Well, as many may know from ADD and/or smoking threads, I have a raging case of ADD which was first suspected when I quit smoking 10 years ago.
Fast Background:
The day I first tried smoking, I smoked more than a pack and for the following 26 years smoked an average of 2 packs a day of the 120’s. Not quite a chain smoker, but close.
I was a voracious reader, I would read 2-12 novels every month plus a dozen periodicals. I would sit in the morning and chain smoke and read straight through for 2 or 3 hours.
Quit in 2000, cold turkey.
Immediately lost the ability to read novels. Since I quit smoking I have read only one, “The Road” which I found so riveting it kept me going. I can rarely read any one thing for longer than 20-30 minutes at most.
My then-therapist suggested that I might have ADD, because nicotine is a stimulant and ADD is treated with stimulants and losing my ability to focus on reading after stopping was pretty compelling evidence that I had been using nicotine to self-medicate. I completely dismissed the suggestion as ridiculous.
After five more years of struggle becoming progressively worse, I was officially diagnosed and medicated.
I have been using Adderall for 6 years. It never worked the same way nicotine did, for instance it never made reading easier. But it definitely helped in some respects.
But it’s just not cutting it anymore and I’m in bad shape. I have been mulling nicotine for awhile, I talked to my shrink about it and he said that studies have shown that some ADD sufferers respond to it better than anything else. I think I’m one of those people. (Google it: it’s being studied and talked about more and more and some drug companies are working on ways to employ it for the treatment of ADD officially.)
I am terrified of awakening the smoking monster inside me. I don’t want to fight it off and I absolutely do not want to smoke ever again: nicotine isn’t a great thing but cigarettes and smoking are evil for many reasons that have nothing to do with nicotine.
But I need help. I have to find something that really makes a difference, and everything I’ve read tells me that nicotine may be my real answer because it seems particularly effective where I have the greatest need: impulse control. So I want to give it a try.
The question is: patches or e-cigs? I am drawn to e-cigs because I believe they are cheaper than the patch and because I think they would give me the answer more readily: take a couple of hits and I’ll know one way or another if it’s working. The patch seems kind of iffy…how long does it take to get into the system? And they seem pretty expensive.
So…anyone have any opinions one way or another? Any ADDers try it? And do the e-cigs really feel and taste like smoking? Because maybe that would be bad because it would be more likely to trigger the desire to smoke…