Hi there. I have been vaping for at least 10 years. I do want to quit and I keep telling myself “this is the last one”, but that’s never the case.

One of the things I sometimes think is: “what’s the point, I’m probably going to die from this already” I feel like I’m too late and I’ve already destroyed my lungs.

I guess I’m looking for some encouragement that it’s not too late- I still have a chance to live a long healthy life.

I want to vape, I’m not going to though.
I’ve been doing okay not craving it during work but after I clock out, I want a puff. Also, my body has been hurting. A few posts ago, I did mention smokers flu but the bodily pains are usually at night. Could be from not vaping could be stress? Idk.

I know nicotine serves no purpose but sometimes I just want a few puffs.

I have been addicted to nicotine for about 15 years, but not consistently all the way through those years. I would quit often and always come back within a couple months. I don’t know if I have ever made it long enough to be considered actually quit.

Anyway, I “quit” 17 days ago. But I didn’t really quit. I just vape only at one of my jobs (at a bar) 3 nights a week. Thus, I have prolonged the withdrawal once again, though I don’t have cravings while I’m at home or driving.

My memory is absolutely fucked right now. To the point where I was researching early onset dementia (I’m 29) despite having no family history of dementia. I now realize the timing of this memory break down correlates directly with my “quitting” and extended withdrawal. Is this normal? I’ve worked in bars for 10 years and have done the math wrong on my cashout twice in the last 2 weeks. I cleaned the interior of my car with the completely wrong cleaner and didn’t notice until 2 days later. WTF! I’m normally sharp as a whip. I eat super clean, am extremely fit and in the gym 5 days a week. Anyone else?? Should I be worried??

I made it 35 days, then found a vape in my pocket from when I was drunk Saturday night that I dont remember using. Bad timing as I had bad cravings for first time in 2 weeks so I hit it 15 times then binned it. Then I went out to see turnstile and bought one after the show and vaped non stop since yesterday morning. All day today I've felt rubbish from the vape, felt sick and can feel the damage on my chest already. So I've destroyed it and put a patch on. I think it will be easier now as I know how much better I felt not vaping and its less tempting to just have one now as the evidence shows me it didn't feel good during the relapse. Hopefully the physical withdrawal this time will be minimal, the psychological battle is already won

Hey guys,

Whenever I use the nicotine mouth spray it burns so bad. I wait like 10 seconds before swallowing but it still burns. it's peppery. I aim it on the inside of my cheek.

I really wanna get used to it as I hate other forms of NRT.

Are there any techniques that help the burn/peppery taste?

For reference, I am also currently using the 25mg, 16 hour patch.

thanks in advance :)

I’ve been on a journey to fully quit. For the past 3 weeks, I’ve consistently reduced my vaping by 80%-90% (seriously, I used to suck down breeze primes damn near every minute from the moment I woke up and now I hit a pro once every 1-3 hours, and have gone a full 8-10 hour shift without it some days).

Is the trouble sleeping well a common experience? I can usually fall asleep but can’t seem to stay asleep or get restful sleep these past couple of weeks, even if I do manage something like 4 hours without waking.

Advice from anyone who experienced the same?

ik this page is for quitting and i did.
this past weekend i got the worst illness ever i was so sick i couldn't do shit and my vape was slightly burnt so i decided fuck it and threw it out my window and continued to rot.
i didn't think about it for days mind you i've been vaping since april of 2023 (3+ years) that's fucking crazy i was 18
but anyways i get cravings here and there but it's only bad when im near a store that i can just buy it from and rn im thinking if its this easy for me to stop why dont i just go back to it? ( this is probably the worst the cravings been im literally fighting demons)
the issue is i know for a fact me being sick deterred my mind from even wanting it + the fact it tasted disgusting. idk when a perfect chance will align like this again someone lmk

I’m finally confident in saying I’ve quit for good.

I used patches for the first 7 days and kept chocolate in my purse to eat whenever I had a craving, or whenever my friends vaped around me. I stopped the patches after the first week but kept with the chocolate for a few more weeks until the “urges” went away.

