taste buds. They provide that satisfaction by curing the temporary pain of not having smoked. They do all of these things, and yet we still believe that the smoke is the cure, and not the cause.
The great escape
The only way to truly escape the trap is to remove the desire to smoke. The way I went about that personally was to convince myself of the fact that smoking is not the cure, and to convince myself that once I'd stopped smoking I would notice the differences. If you cannot believe that you will notice the difference, you will not quit, if you do not believe that smoking is the cure only to itself, you will not quit, if you don't believe that the cure is only temporary, you will not quit.
Nicotine addiction myth
The quantity of nicotine in cigarettes is negligible. You wouldn't notice if you had a cigarette that didn't contain nicotine. You probably wouldn't notice if half the chemicals were missing. The feeling that you actually get from smoking is that of suffocation. The lack of clean air entering the lungs causes a feeling of suffocation, and the sensation of light headedness and general goodness. It gives you that buzz, adrenaline kicks in and you feel good. These are what you'll find difficult to replace. I couldn't believe this, and still don't, which is sad. This is where I and Alan Carr (not the chatty man) disagree. This is where I realised the solution to the problem of smoking.
The solution
Look at cigarettes in the light that people shed on them. They are bad, they will kill you, they taste and smell disgusting, they discolour your teeth, clothes, and if you smoke indoors your paintwork and property. They create a physical mess of ash and dog ends. They do nothing beneficial for you, short of giving you a short feeling of satisfaction. You still, however, feel you need to have them. They do feel fairly good. They do provide that satisfying relief of the pain that they cause themselves.
You still need:
The feeling of tranquility
We've resolved the Nicotine, Suffocation, the Smoke itself. We're still missing the feeling of tranquility. You know, when you sit down after doing some tasking chor for a few hours, and spark up to reward yourself. You relax, you almost fall into a trance like state. Everything feels warm and happy. Life has never been better, you've accomplished your goals, and you're treating yourself to a little stick of warm fuzziness. I've found a way to reproduce this, and I don't think I know of anyone who can't also achieve that. The secret? To put yourself in a state close to that of meditation. Sit in a comfy chair. Get yourself real fucking comfy. Slouch like a cat with a beer. Melt into your chair, and feel good about it. Place your hands on your knees, pop your vaporiser on the desk, coffee table, or in the wifes cleavage. Slap on some whale music, or whatever you find most relaxing. Dubstep, at this point, is banned. Chillstep is most welcome. Korean pop is banned, soft jazz is welcome. Just sit, place your hands gently on your knees, and close your eyes or focus on a single point. Feel your hands gently sinking into your knees. Listen to the beats of the music, and find a pace at which you can merge your bodies natural actions into the music. On every beat, every other beats, every 4 beats, or even every 8 or 16 beats, you should inhale. Exhale on the alternate. Breath slowly, and continue to allow your hands to sink into your knees. After 4-5 minutes of doing this, take a drag on your chosen vaping apparatus. Make it slow, smooth, and pause your breathing for 1, 2, 4, 8, or however many beats your inhalation was. Now inhale on the next set of beats, and hold it for a set of beats, then slowly exhale. Focus on your hands as they sink further into your knees. Do this at least once per day. Preferably in a quiet, secluded, but comfortable place for you. That could be on your bed, at your desk, on the sofa, at the pub, wherever, just make sure you won't be distracted (and won't look a complete prat). If you do this, and you do it right, you will experience something better than the best cigarette you have ever had. You will realise that tobacco is not a thing you need in your life, when something this good is available to you within just 5 minutes. Use this as a treat, however, and only when you have "earned" it. Do it after work, after your session at the gym, after you've washed the cat or fed the dishes. Do it when it feels right, and not too frequently.
Avoid the relapse
I still, 2 months after being cigarette free, walk past a smoker and get that strong whiff of a nice fruity smoke. I love it. I used to sit, at age 14, with a cigarette burning. I didn't often smoke it. I'd sit it in the ash tray, lit, and just smell the fumes. I loved the smell before I started, my taste buds were undeveloped and I couldn't smell the nasty bitterness of it. I imagine this differs for everyone, and that in reality this is very much a specific use case for quitting. However, I put on the bravest smug face I can muster in the environment (noone I know smokes apart from my sister, so it's typically in public that this happens). I feel good that I have overcome the urge to join in. I appreciate the smell still, to some extent, as there are certain brands of cigarettes that remind me of old friends who have long since been killed by ineffective treatment of the disease that is smoking, but at no point do I want that cigarette. At that point, I typically want that feeling of tranquility.
