Similar story here. Smoked for ten years. Actually found it easy to replace smoking with vaping (strong menthol). Stopped vaping after 1 year because I was suffering from GERD and suspected that vaping was an attributing factor. Since I stopped 5 years ago, my GERD symptoms have more or less disappeared.
I really enjoyed vaping, probably more than smoking, but somehow it did not seem to have the same addictive effect on me as smoking had. I did not find it that hard to stop cold turkey.
I stuck with it for 5 years because I was paranoid about relapse to cigarettes. Spent a couple of weeks in countries where vaping is illegal as a dry run, earlier this year, and then just waited for the juice to run out.
The addictive effect of nicotine seems much enhanced by the addition of a monoamine oxidase compound (ie related to the early antidepressant drugs) - which is present in burning tobacco - which seems to take nicotine from approximately as addictive as caffeine to more addictive than heroin (citation available).
Is it possible vaping did not suppress your appetite like smoking did, and so your stomach created more digestive acids, but you didn't eat more because of habit?
GERD/nicotine has a pretty strong link and it’s cumulative/long-term exposure that increases chances. Probably just a ticking time bomb that went off ;-).
(No offense to the parent poster intended, I likewise have played games with this same time bomb multiple times now)
> somehow it did not seem to have the same addictive effect on me as smoking had
Nicotine by itself isn't much addictive until mixed with stuff called MAOIs. Here's an earlier post of mine that gives a bit more detail https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20536162
snus is tobacco. Tobacco contains MAOIs along with nicotine. Maybe you were complaining that the reference referred to tobacco smoke, but it's reasonable to suppose (though granted, not established) that powdered baccy does as well.
Having used chewing tobacco, I can say it's got a hell of a kick more than plain nicotine tablets.
I really enjoyed vaping, probably more than smoking, but somehow it did not seem to have the same addictive effect on me as smoking had. I did not find it that hard to stop cold turkey.