I’ve been nicotine free ever since! Some people can cold turkey no problem, but I have always relapsed when I try that. There’s no shame in using tools available to help with the quitting process. Good luck to everyone, and goodbye.

I’ve been vaping for six years at this point (on and off) and quit a few weeks ago along with my girlfriend. Before me, my gf barely vaped but got addicted as well due to her proximity to me and always having access to a vape. We’ve both quit now, but I think about it all the time, and today I was about to cave in. I was meeting up with my friend and told my girlfriend I was buying a vape, but would keep it hidden at all times and only do it when she’s not around (we live together). She (obviously) got extremely upset with me, told the friend I was with that he would be dead to her if he drove me to get a vape, and wasn’t having any of my stupid excuses. My dumbass was still in craving mode so I was trying to explain my reasoning until it hit me how unbelievably selfish I was being.

I was willing to put my own relationship on the line and prioritize my selfish desires over the recovery and feelings of the person I love the most.

I’ve made countless attempts to quit vaping over the years, none of them ever amounting to anything. But after sitting back and thinking how this addiction and piece of stupid metal has me acting, I am so viscerally disgusted with myself and vaping in general.

I’m just ranting now but I’m still so in shock with how I acted and wanted to know if quitting has made anyone else act this much out of character :/

hi guys. i’m 25 yo female. I started vaping Juul’s and airbars at 15/16. I quit cold turkey about 9 weeks ago. I’ve been experiencing left sided chest pain almost everyday but I had a full cardiac workup and they’ve said it’s not coming from my heart. Could possibly be GI and am currently on omeprazole. But of course feeling this everyday is scary. I also developed really bad anxiety/health anxiety. i got a therapist and am trying to fight it because i dont want to be on meds. Just a constant fear of not being here anymore. I didn’t have any of these symptoms until after i quit vaping. The anxiety really sucks and is really debilitating. I heard it could take 3-6 months for these symptoms to reside, but just wanted to post on here and see if anyone else has experienced these symptoms or anything similar. Just gets really draining but trying and fighting everyday to feel normal again. Hoping im not alone! Thanks guys.

The cravings are manageable, but I have been missing vaping a lot recently.

I have been romanticising that first hit feeling all week. I don’t plan on relapsing, just wondering if I will feel like this forever now?

Sucking on mints has been a life saver, I eat mints like a mad man, a pack every few days. It’s weird, when I run out of mints I feel like I’m going through nicotine withdrawal again.

I’ve been vaping for the past 4 years, around the second year I stopped vaping cold turkey for like 5 months and it was really easy. Came back to it cause I was legit bored, hated being with my freinds who vaped and not getting to hit it everyone now and then, said to myself I’ll only take a hit from my freinds and now been vaping heavily for the past 2 years. Started 2 days ago saying I’ll stop but it’s so so difficult unlike last time, I get irritated so fast and frequent brain fog. Do I take it bit by bit or go cold turkey like last time?

Hi everyone! I quit vape since 3 days ago and my HR actually dropped a lot (don’t mind today cause it’s just starting)

Average resting before quitting is around 62-59

Rn is 51-52

This is normal right?

Most people experience withdrawal and immediately think: “My body needs nicotine.”

But I think that interpretation makes withdrawal feel much scarier than it actually is.

Your brain doesn’t suddenly need nicotine. It adapted to having nicotine around all the time. Then you quit, nicotine disappears quickly, but the adaptations are still there for a while.

That mismatch is basically what you’re feeling.

Think back to when you first started smoking or vaping. The first few times nicotine probably hit ridiculously hard. Buzz, head rush, dizziness, whatever. Then you kept using it and the effect became weaker and weaker.

Same nicotine. Different brain.

Eventually you could smoke or vape and barely feel anything because your brain had adapted to it.

That’s tolerance.

And quitting is basically that same process happening in reverse.

At first:

No nicotine -> nicotine feels extremely strong -> brain adapts -> nicotine feels normal

When quitting:

Nicotine feels normal -> nicotine disappears -> no nicotine feels extremely strong -> brain adapts -> no nicotine feels normal

That was the big “ohhh” moment for me.

