How long have you been vaping?

[Tempus Fugit]

Hi, I'm Brandon, and I'm a recovering smoker. As of this post, I have been vaping for almost two years and 3 months. I switched over from cigarettes literally in two days. I tried a cigarette a couple of times during that period but found myself disgusted by the taste and unimpressed with the amount of smoke I blew out, compared to the vapor I produced from my e-cig.

How long have YOU been vaping? Let us hear about your milestones, your victories, and your encouraging stories. I'm sure newcomers will appreciate hearing about the successes we have all had with vaping and avoiding the "old" stuff. Show your reassurance to these folks so they know they have jumped their train onto the right track! Plus, it never hurts to be able to hear and compare all of our personal success stories. It is something to be proud of.

Brandon
Ms T's Bakery

 

[Smokin'Sandy]

Hi, I'm Sandy and I too am a recovering smoker. I tried to quit with the ecig about 3 years ago...about the time I joined this forum. It didn't work. I only had the little 510 batteries and the 910(? I can't remember...small that lit on the end). And all the juice I tried just tasted terrible. I didn't stick with it. Tried it again about a year ago. Same problem, but I ordered the ego. I didn't like the burnt taste and having to fill up the carts all the time. Failure. This time, the first of this year, I pulled the ego out again. My nephew introduced me to the tank. It worked this time. I smoked the rest of the carton of cigs I had and then probably purchased a couple of more then quit. I have to say that my nephew started making juices that were really sweet and I loved them! The cinnamon especially, but I can no longer vape cinnamon. It's a killer on my throat.

All these elements came together and I finally was able to quit. I was very, very, very surprised to discover how easy it really was. The times I tried before, I never really stopped smoking completely. Now, every once in awhile I'll still get a craving, but a high mg juice and a little pouch of snus kicks it away. That usually only happens in the morning now and when it does, I question myself why I want one when it tastes so terrible. Like Brandon, I smoked one cigarette after I quit and it was disgusting. I'm really very much in shock that I could kick a 35 year pack a day habit that easily. Things had to be just right though and like I said, at first, it just didn't work. You have to find what will work for you. I don't know how I smoked for all of my adult life and actually enjoyed it.

If it doesn't work at first, keep trying!

 

[nicosnack]

3 years and 3 months. No tobacco.

Saw the first e-cig on a gadget website and bought it. It wasn't that great of a model, but I immediately liked it and bought another setup from another vendor. Finished off the carton of smokes I had, and haven't looked back.

Worked through a few of the early mods. Hardware in the early days was not very durable, and that was accepted as part of the cost of being first adopters of a new technology. Slowly, all these creative and skilled entrepreneurs perfected the hardware and the juice.

Purely by coincidence, not because of their affiliation, I bought a GLV 2, which is still going strong, and got in with Ms. T... and haven't looked back!

 

[ScottinSoCal]

I've been vaping for about 15 months. It's only been about 11 months since I smoked a cigarette and I didn't really like it then, but I did it anyway. I think more to prove to myself that I was *really* *very* *upset* than to smoke. I found out that my lying ex had been screwing around for the last 12 years. And me all blissfully unaware, thinking everything is great. And me paying all the bills after a layoff and return to college, and me just going to work and fixing the cars and all the other stuff I'm supposed to be doing to show I'm giving support and taking care of everything. I dug out a pack I'd had laying around for a few months and I started smoking. Then the little voice inside my head - no, not that one, he just gets me in trouble, the other one. The one I don't listen to as often. Well, anyway, the little voice said "You're about to be single for the first time in 20 years. You really want to get back hooked on cigarettes and stink like that?" So I didn't smoke anymore, I just tweaked the setting up a little and vaped my way through it. Now, almost a year later, I'm very glad I did. I can also look back and tell myself that I've gone through the worst and I came out the other end vaping, not smoking.

 

[echos67]

I have smoked for 26 years, Marlboro Menthols were my choice of poison and if the store didnt have them, away I went to another store that did. This kinda interests me for the fact I like so many different flavors of Ms T's juice but anyways.
There was always the thinking I should stop smoking but I never really gave it an honest shot, the closest I ever came was a few months of incarceration (sorry I was rather wild when I was younger) when the smokes were not allowed in the hospitality suites, this didnt last upon release though.
Then I started noticing my stamina decreasing, not a great amount but enough to notice when doing an outdoor activity I was not able to do as much as I used too. Shortly after this I started weighing the costs out and it dawned on me my car payment is less than my analog habit per month. This isnt cool.
I wondered how I was going to stop smoking for good and thought back to my childhood days, well one of my Grandfathers chewed Red Man chewing tobacco, of course I had to ask for some and long story short I was SICK! To this day I can not stand that stuff, so I thought maybe to quit smokes I would grab a few packs and chain smoke until sick. Thankfully before I tried this stupid stunt I started researching e-cigs and the rest is why I am here analog free for close to 3 months.
A quick side note is I was in a small area at work were someone just smoked a cig and I couldnt stand the breathing restriction I was feeling. I had to walk out to feel like I was able to breathe, I am not the type to say anything like someone should do this or that especially since I used to smoke but damn I am glad people dont smoke in restaurants anymore.

