Used vaping to quit smoking.
Weened off the nicotine then stop using the vape.
Got hit with cravings hard and dealt with them.
Been three years now. Any and all money I would have saved on cigarettes has instead funded my other half’s addiction to take out food. I’m more broke than I ever was before.
Preach!
When I officially quit, as in not even using 0 nicotine vape products to help with the fidget aspect of smoking, I made myself a little side envelope that I kept the money I was saving in not smoking to give myself a little boost in terms of any residual urges popping up.
Bought myself a little gift in just 4 months that I’d wanted for years, and cost damn near 400 bucks.
Mind you, cost of living swallowed that amount up since then, but it was a strong incentive to not backslide under stress.
It’s been , years since a real urge hit, if only a few. But I have my sweet-ass knife that reminds me every day exactly how much smoking costs in a monetary sense.
Honestly, at this point the only urges I get are situational, where the habit of smoking would be nice. The little ritual of lighting up and having something to do with hands. No actual cravings for nicotine at all for at least two years.
What kind of knife? Also, just like cats, got a pic?
I don’t have a picture on the device I’m using, and I’ll forget to take one by the time I get home, but
it’s easy enough to find one online lol.Benchmade 710-1401. It’s one of those custom versions made for a knife retailer, knifeworks.
I’ve had one of the earliest versions of the 710 since it came out, and it’s literally helped keep me alive a few times. The 1401 variant is a prettier version, with a fancy steel. My original 710 is still fully functional in every way, but it’s taken on a sentimental value, and I was increasingly worried about damaging it beyond repair since I use the hell out of knives.
Plus, I had wanted the variant from the day I saw it. What they call a grail for me.
Very nice. Never owned a Benchmade, can’t justify spending that on myself. 😁 I carry Chinese Kershaws, easy to sharpen and I can beat the hell out of them without guilt. I’m a cheap knife person, other than the Victorinox Swiss Champ I also always carry (on my fifth or so). Like Dexter Russell and Mora for fixed blades.
Any chance you’d share the survival stories?
Here are our kitchen knives, mostly carbon Dexter Russell:
First off, those Dexters are a seriously underestimated brand. A lot of bang for the buck for sure. Same with the Kershaws.
My favorite survival story is fairly simple and it wasn’t horrible, though it could have been.
We’re nestled right up against the Appalachians. Very rural, lots of sketchy roads. I used to be a nurse’s assistant, doing home health, so those sketchy roads were something I couldn’t just avoid.
One winter, I got delayed before an obnoxiously heavy freezing rain storm and got caught in it. I tried to make it back onto paved roads, with no luck at all. Slid off the road up against some trees. Wasn’t going fast enough to get hurt, but there was no way I was getting my little hatchback car back out. Not without help.
So I’m there with maybe enough gas to last a few hours, and at that point didn’t carry the kind of gear I do now, because of this incidence. All I had was my work bag with ppe and supplies, and the usual assortment of lug wrench and not much else in the way of tools. But I had my knife, a decent flashlight, and a lighter (was a smoker back then).
I figured that in the car, I could likely stay warm enough to get through the night and be better able to get myself out, or walk to the nearest house. Not something I wanted to do in the dark, that walk. But I was also under some trees with some already heavy branches. Wasn’t sure if they’d come down or not.
I decided that I’d rather set up a shelter and a fire with the light I had left than risk having to do it in the dark if a branch messed up the car.
So that’s what I did. Cut enough smaller branches to give me cover and a screen, scrounged up some wood big enough for a decent fire, and settled in. It turned out to be not necessary, as the only branch that fell just dented the hood.
But that little shelter rocked. It was essentially a lean-to, just a little modified to fit against the niche I had. It wasn’t comfortable, but once I was under it and the fire was going, I got dry fairly quick. As the ice kept building up, it got warmer since it was blocking wind and drips.
But I did all the cutting and tinder making with the 710 and hands. Took maybe an hour amd a half? Normally, that kind of shelter is maybe twenty minutes of work, but this wasn’t a great spot, and it takes a while to whittle through the kind of branches needed to support the lean-to. I’d have been fucked without the lighter and paper though. No way could I have managed a friction fire. As it was, it took some doing to get the first bit of wood dry enough to keep going so I could drag a bigger piece to it.
That event actually started me doing primitive camping and such. It was a bit of a rush to realize that even though I was barely remembering shit I’d been taught, that I managed to stay uninjured, and in good shape. Growing up, my grandfather had taught us a good bit of outdoors basics, plus some survival skills. But by the point that happened, it had been years since I’d practiced any of it other than what’s useful for hiking off trails.