Alan Carr - The Easy Way
I couldn't write this without leaving credit to Alan Carr for his audiobook "Alan Carr - The Easy Way". It's available on Audible, and as a paperback on Amazon. Probably also available from your library or from Waterstones or whatever. If you appreciate this post, and it helps you or someone you know, please consider buying the book. If you do buy it, once you're free from the trap, pass it on and share it. Not just the book, but the benefits it has brought to you.
Finally
If bits of this don't make sense, or you just don't like it for whatever reason, drop a reply and I'll correct it or take on board whatever advice you might offer. This was written in less than an hour, and says a few things that contradicts itself (one of which being that if you don't believe X, you won't succeed). That's said more to emphasise the point that you need to believe a lot of the stuff people tell you, and you need to accept it as fact, in order to succeed. The contradiction should be overlooked as you find it and your final impressions should be what you consider the end result.
My personal experience to date has been amazing with vaping, and I want to share it with someone else, whom it may help.
Background
I started smoking at 14. I'm now 24. I started vaping 2 months ago, and have no desire to smoke what-so-ever today. That's 10 years, at one point I was closing in on 60 a day (rollups), in the last 6 months of my smoking career I was on 20 straights a day (excluding the time I cut down to quit), and there were various times that I was pumping through 50g of pipe tobacco in 3 days. I had a few weeks a year of very expensive cigars, every year, and I've also squeezed into those 10 years several ounces of cannabis. I'm probably not what you'd define an addictive personality, but a habitual being whom knows what he likes and likes what he knows.
Getting started
I started smoking what I refer to as the "normal" way. I was a school kid, at the back of the field with a bunch of friends. I was offered a cigarette, and not to look ungrateful or to appear to have some superiority complex, I accepted and took my first cigarette with all the grace of Mr Clegg. Still, I felt cool enough, and next day had another, which inevitably led to the 10 a day from the shop by the school, bought on my behalf by a local who used to do just that. I didn't eat in the day, spent the money instead on cigarettes, and stole, lied and cheated to get the money for my habit. Life was bad, probably the lowest point I've been at was stealing money from my closest friends and family just to buy cigarettes.
The grip
Smoking isn't a habit, as much as it's described as one. Cigarettes are addictive, although the chemical addiction is minimal, if even noticable. I claimed to be addicted, I claimed to be in need of help, I told my GP I needed help, she referred me, the specialist "stop smoking" nurse told me not to bother quitting because she didn't think I was ready, and figured it would just weaken my moral. Everything I could see told me that smoking was addictive, and the only way to beat it was to spend the rest of my life looking at cigarettes as the cure to the pain of not smoking. This is what people would most likely define as an embedded impression. Something that is said so much, that one begins to believe it to be fact.
The trap
Smoking isn't actually all that addictive. Look at being a smoker the same way you might look at "having a cold". When you have a cold, you take lemsip, or whatever your go-to cold cure is. Lemsip, however, as with most drugs available for the common cold, isn't a cure, but a symptom leviator. It doesn't remove the illness, just the negative effects. Smoking is like that. The desire to smoke is cured, temporarily, by the process of smoking. It's not really a solution though, is it? The cure to the desire to smoke is not to smoke. The cure to the desire to smoke is the desire to not smoke, and the desire to not smoke can only come from your belief and acceptance that you want to not be a smoker any more. When you start smoking, you're gradually led to believe that each cigarette is a relaxing, rewarding experience. In reality, each cigarette is just one cigarette deeper into the trap that is smoking. You smoke because you smoke, not because you want to, are compelled to, or are addicted to it. We're told constantly that it smells fowl, and that it kills us, makes us worse people. It does all of these things, but the beauty of the trap is that cigarettes reduce the senses, they remove the ability to see how badly it really smells by damaging our taste buds. They provide that satisfaction by curing the temporary pain of not having smoked. They do all of these things, and yet we still believe that the smoke is the cure, and not the cause.
The great escape
The only way to truly escape the trap is to remove the desire to smoke. The way I went about that personally was to convince myself of the fact that smoking is not the cure, and to convince myself that once I'd stopped smoking I would notice the differences. If you cannot believe that you will notice the difference, you will not quit, if you do not believe that smoking is the cure only to itself, you will not quit, if you don't believe that the cure is only temporary, you will not quit.
Nicotine addiction myth
The quantity of nicotine in cigarettes is negligible. You wouldn't notice if you had a cigarette that didn't contain nicotine. You probably wouldn't notice if half the chemicals were missing. The feeling that you actually get from smoking is that of suffocation. The lack of clean air entering the lungs causes a feeling of suffocation, and the sensation of light headedness and general goodness. It gives you that buzz, adrenaline kicks in and you feel good. These are what you'll find difficult to replace. I couldn't believe this, and still don't, which is sad. This is where I and Alan Carr (not the chatty man) disagree. This is where I realised the solution to the problem of smoking.
