I don’t believe statistics. It’s easy to find a random group of people or rats (or both) to defend or oppose whatever it is you’ve decided take a stance on. Mark Twain once famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” If statistics were accurate, we could just randomly select 949 Canadians to choose our next prime minister instead of bothering to vote as an entire nation, right?
The latest “statistics” regarding the use of e-cigarettes as a means to quit smoking suggest that they’re ultimately an ineffective cessation device. Does that mean you spent $60 for nothing? Well, not really. I have a friend who’s actually given up smoking altogether thanks to e-cigarettes, as well as another friend who says they’re “heavy, stupid and a waste of money.”
The thing with quitting anything in life is that you have to legitimately want to change, because it’s ultimately going to come down to willpower. Champex, for instance, is a pill that actually changes your brain chemistry so you don’t want to smoke, and it works for a lot of people. That said, as soon as you stop taking it, and you eventually have to, you’re going to have to want to keep up your new lifestyle.
We’re unfortunately a society that believes too much in the power of things external to our own will to make our lives better – be it hypnosis, a pill, or an e-cigarette. I’m not saying that external things aren’t useful. They can be wildly effective even when they’re not scientifically proven aids. Sometimes a psychosomatic cheering squad is all we need. But if you don’t truly have the desire to quit or change, you won’t.
Whether or not 949 Canadians were able to quit smoking with the help on an e-cigarette is irrelevant to you. Any device, save for a straight-jacket, will be ineffective if your willpower is the actual issue. Ask yourself this: Do I truly want to quit smoking? If so, will a crutch that helps break the habit be more useful than going cold turkey? Only you have the answer to that.