"It keeps my hands busy"

Then there's the hand, and the mouth, and the object.

You'd say, and it's true, that some of this is nothing to do with nicotine. The vape is a thing to hold. It's a thing to do with your mouth in a meeting or on the phone. It's the reason your hand isn't picking at something or reaching for biscuits. When you smoked, the lighter and the packet and the tapping did the same job. Take the vape away and the hand will want something.

I'll concede all of it. There's a hand-and-mouth habit running alongside the nicotine one, and it would exist even if the liquid had nothing in it. For some people it's most of the reach. And the NHS, in explaining why vaping helps people stop smoking, says the same thing, that the hand-to-mouth action and the throat hit are part of what makes it work as a substitute.

Two things follow. The first is that the hand habit is separable from the nicotine one, and that the two shouldn't be confused. If a draw on a nicotine-free liquid would satisfy the reach, then that reach was the hand. If it wouldn't, that reach was the fall. You can find out which is which. Most all-day vapers who try a zero-strength liquid for a day report that it's fine for an hour and then isn't, and that tells them the proportion.

The second is that the hand habit is the easy part. People kept their hands busy for the whole of human history before there were vapes, and the ways are ordinary. A pen. A cold glass. A thing in the pocket that isn't a vape. Sugar-free gum for the mouth. The NHS suggests keeping your hands busy, with a walk or a puzzle, and it's the same advice. The hand will complain for a few days and then take what it's given. It's the fall that makes the complaint feel urgent, and once the fall is dealt with, the hand is just a hand.

There's a version of this belief that's about identity rather than habit. The device, the flavour you've settled on, the fact that your friends all have theirs on the pub table. That's real too, and I'll come to it in chapter 14. For now the point is only that the hand and the mouth and the object are all things you can keep, in some form, and none of them requires the dose.