Didn’t sleep much that night, what with worries about the fire, hoping the wind didn’t fuck up the shelter in some way, etc. But I managed to get the car out on my own using the stuff from the shelter for traction after making sure it would run. The dent was not a small one lol.
What started out a little terrifying ended up being a good memory. Not the cold and the annoyances and the expense, but the fact of it. That I’d done something pretty damn difficult and made it through, despite some mistakes.
Sounds like your grandfather was a wise man. That’s a great story!
Luckily, I’ve never ended up in a survival situation. However, I have a few habits. I keep a fire source or two in my truck, zippo in my jeans. Feel naked without a pocket knife and keep a knife or two in my truck. I also keep a piece of pine heart in my truck bed. Has come in handy many times and I’ve built fires in southern February thunderstorms.
Taught my kids how to build a one match fire with just a knife and a match when they were in elementary school.
Also taught them to never go in the woods without a knife, fire, and water. Taught them how to find pine heart. Probably time for a refresher course for my son on fire building.
I’ve been trying to teach my son how to sharpen knives, but it requires a level of stubbornness that he doesn’t have yet. (I don’t see the point in all those fancy angled sharpeners.) Use a flat stone, diamond preferred for speed and sharpness. You can make any sort of edge you want. Get good, and in a pinch you can sharpen a knife or other piece of metal with a brick or flat rock.
Have you replaced the ritual yet? I get a similar feeling as to what you describe, doing something with my hands, when I make loose leaf tea. It’s great for mindfulness.
not really. Once I got to the point where I could put aside the vape, I’d gotten used to not having one, so I never picked anything else up.
Good on you! Glad that helped.
Great to hear that, keep it up!
How much have you saved and what made you give it up?
Not op but I was smoking weed. I did the math and was spending around $15-20k a year, so I’m 1 day sober now.
Wow that’s pretty crazy, what does that equate to amount wise on a daily basis?
thats like 42-55ish bucks a day.
good luck on quitting op (and Not op), prob feels like soloing mount Everest with a fisher price hiking kit.
I vaped an oz every 3 days or so about 9 grams a day.
That’s an insane amount
(Disregard if you have other reasons, but if it’s just financial…)
Have you tried moderation, because that’s…a lot lol
I’m a daily user, but for me I don’t vape it (prevents use from being too easy, too accessible) just concentrates out of an e-nail and I generally stick to night time usage because kids and also I gave up driving high many years ago.
My tracking spreadsheet has my average use of 1 gram every ~2 weeks and an annual spend of a couple hundred
I wish, I can apparently moderate everything in my life except for weed -_-;;
Just do like I did and start having panic attacks after 2 hits
Ugh same. For me it’s that I can either have weed in my possession and get super high every day, or I can let my stash run out and go cold turkey. Only ever managed like 2 days stashing any THC product away without using it, and I thought about it constantly the whole time.
But on the bright side, as long as I don’t let myself buy more I can go indefinitely, no problem. I was going on 2 years without it until I visited family in California a few months ago and they offered me some lol
I’m a daily user, but for me I don’t vape it (prevents use from being too easy, too accessible)
I feel you. Since I bought myself a Vaporizer my use has devinetively increased. However, its the only way, except edibles, that I can consume weed without coughing my lungs out.
What’s crazy to me is how much cheaper alcohol is. I’m saving money by sacrificing my insides :3
Heavily depends on area and usage patterns, I burn a gram of concentrates every 2 weeks and a gram is like $7-10 around here on sale
This. Especially if you go partying weed is way cheaper, as long as you don’t have an absurdly high tolerance. You can smoke like 0.3g and be high for the whole evening and only spent like 3€ on getting high. If you want to achieve the same with alcohol you would have to spend way more.
All the best in your journey.
I would like to share that I personally found the book Easyway to stop smoking by Allen Carr really helpful. I was a heavy chain smoker and have been smoke free for 6 years now, all thanks to the book.
If you still are unable to shake the cravings, you can give it a try!
It’s got to be 20 bucks a pack now
Wow, that’s pretty damn cheap compared to price per pack where I live, it’s around $60-80AUD here
for a pocket-sized pack I meant… I was close lol edit: oh it fucking sucks where you are too though
Yeah I was referring to pocket sized packs, I’m quite sure that each of our states have different taxation on cigarettes, although I should double check.
oh that’s actually insane
- Realised spending extra money for useless crap points directly into a depression.
Never spend too much on something than will lead you to depression.