The solution
Look at cigarettes in the light that people shed on them. They are bad, they will kill you, they taste and smell disgusting, they discolour your teeth, clothes, and if you smoke indoors your paintwork and property. They create a physical mess of ash and dog ends. They do nothing beneficial for you, short of giving you a short feeling of satisfaction. You still, however, feel you need to have them. They do feel fairly good. They do provide that satisfying relief of the pain that they cause themselves.
You still need:
- Nicotine - I still don't believe I wouldn't notice the lack of nicotine.
- Suffocation - It feels so good, in spite of being a horrible idea.
- The wonderful sight of clouds drifting around as you exhale - how soothing.
- That magical feeling of tranquility, which only cigarettes provide.
The feeling of tranquility
We've resolved the Nicotine, Suffocation, the Smoke itself. We're still missing the feeling of tranquility. You know, when you sit down after doing some tasking chor for a few hours, and spark up to reward yourself. You relax, you almost fall into a trance like state. Everything feels warm and happy. Life has never been better, you've accomplished your goals, and you're treating yourself to a little stick of warm fuzziness. I've found a way to reproduce this, and I don't think I know of anyone who can't also achieve that. The secret? To put yourself in a state close to that of meditation. Sit in a comfy chair. Get yourself real fucking comfy. Slouch like a cat with a beer. Melt into your chair, and feel good about it. Place your hands on your knees, pop your vaporiser on the desk, coffee table, or in the wifes cleavage. Slap on some whale music, or whatever you find most relaxing. Dubstep, at this point, is banned. Chillstep is most welcome. Korean pop is banned, soft jazz is welcome. Just sit, place your hands gently on your knees, and close your eyes or focus on a single point. Feel your hands gently sinking into your knees. Listen to the beats of the music, and find a pace at which you can merge your bodies natural actions into the music. On every beat, every other beats, every 4 beats, or even every 8 or 16 beats, you should inhale. Exhale on the alternate. Breath slowly, and continue to allow your hands to sink into your knees. After 4-5 minutes of doing this, take a drag on your chosen vaping apparatus. Make it slow, smooth, and pause your breathing for 1, 2, 4, 8, or however many beats your inhalation was. Now inhale on the next set of beats, and hold it for a set of beats, then slowly exhale. Focus on your hands as they sink further into your knees. Do this at least once per day. Preferably in a quiet, secluded, but comfortable place for you. That could be on your bed, at your desk, on the sofa, at the pub, wherever, just make sure you won't be distracted (and won't look a complete prat). If you do this, and you do it right, you will experience something better than the best cigarette you have ever had. You will realise that tobacco is not a thing you need in your life, when something this good is available to you within just 5 minutes. Use this as a treat, however, and only when you have "earned" it. Do it after work, after your session at the gym, after you've washed the cat or fed the dishes. Do it when it feels right, and not too frequently.
Avoid the relapse
I still, 2 months after being cigarette free, walk past a smoker and get that strong whiff of a nice fruity smoke. I love it. I used to sit, at age 14, with a cigarette burning. I didn't often smoke it. I'd sit it in the ash tray, lit, and just smell the fumes. I loved the smell before I started, my taste buds were undeveloped and I couldn't smell the nasty bitterness of it. I imagine this differs for everyone, and that in reality this is very much a specific use case for quitting. However, I put on the bravest smug face I can muster in the environment (noone I know smokes apart from my sister, so it's typically in public that this happens). I feel good that I have overcome the urge to join in. I appreciate the smell still, to some extent, as there are certain brands of cigarettes that remind me of old friends who have long since been killed by ineffective treatment of the disease that is smoking, but at no point do I want that cigarette. At that point, I typically want that feeling of tranquility.
Alan Carr - The Easy Way
I couldn't write this without leaving credit to Alan Carr for his audiobook "Alan Carr - The Easy Way". It's available on Audible, and as a paperback on Amazon. Probably also available from your library or from Waterstones or whatever. If you appreciate this post, and it helps you or someone you know, please consider buying the book. If you do buy it, once you're free from the trap, pass it on and share it. Not just the book, but the benefits it has brought to you.
Finally
If bits of this don't make sense, or you just don't like it for whatever reason, drop a reply and I'll correct it or take on board whatever advice you might offer. This was written in less than an hour, and says a few things that contradicts itself (one of which being that if you don't believe X, you won't succeed). That's said more to emphasise the point that you need to believe a lot of the stuff people tell you, and you need to accept it as fact, in order to succeed. The contradiction should be overlooked as you find it and your final impressions should be what you consider the end result.
