I have a friend who has been using an e-cigarette for 10+ years. He doesn’t seem any less addicted to smoking as back when he was using old-fashioned cigarettes.

I understand e-cigarettes are supposed to help you quit… but has anyone actually had success with them? Or, is it more like trading one vice for another?

      • gchap@lemmy.world
        9·
        1 year ago

        That’s what I did after 5 years of vaping. Gradually went down to 0.5% nic and finally quit in May.

      • PopularUsername@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        I actually just made the experience worse and worse without adjusting the nicotine. Switched to unflavored, then switched to freebase, then my vape broke and I started using my shitty old vape. It became a chore to smoke so it was easy to stop.

        Although, I’ve usually been pretty good at controlling my nicotine when needed, so I would not describe myself as some highly addicted even when I was vaping a lot.

          • PainInTheAES@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            There’s two types of nicotine used in vapes freebase and salts. When vaping first started everything was freebase. In my experience it’s a slower come up and doesn’t hit as strong. Although I prefer freebase. Nicotine salts are easy to over do.

          • PopularUsername@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            I just saw your response to my comment, didn’t load earlier. Yes is fundamentally the same chemical reaction. Acid/base reaction that results in a salt. Makes a huge difference in the experience in my opinion, I find the salt form to be much closer to real cigs. But as you can see from the other commenter, people have different preferences.

              • PopularUsername@lemmy.world
                1·
                1 year ago

                I think the main thing is that you can get a more intense nicotine hit, probably because it is easier to smoke higher concentrations, so I assume it is more addictive in that regard. It’s a smoother smoke and you don’t get that residual nicotine in the mouth that you would at high concentrations of the freebase. You can always just try it out, most vapes are compatible with both juices, although they might be optimized for one over the other.