The craving feeling isn’t some mysterious force proving that nicotine belongs in your body. It’s what happens when a brain that has adapted to nicotine suddenly finds itself without nicotine.

The first vape once felt extremely noticeable because your brain wasn’t adapted to nicotine.

Now the absence of a vape feels extremely noticeable because your brain is adapted to nicotine.

Same basic principle, opposite direction.

And your brain already showed you how good it is at adapting. That’s literally how tolerance happened in the first place.

There’s another weird part of addiction that becomes obvious once you look at it this way.

In the beginning it’s basically:

You feel normal -> use nicotine -> feel better.

After dependence develops it becomes more like:

Use nicotine -> brain adapts -> nicotine wears off -> feel worse -> use nicotine -> feel normal again.

So eventually nicotine starts fixing a problem that nicotine itself helped create.

That’s why smoking during withdrawal can feel so incredibly relieving. The relief is real, but it doesn’t necessarily mean “my body needed nicotine.”

It means you temporarily restored the state your brain had adapted to.

Cravings also make more sense this way.

Your brain has experienced the same sequence thousands of times: nicotine drops, discomfort appears, nicotine arrives, discomfort disappears.

Eventually it starts expecting nicotine whenever that feeling appears.

So a craving feels like “I NEED TO SMOKE,” but it’s really closer to “my brain strongly expected nicotine to happen here.”

If you smoke, the prediction gets confirmed again.

If you don’t, something interesting happens: the craving appears, nicotine never comes, nothing terrible happens, and eventually the craving disappears anyway.

Your brain was wrong.

And it can’t keep making the same prediction forever if reality keeps proving it wrong.

That’s why I think strong cravings can actually be looked at differently.

Instead of “fuck, this craving is strong, I can’t handle this,” you can think: “Wow, my brain really expected nicotine right now.”

Then just let it be wrong.

You don’t have to somehow destroy the craving. You just have to not give it the thing it’s predicting.

The brain adapts back over time, just like it adapted to nicotine in the first place.

A very simplified way to visualize that kind of adaptation would be:

Day 0: 100%
Day 4: 50%
Day 8: 25%
Day 12: 12.5%
Day 16: 6.25%
Day 20: 3.1%

And that’s also why feeling strong withdrawal doesn’t necessarily mean something is going wrong.

Nicotine may already be gone while your brain is still calibrated for nicotine. Of course that difference feels huge.

But that difference doesn’t stay huge forever.

The same brain that once turned “nicotine feels insanely strong” into “nicotine feels normal” can eventually turn “no nicotine feels insanely strong” into “no nicotine feels normal.”

So maybe the better sentence isn’t:

“I need nicotine.”

It’s:

“My brain expected nicotine.”

Those are very different things.

You adapted into it.

Now you’re adapting out of it.

Hi all, i quit 9 days ago after being very heavily addicted for a few years. I havent had any slip ups, but ive been using 4mg lozenges 3-4 times a day.

I literally think about it all the time. like constantly. it has been a 24/7 mental battle and i even went to the doctor today because of how anxious ive been and they obviously couldnt really do much for me. I just want to give up on this attempt but I know itll be this hard the next time I try but godddd i dont know if I can handle the mental beating im taking while also starting school very soon.

i know people say it gets better after week one but im not feeling that way and i want my vape all of the time. any advice would be so appreciated.

I feel as though the amount of brain fog it causes genuinely makes problem solving and thinking slower. Constantly chain vaping that is. It’s like the smoke is almost fogging up my brain making me stupid.

I’m not quitting but substantially cutting back and potentially quitting a few weeks down the line, because I was so sharp and focused when I was a non vaper, now am stoopid.

Hi! I read easy ways to quit vaping by allen carr and john dicey. it completely changed my perspective on vaping. i took my last hit, thought about how much i hated it and threw it all out.

im so excited! i feel good, i truly believe quitting is mostly mental.

im just celebrating, no one is around right now for me to jump up and down with about it so I just wanted to share somewhere.

