Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelwww | Hacker News Reader

Snus is an awesome alternative to smoking. I've tried chew and nicotine lozenges, but snus is a happy medium. I've come up with a way to get off nicotine, which I do from time to time: dissolve about 8 nicotine lozenges in a bottle of water. Take a sip when craving hits. The craving goes away immediately. ymmv.

View on HN

So, you get off nicotine by going on nicotine?

I believe it's called "tapering off" The cravings go away as the dosage goes down, since a sip isn't enough to increase or maintain tolerance.

Actually, nicotine has a rather short half-life of about 2 hours [1], which means even smaller doses quickly restore it close to previous levels. So in essence, tapering off is like going through many shorter withdrawals (doesn't sound scary but its actually a bit of a torture compared to quitting cold turkey).

[1]: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/documentStore/m/a/u/mau01c00/...

My withdrawal symptoms don't become noticeable until the 4 hour mark. Quitting cold-turkey from a high daily intake level can be quite difficult for some people, who have intense emotional reactions. This doesn't happen for everyone, so those that say "quit cold turkey, I did" don't know how bad it gets for some. If I understand right, it's about how fast normal dopamine production recovers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

Edit: > which means even smaller doses quickly restore it close to previous levels

Not for me it doesn't. I'm quite aware of how much nicotine I have in my system and what effect it's having.

Smoking addiction combines both chemical addiction and a very peculiar habit. It is hard to break both at the same time; so best practice for quitting is to first drop smoking as a habit (while not touching nicotine addiction, replacing it with another nicotine source) and only afterwards working on the actual stuff.

Thunder Extra Strong is a snus with no flavor and a high nicotine count.

Just passing it along since I tried 5-10 brands before settling on Thunder. To each their own.

> Snus is an awesome alternative to smoking.

Doesn't it cause oral cancer?

The package has a warning that it can cause gum disease and tooth loss. It's not as bad as smoking in my opinion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com