As I have a few minutes, I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain a little about my smoking and vaping history.
I started smoking on 30th June 2001, one week after my 15th birthday and the same day I travelled to Munich on a school language exchange program and saw Bon Jovi live in the Olympic Stadium. Either Jon Bonjovi is a tiny, tiny man or we were reeeeeeally far back; probably the latter. After the gig, my exchange partner (her nickname was Angel but that is rather misleading ;-) ) took me to a cafe where we met her friends. I ordered a vodka flavoured icecream which was disgusting and we sat around chatting. She and her friends lit cigarettes and I was offered one. I declined saying that I didn't smoke and I didn't like it. Her response was 'how do you know if you don't try?' Irritatingly, she was right so I tried it and I rather liked it! Over the following two days, I borrowed the off cigarette or took drags from hers. Then I bought my own pack. They were Marlboro Reds and they were delicious so I smoked my way around Germany for the next week.
Over the next few months, I occasionally had a cigarette because (fool that I am), I thought it looked cool. I was also having a bit of a stressful time at school and would enjoy my after school cigarette before my mum came home.
Then, about 6 months after my first cigarette, I started dating a guy who thought that smoking looked sexy. I'm a terrible flirt and would often light up a cigarette to flirt with him and it usually did the job. One year after I started, I was well and truly hooked.
The stress of school got infinitely worse when I was sixteen. I changed schools so I didn't see my friends everyday, I was very stressed with the workload and was, I would say, bullied. I lost a lot of weight very quickly, partly because I preferred to spend my lunch money on cigarettes just to get me through the day and this led to accusations of an eating disorder which was totally untrue. By the time I was seventeen, I was smoking 20 cigarettes a day and my mum was having to fund my habit to avoid me having a total and utter break down. A lot of other stuff went down but that's not relevant to this story. It was thought, needless to say, a really lousy time.
I continued to smoke, funded by my mother, until I turned 19. My boyfriend (the same one, who by now did NOT find smoking sexy) and I were flying to Dublin for a couple of days and on the morning of our flight, I went outside for my first cigarette of the day and walked over to the local bakery to pick up some lunch for us to eat on the plane- where I promptly fainted into the crisp rack and dropped my pastie. I was terribly embarrassed and had to buy a new pastie but this sparked the idea that perhaps now was the time to quit. A couple of weeks later, I was armed with the gum and I was doing really well. I had a smoker at home and a smoker in my summer job and I found the smell (passive smoking!) really beneficial. The boyfriend and I broke up after about 4 years that same summer and I started a fling with a different guy who I saw kissing one of my friends. I cracked and smoked two cigarettes that day. In about six weeks, I cracked that one time. Not long after, the original boyfriend and I got back together, had a massive row when he found out about my fling and broke up again, this time really breaking my heart as I knew it was for good. Destraught, I walked the 100feet or so to my local offlicence and returned to the old faithful Marlboro Reds and smoked most of the packet that evening.
When I went off to uni, I tried to quit another couple of time using the gum I had left over but realised it was that that had been making me feel so sick over the summer, not the hangovers ;-) I tried cold turkey and that made me crazy so I gave up giving up. My last quitting attempt was the autumn of 2005. Even the increasing cost, despite being a student, couldn't get me to quit- I simply went over to rollies in the autumn of 2007. Even when I was unemployed I found money for rolling tobacco.
In May 2010, I started dating J. He was a real jerk and while there isn't the time or need to describe in intricate detail just why he was such a jerk, we'll briefly describe it as a VERY unhealthy relationship. He really didn't like me smoking and would often berate me, sometimes very publically and embarrasingly, for it. What he didn't realise was the more he chastised, the more I wanted to smoke. That smoking helped prevent me from bludgeoning him to death with a blunt instrument didn't cross his mind!
Skip forward to the summer of 2011 and my grandmother sees an advert for ecigs in the local newspaper and suggests they may be an option for me. I'm a little skeptical but agree to at least think about it. It the October, I started to look online as I was back at university on my second masters and living in university accomodation where I had to go outside to smoke which was down two flights of stairs and a real pain in the behind. I found a company online who had a telephone number and I thought to call them for advice and also to check they were a reputable company. They recommended the Ego-T and I inititally found this very beneficial. I told my friends and housemates that I was going to be cutting down and they initially seemed very supportive, at least until they saw me having one of my five cigarettes a day outside and would make snide comments at me and about my ecig. Excited by the ecig, I also bought a 510-T although I never used it. I found cleaning the atomiser on my Ego-T a real pain and discovered cartomisers and really thought I had cracked it but I found the set up heavy, uncomfortable and ugly. J, too, was also a jerk about it. He couldn't understand that it was water vapour coming out of my mouth and despite claiming to be a top-notch scientist (he really wasn't! He thought breathing gives you cancer!), wouldn't even consider finding out more about what I was doing. He insisted that if I wanted to use it, I had to do it outside. My thoughts on this were 'if you want me to go outside, I might as well smoke outside and at least enjoy it.' By Christmas of 2011, its fair to say I'd given up on my Ego-T.
