Good job figuring out what will work FOR YOU. Nobody else matters in this instance.

Personally, I am of the school of thought that using a "cigarette substitute" only delays part of the reprogramming of your brain to learn to live without cigarettes and the motions of smoking cigarettes however, having said that, you need to figure out what works FOR YOU.

A couple of suggestions:

Plastic Straw cut to about the length of a cig. stuff it with a little cotton or something so there's some drag resistance. Use that as a replacement cig. and smoke at will.

Some people just smoke a pretend cigarette as an imaginary object. Putting your index and middle fingers to your mouth then breathing in and exhaling. Same idea as above but even less work.

The same principal applies to the 2 above suggestions and that is - beep breathing. What you are really doing is a repetition of controlled, deep breathing. Inhale - hold & exhale then, repeat. You can do that without using any pretend cig. That's what I found helped me over some of my more anxious moments in my early Quit.

R.

Thank you very much.

I tried using a toothpick yesterday as  a substitute and wound up puncturing my gums with the point. Also, toothpicks in my hand are a pain in the arse.

I will try the pretend cig and see how I go.

However, I am taken with your idea that using a substitute only delays the reprogramming. That is not something that has ever occurred to me. This is why I need other people and can't do this on my own-fresh ideas and real experience.