Quitting smoking using an electronic cigarette
People that use the electronic cigarette instead of the traditional snuff, can have two purposes as a rule: either as a substitute for snuff or for quitting smoking.
In the first case, those people are the ones who want to keep the feeling and the sensation of smoking but in a healthier way and in some cases with a different flavor than snuff. They choose, therefore, to use electronic cigarettes, which allow them to continue having very similar feelings as smoking, but in a much healthier and cheaper way and without causing harm to others.
In the second case, we find those people who want to permanently leave the snuff and the feeling they get when they are physically dependent on nicotine. It is for this reason that they buy an electronic cigarette to help them quitting. But what is the strategy to stop smoking using an electronic cigarette?
The first thing we have to calibrate is the degree of addiction that we have to snuff. Depending on the number of cigarettes we smoke a day we will have to purchase an e-liquid with a higher or lower concentration of nicotine. The range is between 24mg to 0mg nicotine.
Take for example a smoker who smokes a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. In this case the smoker would need the highest dose: 24mg of nicotine.
Once we know the recommended dose, we have to forget traditional cigarettes and start vaping. As time goes by, we have to gradually decrease the dose of nicotine. First to 18mg, then to 12mg, then to 6mg and finally to 0mg. Once we have achieved to vape without the need of nicotine, we can say that we have managed to overcome the nicotine dependence. However, to win the battle we will also have to overcome the psychological dependence, ie deal with smoking / vaping in any situation (alone, surrounded by smokers, etc). To get rid of this psychological dependence we have 2 options: we can choose to keep vaping without nicotine or definitively quit the electronic cigarette. If we continue vaping without nicotine we will be able to battle against this psychological dependence although we won’t quit vaping, whereas if we quit vaping we will have to face this psychological dependence only with our willpower.
We have seen therefore the strategy to be followed to quit smoking using the electronic cigarette: start with a high-dose of nicotine and gradually decrease it until reaching 0mg nicotine levels. Then a battle against psychological dependence will appear, which it is not less harsh than the physical one. With this strategy and with a good dose of will, it will be much easier to achieve it than rather using patches or gums, since all these methods have a big problem: they only fight against physical dependence and not against the psychological one. However electronic cigarettes fight both 2 at the same time, which greatly facilitates our goal: quitting smoking.
