Any good ideas for smoking/vaping alternative?

[megatabbers]

Last year I kicked a 15 year smoking habit with the e-cig. This week (~13 months after quit date) I decided it was time to give that up as well.

Naturally, I'm going through withdrawal but nothing like if I would have tried to kick cigarettes cold turkey. Nevertheless, I am munching quite a bit (just downed a tub of ice cream; 1,060 calories thank you very much).

Furthermore, I'm satisfying my oral fixation with hard candy (Jolly Ranchers). Now I eat 20+ per day which is 500 cals of sugars - easy. Not trying to be a girl with the calories but here I am trying to drop 15 lbs. of body fat (gymming it 6 x per week) and my candy habit isn't really conducive to that.

Any quitters in here that can offer some good suggestions to satisfy the oral fixation and hopefully not turn into a lard-ass over the next couple of months?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I love smoking! I fucking hate it that it's so bad for you. Wouldn't dream of quitting otherwise.

 

[tvieira24]

Self control.

Oral fixation or no, if you have the craving to stick something in your mouth, don't.

 

[cougarclaws]

there's no such thing as a physical addiction. The behavior pattern is part of your neurology. That's what you need to change. Chewing carrots doesn't break an addiction. It just adds another level to it. Here are a couple ideas to change the way you think:

Reflect on and make a list of all of the reasons you quit smoking. Get in touch with the reasons that really matter. Fuck this "because its expensive" shit. Stuff like "because I want to be able to play catch with my grandson" is much more powerful. Start every day by writing that stuff out - it'll reconnect you with the purpose of why you are changing your behavior. And you'll be unable to think about smoking w/o thinking of playing catch with your grandson. So instead of a painful avoidance, you're actually moving towards something that will be rewarding in the future.

Also, look up the Swish Pattern. Unfortunately some of the biggest advocates of NLP have been some major fucking freaks and have undermined how effective some of its techniques are. Swish Pattern is good shit. It works in a similar way as the first method I suggested.

 

[sgtryan]

the thing I noticed when I made the switch from cigs to e-cigs (2 weeks ago) is that I am probably getting more of a nicotine fix since there are 5-10 cigarettes worth of nicotine in each e-cig cartridge.. it's not much but it's a bit harder to control how much you smoke it because you can literally smoke them everywhere (except planes )

since there are no proven negative side effects of nicotine vapor, I am going to continue e-cigging.. it's practically a god-send for cigarette smokers who don't want to quit

 

[S M W]

i quit for over 10 yrs now. i was 2-3 packs per day so i was hardcore.

after many many many attempts - the only way i was able to quit was to wear the patch and chew nicotine gum at the same time. i figured, screw it - i'm gonna die anyway. so i weened myself off both but hung onto the gum for at least 1 yr.

don't think of this as short term. this is a re-learning process. take as much synthetic nic as you need but don't go back.

ps, i also kept an opened pack of cigs and a lighter with me in my car. i never touched them at all. i also never rode around saying "i'll just buy one more pack" cuz i already had them with me.

once you realize that you can smoke 50000 cigs and it will still never be enough for you then you'll be OK.

good luck!

 

[bizzykehl]

I quit cold turkey 4 months ago today. To the guy who claims there is no physical addiction, The 2 weeks of headaches, night terrors, cold/hot sweats and confusion were all in my head, huh?

 

[cougarclaws]

I quit cold turkey 4 months ago today. To the guy who claims there is no physical addiction, The 2 weeks of headaches, night terrors, cold/hot sweats and confusion were all in my head, huh?

point of clarification: my response was in the context of OP asking for someone to "offer some good suggestions to satisfy the oral fixation". Didn't mean to suggest nicotine addiction isn't physiological.

 

[faceblogger]

No alternative. Just give up smoking!!!!

 

[onkelmicha]

chewing gum helped me. I want cold turkey from 30 per days plus a strong swedish wet tobacco, I just chewed alot off gum in the beginning and kept myself occupied.

 

[Berto]

Look up some good NLP books. Here's one I'm on:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/NLP-New-Technology-Achievement-Comprehensive/dp/0688146198]Amazon.com: NLP: The New Technology of Achievement (9780688146191): NLP Comprehensive, Steve Andreas, Charles Faulkner: Books[/ame]

In the meantime, stay sugar-free and don't rot your teeth/body

 

[megatabbers]

Thanks for the input everybody.

the thing I noticed when I made the switch from cigs to e-cigs (2 weeks ago) is that I am probably getting more of a nicotine fix since there are 5-10 cigarettes worth of nicotine in each e-cig cartridge.. it's not much but it's a bit harder to control how much you smoke it because you can literally smoke them everywhere (except planes )

since there are no proven negative side effects of nicotine vapor, I am going to continue e-cigging.. it's practically a god-send for cigarette smokers who don't want to quit

The 5-10 cigarettes in each cartridge claim is pure bullshit. You're lucky if you're getting 1. Also, if you plan on sticking with the e-cig, get some juice so you can refill your own carts (huge difference in price).

Now, regarding side-effects, it definitely has some. The reason I stopped is because I started getting really bad reflux/GERD over the last few months. Haven't vaped in 4 days now and I'm "miraculously" cured.

It's probably because the nicotine in the vapor inadvertently gets swallowed. This wreaks havoc on your gastro-esophageal sphincter and your gastric lining in general. You'll see what I'm saying in several months.