Before you start

This is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit. You vape through the day. At the desk, at the lights, in the bathroom at work, in bed. You don't decide to. Your hand goes to your pocket and the vape is there, and by the time you've noticed, you've had a draw. It seems to calm you, and you couldn't say how many times a day it happens.

I'm going to argue three things. The first is that the habit makes sense from the inside. For many readers it's the thing that got them off cigarettes, and it does seem to settle them, and it costs little, and nobody sends them outside for it. The second is that a cigarette had an ending and a vape doesn't, and that this one difference has turned an occasional dose into a continuous one without anyone choosing it. Most of the calm the vape gives is the reversal of a small fall in nicotine that the vape set up, and the reason you never feel withdrawal is that you never leave a gap long enough to. The third is practical. You put the ending back first, so the vape lives somewhere other than on you and each draw is decided. Then you bring the level down, by strength and by count together, or you stop in one step with help. Chapters 16 to 19 cover how.

This book doesn't argue that vaping is as bad as smoking. It isn't, by a long way, and the NHS is clear about that. It doesn't tell you what device or product to use. And it never tells someone who used to smoke to stop vaping if a cigarette would follow.

Four cautions.

If you're under eighteen, this book isn't written for you. The NHS says that children and non-smokers should never vape, and if you're vaping and want to stop, your GP or school nurse can help.

If you're pregnant, talk to your midwife. The NHS says vaping is likely to be safer than smoking in pregnancy, and that licensed nicotine replacement products are the recommended option. Don't change anything on the strength of a book.

If you used to smoke and you know, honestly, that without the vape you'd be back on cigarettes within a week, then the vape is doing a job and the NHS advice is to keep it until you're confident you can stop without smoking. Read on, because most of this book is about the pattern and not about stopping, and the first steps are safe for you. But don't skip the vape and pick up a cigarette. That's the one outcome worse than where you are.

And if your mood has been low most of the day for two weeks, or nothing has felt good, that's a change in your health and not a nicotine question. See a GP.

The notes at the back give my sources and their limits. Where I'm giving my own reasoning and not a finding, I'll say so.