this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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The memes of the climate
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I was surprised when I was quitting smoking that my friend (who also smoked) was advocating vaping instead. I asked: Why not just quit completely?
I do think vaping is less dangerous than actually smoking but not doing either one is best for your health. Even getting "hooked" on nicotine gum or similar is better than smoking or vaping. But again, best to just quit nicotine / smoking / vaping completely.
Switching to vaping and slowly cutting back on nicotine was integral to me eventually quiting.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all opposed to vaping as a stepping stone to quitting. I tried it myself for a little while one of the times I was trying to quit.
And, again, I do think that vaping is less dangerous than actually smoking. But best to quit all of it completely.
Yeah you're not wrong. It's about harm reduction though. If the people who wouldn't quit if they tried quitting for good switch to vaping they'll be better off. Vaping only makes sense for current smokers, no one else should be using them. They are more harmful than nothing, but way way less harmful than tobacco.
Quitting cold turkey and failing sometimes prevents people from trying again.
I think people need to PRACTICE quitting and I wish more people had this mentality. Assuming that you'll succeed at something so difficult the first of many times of trying to do it is unrealistic. It took me several attempts and taking a class about it to quit smoking.
"I couldn't climb the mountain the first time I tried with no practice or help, therefore I'm never trying again" is very defeatist. Quitting is a process and practicing quitting is completely acceptable. Learn what didn't work that time and develop strategies to deal with what didn't work.
I have a bunch of tips from the class I took that I still mostly remember. I wonder how much of that info is online.
That's a really good point. No one would expect someone's first painting to turn out to be worth millions.
I feel like the generally accepted wisdom on the issue is that quitting smoking is hard. Whichever one works for you is the best one.
For me, "harm reduction" was just a convenient excuse for not really trying... And, I eventually decided, again, this is my experience, not advice, but, like, eventually, every method of quitting will eventually be cold turkey, so I just went for it.
Personally I found the nicotine addiction is overstated. I never had any trouble making it through 8 hours of sleep without a cigarette, so my claim that I needed one every hour or two kinda seemed like bullshit. Also, if I was so hung up on nicotine addiction - nicotine starts declining in your system almost immediately, so, if I was smoking for 5 minutes of every hour, I was spending 55 minutes of every hour in nicotine withdrawal. That's.. dumb. That's a dumb way to live.
(I was also a heroin addict from when I was a teenager until my late 20s - and - at least heroin lasts a while. Nicotine is a garbage drug.)
In the end, smoking is a habit - and there's not much in the way of shortcuts to changing your habits - and it's especially hard when your enjoy it. There are better techniques and worse techniques, but no cure.
For me, when me and my wife added tiny little people to the world, I realized that they would prefer me to be alive, and I didn't want to make them sad, so I quit.
Quitting heroin changes what you think of as hard but even my mom never quit cigarettes even after quitting heroin.
I'm very conflicted about vaping. On the one hand I'm happy it exists as I think it can definitely help some people quit smoking.
On the other hand I dislike it as it lowers the entry into smoking and also has the adverse effect. ( My opinion ) It's probably also not great for your lungs to inhale steam on a regular basis.
As a non smoker at least my clothes don't smell like smoke/tobacco, doesn't stink up the room and there's no people holding their cigarette nexto them so it doesn't blow in their face, while it's smoking in mine all the time ( e.g.: at a bar outside ). Super annoying( though not deliberate on their end ). Vaping at least solves that issue for non smokers compared to ciggies.
Good on you for quitting!
It's not just "steam" in vapes, there's also the chemicals used to vaporize the liquid, and of course the flavors themselves. I'm not a scientist but I can't imagine it's good for you. Breathing regular air in a big city isn't great for you - like, bacon causes cancer - we probably don't want to assume the best for directly inhaling inadequately studied chemicals
nicotine gum is probably as bad or nearly as bad as vaping since nicotine is the aspect of it that is proven to be especially bad for you.
That's not quite true. Nicotine is indeed the addictive part of smoking, and the source of long term behavioural issues.
But that's not, by far, the most dangerous or impactful aspect of cigarettes or vapes. Cigarettes are little cancer sticks with some of the most absurdly carcinogenic substances known, and it really destroys your lungs ability to expel excess mucus and contaminants.
Vapes don't have nearly the same amount of quite absurdly random crap a cigarette will have, but they're still carcinogenic and they slowly burn cilia and cause inflammatory responses.
Being addicted to nicotine gum could give you headaches, issues with mood, and eventually cardiovascular issues. It's certainly not a good thing - but saying "nicotine is the aspect of it that is proven to be especially bad for you" is simply wrong.
...Because of the nicotine. Nicotine is a known carcinogen on its own. Propylene glycol and Glycerol are not. Of course it is possible to make vape juice with other additives that happen to be carcinogenic but those can be omitted. There have been studies showing it's possible for vaping to irritate the airways but from what I was reading I didn't see any hard links between that and serious health outcomes, or that this always necessarily happens.
So as best I can tell, my statement is correct, the main thing about vaping that is bad for you is the nicotine, and I wasn't able to find evidence that other (necessary) aspects of it are inherently harmful in a serious way. If you could provide evidence of that I'd consider it.