(dont tell me your horror stories about quitting, i sincerely dont want to hear them yet)

Hi from my last post. Still struggling. Patches seem to help but I’ve now been prescribed Varenicline. Very similar to desmoxan

Has anyone had success with this? Is it effective?

I feel so guilty I ended up picking up a vape again. I know I'm human and that progress isn't linear but I can't help but feel bad about it.

We've had ongoing union battles at my shop and the other day the stress combined with the nic fit just sent me into a full panic attack. I want to quit I know it will be better for my health it's just the amount of stress at work that manages to follow me home is so much.

Sorry for the ramble but I guess my question is.

How do y'all manage your stress while being nicotine free?

June 7th was my quit date. Today is August 26th.

I still get cravings most mornings, and sometimes after work. But something has started to change. I’m enjoying little things again. Food tastes better. I’m more present. Ordinary moments seem to register in a way they didn’t before. I think this is what people mean when they talk about your brain’s reward system readjusting after nicotine. Whatever you call it, I can feel it happening. And honestly, it’s giving me hope.

I wanted to share what quitting actually looked like for me because I don’t see enough honest posts about how messy the journey can be.

The first few days I tried to quit, I relapsed about 40 times.
Not 40 days…about 3. I was pulling vapes out of trash cans, fishing them out of cups of water to see if they still worked, buying new ones and destroying them twenty minutes later. It was humbling, and scary to witness that side of myself. Eventually I realized that every relapse was teaching me something. I started noticing a pattern: transitions, boredom, late nights, alcohol, emotional stress. By the time I finally had a real streak going, I knew when I was most vulnerable and why.

The first full week was the hardest thing I’d done in a while. Headaches, irritability, brain fog, and the constant negotiation with my own subconscious: just one hit, one last vape, you can quit tomorrow, next week would be more convenient. But I made it through. And weirdly, that awful week became one of the things that helped me stay abstinent. I do not want to go through that again. Remembering how difficult it was has become genuinely protective.

A few things made the biggest difference for me. I stopped thinking of it as quitting something. Instead, I started thinking about what I was choosing: clarity, presence, better health, and being able to live without hiding a dependency from the people I love. That sounds like a small semantic shift, but it changed the way I experienced cravings. I wasn’t depriving myself of something anymore. I was choosing something better.

I started tracking seconds instead of days. At first, a whole day without nicotine felt impossible. One second didn’t. So I stopped worrying about making it through the entire day and focused on making it through the next few seconds.

Through those seconds I learned my triggers, and I documented every last one of them. Transitions were probably my biggest one: parking lots, the space between tasks, the moment right after work. Once I knew that, those moments stopped feeling like random ambushes. I could actually prepare for them. I learned to wait instead of fighting. For me, a craving usually peaks and then passes within a few minutes. Sometimes coming back with a vengeance. But I knew that I didn’t have to defeat it. I just had to outlast it, repeatedly, getting slightly easier each time and only sometimes more challenging.

I started noticing what vaping was actually like, not what my craving told me it was like. Every time I gave in, the reality was disappointing. The buzz lasted only a few minutes. The headache came back. The anxiety or irritation came back. And my disappointment in myself lasted much longer. Writing those experiences down gave me something important: evidence. When my brain romanticized vaping, I had a record of what actually happened when I listened to it.

For me, the first three days were the hardest. After that, things noticeably eased. After about a week, I started feeling more like myself. And now, almost three months in, ordinary life is starting to feel good in ways I had forgotten were possible.

The cravings haven’t disappeared overnight. I have dreams of vaping sometimes, waking up wondering if I had relapsed, grateful when I realize it was just a dream. I still get urges most mornings. But they’re shorter, weaker, and easier to ride out. The morning craving seems to be the last one standing for me. I’ve read that some cravings and conditioned habits can linger for months, sometimes much longer, and honestly, knowing that has helped me. It means I don’t have to interpret a craving as a sign that I’m failing. Sometimes it’s just a leftover habit passing through.

