Addicted to those stupid elf bars

[Stickworm]

Posting for traffic 🙈

A few months ago someone gave me an elf bar on a night out. Fast forward to now and I’m addicted (I’m an ex smoker haven’t smoked for 5 years), using one every two days. I naively thought 2ml was low nicotine when in fact one elf bar is the equivalent to 40-50 cigarettes😳

Recently I’ve had terrible fatigue almost constantly and gut issues and just generally an unwell feeling, I’m convinced it’s the sheer amount of nicotine in these things and I want to stop asap. I have two small children and feeling like this is rubbish plus I want to be healthy for them generally. My question, do I:

• go cold turkey and have some really rather unpleasant withdrawals for a week or so
• get some nicotine gum and cut down slowly on that

my concern with gum is that I’m really just replacing one nicotine addiction with another, at the same time though the idea of going cold turkey from equivalent 20+ a day cigarette habit is giving me the fear! Any tips?

How did you quit last time? That seems to have been successful up til now so why not go with that method again?

I came on eager to see if this Elf was a new chocolate bar!

yes getting gum (or patches/inhalator or whatever) is still going to be using nicotine but if it helps you wean off then it may make it more bearable for you.
However, they aren’t cheap but if it works it would be worth it.

I’d probably attempt cold Turkey. I bought gum when I was actually giving up smoking. In amongst the side effects was the warning about chewing the gum could cause mouth cancer. Whenever I was desperate for a cigarette I went and reread the warnings on the gum and that put me off. So, I bought the expensive gum but never actually chewed any!

I'd go cold turkey but also it might help if you get a couple of nicotine-free Elf Bars, to cope with the change.

Just go cold turkey, nicotine, even crackified nicotine that's in those bars is a shit tier addictor, nothing like coming off cigs

@OneTC oh really? Could you elaborate? Thats making me feel a bit less scared 😅

@Sapphirejane I got pregnant last time 🙈 quit the moment I found out

@Stickworm - oh maybe ignore my suggestion then 😆 I wish you the best of luck though

You can get nicotine-free elf bars, so if I were you I'd get some nicotine patches and use the nicotine-free version till you've weaned yourself off the patches. Then wean yourself off the habit of using the bar.

However: make absolutely sure you don't mix up the nicotine-free version and the ones with nicotine, you could make yourself extremely unwell.

Most studies into nic in isolation (ie not in cigs) suggest that it's a pretty poor addictive substance. Which is why gums and sprays and whatever else are very poor replacements for smoking.

Cynical bastards in the vape industry realised this and developed nic salts, which is more addictive than standard nic but still nothing like tobacco addiction.

If you go cold turkey you'll be looking at a couple of days of discomfort.

Your stomach issues etc are more likely related to the solvents carrying the nicotine rather than the nicotine itself.

The reason I mention the stomach issues being related to the solvents is because switching to a zero won't alleviate those symptoms of that's the case

Thanks @OneTC super helpful 🙏🏻

Get Allen Carr's book 'The Easyway to Stop Smoking' (book, audiobook, whatever) and just substitute 'elf bar' for cigarette.

I've never heard of these things but it sounds horrible!

@beastlyslumber yup and they’re really popular amongst teens at the moment 😞

I have never heard of them, is that its actual name?

Good luck with coming off them though, nicotine addiction is awful.

I came on to suggest this but there's a vaping book too.

Thank you @Edinvillian however I’m either working or looking after children (I work from home around school/nap and bedtime) and just cannot find the time to read. I was given various books for Christmas and I’ve read two chapters of one of them 🙈

I completely understand, I'm the same. I've downloaded the audible version for smoking so I can listen to instead. Hopefully by next month we'll both be non smokers/vapers. X

Hi OP

I was really addicted to these and it became so all consuming I had to quit. Was also terrified but just went cold Turkey and to my pleasant surprise it was really easy - once the decision was done I had minimal cravings. Just do it and don't look back! Good luck!

@Dallasdays thank you!!!

so I’m on day one, haven’t had any since yesterday. I bought a 0% nicotine one just to alleviate the actual addiction before the hand to mount habit but I’ve not used it as much as I would the actually elf bars as I guess my brain knows I’m not getting anything from it.

Pleasant side effect: I have not felt even half as tired as I usually do today - I actually can’t remember the last time I had this much energy and I haven’t really done anything to feel this awake!
Only negative: the last couple of hours cravings have been a little brutal and my husband is out so I’ve had to do solo bedtime with two overtired sweaty kids and no nicotine so that’s been fun 😂 it hasn’t put me off stopping though, on the contrary it’s just make me want to get the discomfort of cravings out of the way asap.

You're getting confused between the nicotine strength (mg) and capacity (ml). They contain only 2ml of juice but are usually 20mg strength, which is pretty high (think max strength used to be 24mg). Although they also do a 10mg which less places sell.

For context, I only vape 6mg and most people with powerful sub ohm devices (big clouds) usually vape at half usual strength which would be 3mg for me and a large number of other people.

All these bars use nic salts which are much smoother tasting than traditional ejuice. The side effect of this is that you can vape high amounts of nicotine without really feeling it.

@Stickworm well done! Great to get the first day done. Keep it up - life is much better not being a slave to pointless addictions (IMHO) x