Both my Ego-T and my 510-T (with a pack of cartomisers) sat in a drawer until about September this year when I bought a higher strength of nicotine (I went from 11mg to 18mg) and considered going back onto the ecig. I was living in a new house, with new housemates who weren't total jerks like the last lot, and thought that it might be a good time to try again. I took my gear home with me when I visitted my family and friends for a week and started to use the ecig again when I visitted friends with a small child. They were happy for me to use it inside and were excited that I was trying again.
On November 4th, on the 8 hour drive back to uni, I sat and used my 510 batteries with my cartomisers and probably cut down the amount I would have smoked by at least half.
On November 5th, I cut down from my usual 20 rollies a day to 10. Over the next couple of weeks I cut down to five a day, then two, then one.
On November 20th, on the advice of people from this forum, I used a higher strength juice (24mg) first thing in a morning and cut out that first cig of the day that had stumped me. I haven't looked back since!
On Saturday, 8th December, I woke up to a raging hangover and didn't want 24mg nic first thing. I used the 18mg that was still in the cartomiser from the night before and this has been the way ever since. By 13th December, I was trying 11mg at night before bed but found I was going to sleep before I had chance to use it so on 14th December, I used 11mg first thing on a morning and didn't try to murder my stepbrother!
Since I cut out cigarettes completely, I have had a really stressful time. I've had some really crazy bad news about another jerk I was dating (why do I pick such jerks?!), had a few nights out and a few hangovers, driven a really long distance, been Christmas shopping and hung out with smokers, including my family; all of which would usually send me running for my tobacco. Even with most of a 25g pack of Amber Leaf still in my bedroom, I have hardly been tempted. The biggest temptation was shortly before my drive home from uni for the holidays when I would usually have had a cigarette before setting off. Having eaten my McDonalds in the car as I would usually, I reached out for my nonexistant tobacco and realised my mistake. It wasn't a craving, just a habit I found myself breaking for the first time and it felt really good!
I'm sure there's plenty more detail I could add to this but it's pretty late so I think I'll add to it another time... right now I think I'll take my healthier lungs off to bed! G'night all!x
I started smoking on 30th June 2001, one week after my 15th birthday and the same day I travelled to Munich on a school language exchange program and saw Bon Jovi live in the Olympic Stadium. Either Jon Bonjovi is a tiny, tiny man or we were reeeeeeally far back; probably the latter. After the gig, my exchange partner (her nickname was Angel but that is rather misleading ;-) ) took me to a cafe where we met her friends. I ordered a vodka flavoured icecream which was disgusting and we sat around chatting. She and her friends lit cigarettes and I was offered one. I declined saying that I didn't smoke and I didn't like it. Her response was 'how do you know if you don't try?' Irritatingly, she was right so I tried it and I rather liked it! Over the following two days, I borrowed the off cigarette or took drags from hers. Then I bought my own pack. They were Marlboro Reds and they were delicious so I smoked my way around Germany for the next week.
Over the next few months, I occasionally had a cigarette because (fool that I am), I thought it looked cool. I was also having a bit of a stressful time at school and would enjoy my after school cigarette before my mum came home.
Then, about 6 months after my first cigarette, I started dating a guy who thought that smoking looked sexy. I'm a terrible flirt and would often light up a cigarette to flirt with him and it usually did the job. One year after I started, I was well and truly hooked.
The stress of school got infinitely worse when I was sixteen. I changed schools so I didn't see my friends everyday, I was very stressed with the workload and was, I would say, bullied. I lost a lot of weight very quickly, partly because I preferred to spend my lunch money on cigarettes just to get me through the day and this led to accusations of an eating disorder which was totally untrue. By the time I was seventeen, I was smoking 20 cigarettes a day and my mum was having to fund my habit to avoid me having a total and utter break down. A lot of other stuff went down but that's not relevant to this story. It was thought, needless to say, a really lousy time.
I continued to smoke, funded by my mother, until I turned 19. My boyfriend (the same one, who by now did NOT find smoking sexy) and I were flying to Dublin for a couple of days and on the morning of our flight, I went outside for my first cigarette of the day and walked over to the local bakery to pick up some lunch for us to eat on the plane- where I promptly fainted into the crisp rack and dropped my pastie. I was terribly embarrassed and had to buy a new pastie but this sparked the idea that perhaps now was the time to quit. A couple of weeks later, I was armed with the gum and I was doing really well. I had a smoker at home and a smoker in my summer job and I found the smell (passive smoking!) really beneficial. The boyfriend and I broke up after about 4 years that same summer and I started a fling with a different guy who I saw kissing one of my friends. I cracked and smoked two cigarettes that day. In about six weeks, I cracked that one time. Not long after, the original boyfriend and I got back together, had a massive row when he found out about my fling and broke up again, this time really breaking my heart as I knew it was for good. Destraught, I walked the 100feet or so to my local offlicence and returned to the old faithful Marlboro Reds and smoked most of the packet that evening.