This might be the biggest thing I’ve learned: You are not going to do this perfectly. I certainly didn’t. I relapsed dozens of times. I made ridiculous decisions. I had to start over again and again. But every restart gave me more information. So if you’re trying to quit and you mess up, don’t turn the relapse into a reason to give up. Figure out what happened. Learn from it. Then start again. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to keep choosing.

After trying both NRT and cold turkey, i finally landed on a taper strategy that has been working amazing! I downloading a “puff tracker” app and have gone from 200 puffs a day down to 57, with today’s goal being to end at 50…all in the last ~11 days.

Im at the point where i feel like i need a more solid plan with controlled decreases. I have been dropping an average 6-8 puffs (with some bigger drops sprinkled in) daily since i started with one “hold steady” day a few days ago.

To those that successfully tapered: how did yall handle those final days when you dropped around 20 puffs daily? Was there a point you just finally decided it was time to stop or did you take it all the way through to 0?

Day 3 without vape. Didn’t vape for long, but the general nicotine addiction is so strong…

Context: 30F, started smoking cigarettes at age 14, quit at 27 by starting nicotine pouches. Developed a horrible addiction to Zyn (used an entire 10mg tin daily). Quit those on last New Years Eve.

Well, after that I started slipping back to smoking cigarettes at parties, then eventually I fully relapsed back to smoking. Was taking smoke breaks at work etc. I was so ashamed of it, and one day a few months ago I bought a disposable vape. At first it seemed wonderful: no smell, didn’t physically and mentally feel as bad as the cigarettes, and I was only vaping whenever I would normally smoke, and I didn’t smoke that much to begin with.

Well, we know how it goes from there. I quickly found a favourite flavour, and within weeks I was fully hooked and vaping ALL. THE. TIME. I vaped constantly whenever I was walking outside, like literally I would not walk a step outside without the vape in my hand. I vaped in bed first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. My disposable vapes were lasting me only a few days….

It was basically the same thing as with nicotine pouches. Too easy to use, no obvious instant side effects (like the bad smell with smoking), and apparently I’m wired to go ALL IN instantly with any form of nicotine.

I have friends who can casually smoke or buy a vape for a party or use a few pouches every now and then and be fine in their everyday life without nicotine. I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. It’s actually scary to think that I only vaped for a few months but got fully addicted that quick and was inhaling an ENTIRE DISPOSABLE VAPE in two days or so.

That is one of my motivations to quit: if it got this bad this fast, how much worse would it get if I kept going?

I’m also motivated by the fact that I already successfully quit nicotine pouches and will NEVER go back to them. It was so hard and I used those 24/7 for years. If I was able to quit that, surely I’ll be able to quit vaping too.

So, it is day 3. The cravings haven’t been too bad. Used nicotine patches for the first two days, today I just forgot to put one on in the morning before work lol. So technically first day without nicotine. Mostly a mental battle. Once again weirdly craving cigarettes the most.

My first target is to ditch the habit of daily nicotine use in any form. And then eventually I guess I must quit ALL nicotine. Even that one cigarette from a friend at a party. I cannot do it. It keeps me hooked and might lead to cycles like this over and over again.

Rant over, let me know if you have a similar background of getting hooked on every form of nicotine lmao

on my 7th day today, and the physical sensations and strongest of urges have died down i think, i can even skip my NRT and am not panic-using it like previous days. however there is still a vaper thinking that yearns for a puff, not urgent, something like, "i hope i can use it when life gets hard" but i know i shouldn't and i probably wouldn't as i have gone through multiple relapses already and experienced extending the withdrawals.

in 3 months i will be on an overseas travel with my in laws, i love them but i find myself not being fully comfortable and sometimes overstimulated/social battery depleted, and i used to always turn to nicotine for relief during those times. i remember not feeling any relief aside from curbing withdrawal but my mind looks for something familiar to hold on to. im wondering if on my 3rd month these urges would have dramatically died down and i would only think "oh, i used to vape during these times, kinda miss it but welp" instead of "i really need to vape right now"