I quit vaping and it was awesome III
As a non smoker who took up vaping and quit I wanted to share my experience.
We here at VapeMate love vaping. We think everyone should do it, for a while. Giving up vaping was part of the life cycle of the experience and we were curious what it was like.
My time to give it up had come, I had picked a date and started preparations. I picked noon on a Friday to stop vaping.
The fam and I planned a weekend without any commitments and fortunately it turned out to be a rainy, dull weekend anyway so this really suited staying in and just chilling out.
I had gone out shopping and picked up lots of easy, good food and a ton of snack fodder, I heard that you can get really hungry during the process. Also procured was a huge box of 200mg Ibuprofen and enough red wine to suit a frenchman.
At noon I packed up my vape units, back in the box and called a vaping buddy to pick them up, to avoid temptation. The first bit was no big deal. There was enough ejuice in my system that a few huge deep breaths was enough to send me to the moon with nic buzz. The next morning I took two ibos to head off any headache and just chilled.
There was a funny kind of headache that kept edging in, a top of the head kind of pretty low intensity. Every time I became aware of if I took two ibuprofen and it disappeared in short order.
By Sunday I felt great, in a certain way, I was really doing it, and it was going well. Physically I felt better, that heaviness in the lungs had just evaporated. My circulation had improved, I’m no doctor and did not do any empirical tests on this, but my skin looked great and I could feel my blood pumping like crazy head to toe. The headache was there but was super manageable. This was going to be easy!
Monday was a day of dealing with my psychological need to vape. I’m a hardworking guy who gets shit done all day long, I deserve to vape if I bloody well want to. Why would I deny myself something so great and seemingly harmless? Whose fucking idea was this? Who was the dick who was making me give up something I loved? This sort of thing was in my head as I was trying to be upbeat and get my usual workaday stuff done. It wasn’t a lashing out sort of angry, just a low level mad at the world sort of thing.
Tuesday I felt like I was coming through the end of the process. On this day and for the rest of the week I had a new phenomenon come up. You get this feeling that you have forgotten something, there was something important that you were just about to go do, what was it? Oh, yeah. I don’t do that any more. The hard part was that you were sure that this thing was really cool and was going to be fun, like you had forgotten to open a gift. The disappointment was huge, it was only vaping all along. It also made it difficult to distinguish this from something important that you had actually just meant to go do.
The rest of the week I felt great. I wanted to go for a bike ride, lift those weights in the garage, play tag in the yard. Run, play. My mood improved, there wasn’t the vape, post-vape, pre-vape kind of updown in my mind and motivations. I took a lot less breaks and felt more focused. The whole quitting thing was really not as bad as I had imagined. Win.
I love vaping and think everyone should do it, for a while. When it is time to give it up my advice would be;
- Pick a date weeks away and tell your vaping friends about it, they will be waiting to call bullshit on your cheap plans and this is a great motivating factor.
- Plan out some time for yourself and actually stop vaping on your date, get rid of your gear and decide that you don’t do this thing any more.
- Ibuprofen, snack food and a ton of pirated internet movies are a must.
- Know that at some point you're going to be mad at the world and question your decision, but you’re a big kid and it’s just your brain chemistry playing tricks on you.
- Go for that bike ride when you feel like it, lift those weights. Play tag.
- Win. You have given up vaping and have every reason to be proud of yourself, even if you don’t brag about it to everyone. Do gloat to your vaping friends about how easy it was.
Giving up vaping was not nothing but it’s also not that bad either. You should do it! Even if you plan on vaping again someday, it’s good to take a break and get some perspective.
We here at VapeMate love vaping but if it’s time to give up or take a break we hope that my experience is helpful to you.
Good luck with your week and happy vaping!
Paul, Technical Manager