When I went off to uni, I tried to quit another couple of time using the gum I had left over but realised it was that that had been making me feel so sick over the summer, not the hangovers ;-) I tried cold turkey and that made me crazy so I gave up giving up. My last quitting attempt was the autumn of 2005. Even the increasing cost, despite being a student, couldn't get me to quit- I simply went over to rollies in the autumn of 2007. Even when I was unemployed I found money for rolling tobacco.
In May 2010, I started dating J. He was a real jerk and while there isn't the time or need to describe in intricate detail just why he was such a jerk, we'll briefly describe it as a VERY unhealthy relationship. He really didn't like me smoking and would often berate me, sometimes very publically and embarrasingly, for it. What he didn't realise was the more he chastised, the more I wanted to smoke. That smoking helped prevent me from bludgeoning him to death with a blunt instrument didn't cross his mind!
Skip forward to the summer of 2011 and my grandmother sees an advert for ecigs in the local newspaper and suggests they may be an option for me. I'm a little skeptical but agree to at least think about it. It the October, I started to look online as I was back at university on my second masters and living in university accomodation where I had to go outside to smoke which was down two flights of stairs and a real pain in the behind. I found a company online who had a telephone number and I thought to call them for advice and also to check they were a reputable company. They recommended the Ego-T and I inititally found this very beneficial. I told my friends and housemates that I was going to be cutting down and they initially seemed very supportive, at least until they saw me having one of my five cigarettes a day outside and would make snide comments at me and about my ecig. Excited by the ecig, I also bought a 510-T although I never used it. I found cleaning the atomiser on my Ego-T a real pain and discovered cartomisers and really thought I had cracked it but I found the set up heavy, uncomfortable and ugly. J, too, was also a jerk about it. He couldn't understand that it was water vapour coming out of my mouth and despite claiming to be a top-notch scientist (he really wasn't! He thought breathing gives you cancer!), wouldn't even consider finding out more about what I was doing. He insisted that if I wanted to use it, I had to do it outside. My thoughts on this were 'if you want me to go outside, I might as well smoke outside and at least enjoy it.' By Christmas of 2011, its fair to say I'd given up on my Ego-T.
Both my Ego-T and my 510-T (with a pack of cartomisers) sat in a drawer until about September this year when I bought a higher strength of nicotine (I went from 11mg to 18mg) and considered going back onto the ecig. I was living in a new house, with new housemates who weren't total jerks like the last lot, and thought that it might be a good time to try again. I took my gear home with me when I visitted my family and friends for a week and started to use the ecig again when I visitted friends with a small child. They were happy for me to use it inside and were excited that I was trying again.
On November 4th, on the 8 hour drive back to uni, I sat and used my 510 batteries with my cartomisers and probably cut down the amount I would have smoked by at least half.
On November 5th, I cut down from my usual 20 rollies a day to 10. Over the next couple of weeks I cut down to five a day, then two, then one.
On November 20th, on the advice of people from this forum, I used a higher strength juice (24mg) first thing in a morning and cut out that first cig of the day that had stumped me. I haven't looked back since!
On Saturday, 8th December, I woke up to a raging hangover and didn't want 24mg nic first thing. I used the 18mg that was still in the cartomiser from the night before and this has been the way ever since. By 13th December, I was trying 11mg at night before bed but found I was going to sleep before I had chance to use it so on 14th December, I used 11mg first thing on a morning and didn't try to murder my stepbrother!
Since I cut out cigarettes completely, I have had a really stressful time. I've had some really crazy bad news about another jerk I was dating (why do I pick such jerks?!), had a few nights out and a few hangovers, driven a really long distance, been Christmas shopping and hung out with smokers, including my family; all of which would usually send me running for my tobacco. Even with most of a 25g pack of Amber Leaf still in my bedroom, I have hardly been tempted. The biggest temptation was shortly before my drive home from uni for the holidays when I would usually have had a cigarette before setting off. Having eaten my McDonalds in the car as I would usually, I reached out for my nonexistant tobacco and realised my mistake. It wasn't a craving, just a habit I found myself breaking for the first time and it felt really good!
I'm sure there's plenty more detail I could add to this but it's pretty late so I think I'll add to it another time... right now I think I'll take my healthier lungs off to bed! G'night all!x
