Quitting an addictive substance is a very difficult process and one of the possible methods is going ‘cold turkey’, where you just stop taking the thing and ride out the consequences.
Kids these days would probably call it ‘rawdogging’ addiction recovery, but going cold turkey is one of the most drastic and dramatic ways a person can quit a substance.
A growing number of people are addicted to vaping, or more specifically they’re addicted to the nicotine that’s packed into vaping liquids, and if you’re going to try and quit that right away there will be a lot of problems.
In fact, experts warn you shouldn’t try going cold turkey on vaping, unlike with smoking, as they pointed towards NHS advice which lays out a slow and gradual phasing out of the harmful habit.
Instead you’re meant to get liquids with a lower amount of nicotine content and gradually reduce the amount to bring down your nicotine consumption and kick the habit.
Experts recommend that if you’re quitting vaping you don’t do it cold turkey (Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A vaping addict called Chloe who went cold turkey after realising she was ‘hooked‘ on vapes said that within a few hours of quitting she was ‘starting to gasp for it’.
She said: “I had a serious case of brain fog, and it was all I could think about. The cravings were intense, and I questioned at multiple points if it was really worth it.
“I couldn’t retain information, was chronically zoned out and was both horrified and shocked by how hard I was actually finding it.”
She even found getting to sleep without having a vape within reach to be a difficult prospect, and when she did finally drift off she found herself waking often as she was tossing and turning in bed.
Going through ‘intense episodes’ of cravings, by 72 hours in her withdrawal symptoms ‘peaked’ as she suffered mild headaches, unprecedented sweating, and regular cravings during the day.
On the bright side her sleep had already improved somewhat.
Her symptoms line up with some claims from a simulation on what going cold turkey from vaping does to you.
It claimed that on the first day you’d ‘feel anxious, irritated, maybe even empty’, and by day three the headaches would be kicking in while you might cough up mucus from your lungs.
Under bombardment from the cravings and brain fog your body isn’t a nice place to be for a while, but it does get better with time.
As Chloe put it, she started feeling better rested from sleeping without vaping and she was through the worst physical withdrawal symptoms after a few days.
However, she was still feeling very anxious, as though her brain was ‘racing at 100mph’.
The NHS advises that you’re best off gradually reducing your nicotine intake by buying liquid with less of it in and taking longer breaks between your vapes rather than going cold turkey.
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