 

[KnotGillty]

I've been vaping for the amount of time shown in my Signature below this post. I started smoking in 1984 at the age of 15. I smoked marlboro ultra light 100's for the last 10+ years. I used to be in great shape as a young man. Now in my 40's I'm 100+ pounds more than what I weighed in high school / college. My health began deteriorating as my waist line increased. When I was smoking I didn't like excercising because I had no lung capacity which caused me to get worn out so dang easy. The day I bought my first disposable e-cig I knew it would work for me. I quit cigarettes and started using a cigarette sized e-cig kit. My ultimate test was when I went to Las Vegas a few weeks after starting e-cigs. I got rip roaring drunk (it's vegas) for 4 straight days and my little e-cig got me through the ordeal without breaking down and chain smoking marlboro's. I now walk 2 to 3 miles four days a week and I feel so much better. I lost my virginity to Ms. T as her juices were the first I ever tried. Like a good first love, I haven't strayed and remain loyal. Ok, that just sounds wrong, but it's true I now have three 900 mAh ego style batteries and I'm alternating between cartomizers, a tank cartridge system, and the occasional drip on an atomizer. I have some doohickeys in the mail where a cartomizer slides inside a tank filled with e-juice. I forget what they are called, but they look promising as the tank the carto is submerged in always keeps the carto wet & filled with juice (no more filling up the carto with the condom method and no more having to pop off the end cap to refill by dripping or syringe). There are so many dang options in the vaping world. That's another fun thing. Whereas cigarettes are pure addiction, e-cigs adds the whole 'hobby' factor.

Also, I'm weening myself down to zero nicotine. My last two orders of Ms. T's have been zero nicotine juices. I still have some older nicotine juices at home, but only use those when the urge requires, which is less and less. I don't ever plan on quitting my vaping hobby, even after I'm totally nicotine free, because I enjoy it so dang much and the health hazzards seem to be minimal. Plus, after not smoking in the house for the last 25 years, I'm gonna make up for lost time with indoor vaping. As an ex-smoker, it's nice just to be able to blow vape out of my mouth as the sensation is soooo close to smoking. Plus, all my life long friends are smokers and vaping around them is much better than giving in to a cigarette when they light up.

When I began vaping, I naturally thought that tobacco flavor would be the only one I would want. Little did I know it would be the one I wanted least, thanks to Ms. T

That's my vaping journey so far.

 

[misplacedsooner]

almost a year for me vaping. 1 year ago i had what i was certain was a heart attack. had the wife rush me to er and stayed 2 days. turned out it was my acid reflux and i hadnt been taking my nexium. anyhow, i got out and right away grabbed a smoke, got home and lit another and the same pain came back and i started freaking out so rather than give them to my wife who still smokes a little, i destroyed the rest of my stash and put on a patch. urges increased and after a couple days started wearing 2 patches and i was kinda ok. then i grabbed a cheap gas station e-cig and i used them for like 4 months. with them i didnt have urges anymore. then by luck i found a guy on one of my aquarium websites that dealt in ego-ts so i got one of the pass thrus and some juice.... i had never known that you could buy juice til then. of course i had to have tobacco flavored juice as my main as i couldnt see inhaling any other flavor. i also got some Cinnamon and spearmint as i like those flavors. the cinn was good mixed with the tobac but the spearmint was terrible. anyhows, while waiting for my ego-t to arrive i stumbled on this place and started reading..... ALOT!! i was blown away at all the mods and juices a person could get. i started buying juice off the classies to try out different flavors and vendors to find my daily juice. i noticed quickly that some juice from some vendors that i thought id love were awful!! i found a couple of tobac flavors i liked pretty well one being casablanca and thought that was the one as its pretty good. then i bought a small lot from a guy named chris... yes, our chris here. and got a small bottle of strawberry shortcake and it was like i had been living on a soy-burger diet and then was served up a medium rare t-bone.... it was just that good so i ordered a 15ml right away. while waiting i ran out of shortcake and had to go back to my casabanca but it wasnt the same, it held me over but when i got my shortcake i sold all my tobacs and made another order and decided ill never run out of this again and i havent.

