This post was genuinely inspired by the post about adult pacifiers that was posted on the site some days ago. Some background, long post:
I started smoking on and off at fourth grade, the first drag and I was like "omg this makes me feel so good", it never tasted bad to me. Then come middle school and age 13 I started to truly smoke and kept going for 20ish years straight. At the end I was almost a two packs a day person running fully on extremely hard exercise, nicotine and caffeine. Ngl it never felt bad, the opposite really and my ability to function was pretty good plus the smoking gave me the social out and the ability to relax that I needed.
Then vapes became available online and as I had always assumed smoking to be an oral plus a fidgeting thing for me, I decided to try that. I left my pack of smokes unfinished the day I got the vape and been doing that ever since, over ten years now. I've only fallen off the wagon once for three months or so after the first covid years and in hindsight I think it was me dropping the nicotine amount too low as it was a time when gicarette smoke started to suddenly smell good to me again. I hated the smell from the moment I started vaping and hate it again now that I raised the nicotine level back to what it was.
I am self-diagnosed audhd and currently don't have access to a diagnosis, my employment healtcare deems it unnecessary as I am currently "performing" well. I get that medication would probably help, but it isn't an option. I've made my peace with the fact that I self-medicate with nicotine and it probably harms me, but am increasingly worried about dragging stuff into my lungs all day long.
So as I think this is an oral + lung + hand stim along with a nicotine thing, I am wondering if anyone here has found something sort of like smoking, but not vaping, that could replace it as a stim? Fidget spinners or such don't work for me. I am thinking the sucking and mouth touching is needed, as weird as it maybe sounds. Hello Freud, I was bottle fed as a baby :D (bad joke).
Considering trying nicotine pouches and something, but I've no idea what that something could be. Thoughts?
I recently switched to nicotine salt pouches.(zins?) it give me the same buzz my adhd mind wants but once you feel the difference to you lungs you’ll be so much happier.
I'm thinking I may have to try these. A friend was able to quit vaping with these, but then I worry about my gums and been chickening out from trying (which is pretty wild consodering what I'm doing to my lungs).
I'll have to try them, it would be so nice to get of this lung stuff.
Thank you.
They’re definitely not as intimidating as chewing Tobacco. You don’t need to spit it out, and it doesn’t hit as hard. As far as quitting goes I’m going to get off these now that vaping seems gross. So when I get around to that I’ll report back. I’ve definitely forgotten about them for a day and it wasn’t much of a bother.
I've done it, I got myself these and then spent a week chickening out on trying them. I got the mildest ones first in menthol flavour and they didn't do much for me, but burn my gums terribly when I eventually dared to try them yesterday. They kept me away from the vape for most of yesterday though.
So today I went up to 6mg ones from Velo, these are mango flavoured and hit me like a ton of bricks. Very much like smoking an actual cig after a really long break. I've used two today and made it to the afternoon without anything else.
I've decided I will no longer vape inside, which was a big problem for me. I was vaping continuosly while writing, working, reading, gaming. I am trying to not do that at all anymore and instead use the pouches for that stimulation while inside. I am going to allow myself the break of going outside for a vape as a treat especially at work where I need it to escape the office and to introvert. Same when there are lots of people around elsewhere.
Only problem is the missing hand to mouth stim. I am trying to keep busy. But I only went outside for a vape three times yesterday so it is already a huge difference to how attached I normally am to the vaping device.
Nice, keep us posted. Yeah chewing tobacco definitely feels gross, I very much find spitting nasty.