 

[Carlyawesome]

Hi there, my name is Carly, I'm 28.95 years old and I like puppies and cheese and blank notebooks and oh wait!........lol, sorry, I'm kinda bad about that! Anyway, I started vaping about a year ago, and I had your typical horrible newcomer experience. I bought a kit because (these are actual quotes from the website)"cartridge is equivalent to about 40 traditional cigarettes" and "The battery will last for approximately one day with normal use" and "The cartridges come in various strengths: Extra (11mg nicotine), High (8mg nicotine), medium (6mg nicotine), low (3mg nicotine), none (0mg nicotine)" The cartridges cost about $13 for a five pack, but I thought that maybe wasn't such a bad deal if it was equal to 10 packs of cigarettes. Needless to say, I went back and forth between smoking and vaping, really feeling down on myself for not being able to kick the analogs. I was sure it was something I was doing wrong. After a particularly bad reorder experience with that company I found ECF, I bought myself an eGo, and this coming Saturday at 5pm I will mark one month analog free. It only took 11 months of daily failure for me to get it right, so every day I get a little more excited about it.

There is also a second and even more suprising benefit to vaping for me. I have a metabolic disorder which, if I don't watch what I eat, can cause my blood to thicken with undigested fats and sugar and I basically turn into a stroke waiting to happen. I lovingly refer to this as my lazy organ syndrome, because somthing somewhere inside of me is not doing it's job. I have an adverse reaction to the medication they would normally use for this so I have to regulate it though my diet. I had already been a vegitarian for four years when I found out about this disorder. I didn't eat fast food, I didn't drink non diet soda, and as far as my daily meals went they were pretty well balanced. The only thing I really had against me was a glass of wine once ever couple of weeks and my raging sweet tooth. I had to cut out all refined sugar and complex carbohydrates from my diet, plus no alcohol. Guess how much fun a party at my house is! Well, thanks to my juice I've been able to cut out the last little bit of sugar I was craving in addition to the analogs. I guess what vaping really did was save me from myself. Sorry this has been a long one, but like I said I'm a little excited.

 

[jdrewry]

James here; I was roughly a 2 PAD smoker for close to 35 years. Tried Chantix, the gum, the patch--forget it. My brother introduced me to vaping, and after I did about a week of some hard research, I decided to make the move on the eve of Hurricane Irene (what better time to start? I damn sure wasn't going out in a hurricane for a pack of smokes). It took the first day for me to realize that I wasn't ever going back to analogs, once I got the hang of using my starter kit. By day 3, I threw out everything that reminded me of them--a half full pack, lighters, ashtrays, etc. My girlfriend was thrilled, and I could stop worrying about the effects of second hand smoke on her and her daughter, which became a really big concern for me.
Still working on my first kit (eGo 510-T); I've bought some of the 1000mah batteries, a few type B attys since. Just bought my first non-eGo part (VISION eGo Stardust cartomizer) which I'm really liking. And, needless to say, once I discovered Ms Ts Bakery, I don't see how I'd ever go back to analogs.

BTW..a big Thank you to Ms. T for upgrading the size of my Sugar Cookie order. It's taking everything I've got to let that baby steep.

Must steep, must steep. must steep......

 

[Str8V8ping]

Iv been vaping for 7 months now .I use to be a 2-3 PAD smoker since i was 14-15. It took me about 3 months to completely quit analogs only because i wanted to slowly work my way off them. I honestly whole heartedly would have never quit if it werent for two things . 1 being boge cartomizers and 2 being mstsbakery. No other juice was gonna do it for me but the first time i tried msts i knew right away that i could do it. I owe my life to mst.Not only that but mst even got me to cut the mg of juice i was using from 24 to now 14mg. I love seeing the (low) on the bottle. VV devices have also been a big help.

 

[ScottinSoCal]

Not only that but mst even got me to cut the mg of juice i was using from 24 to now 14mg.

Yeah, I went from 24mg to 18mg because Banana Nut Bread tasted better at lower strength (the kick of the nicotine washed out most of the banana flavor for me) and when I found I could be happy at 18mg for that, I switched to 18mg for all my flavors.

 

[radicalfrog]

I have been vaping since Sept 2009! I got hosed with my first and second e-cig. Until I went to the net and found the Joye 510. Used that for a bit with yucky tobacco flavors from china. (I didn't know any better LOL) I'll finish this part in the How did Ms. T get into juice baking thread.

Used the Ego for a little while and then found my GLV. Then I started out with my very first flavor I ever created Banana Fosters Coffee. That was like the best thing I could find to start with. Vaped on high for a couple days after some research found I was getting a nic buzzzzzzz and reduced to 24mg and finally got down to where I am now 18mg. I go a little lower when I am testing flavors. I guess we all know why LOL Nic Buzzzzzz!!!

I will finish this in the How did Ms. T get into juice baking? thread.

Smooches
Ms T

 

[CayCay]

I quit for my dad. The one thing I wanted to prove to him just incase the cancer took him away from me. For 10 years my dad and I tried to quit and we always gave in again. When he found out he had cancer he quit cold turkey. I quit smoking around him but it wasn't enough for me. He quit like he promised me... it was my turn to keep my promise. I found e cigs and started experimenting in September 2011. I knew it was the road to recovery and my dad was proud of me. He beat cancer and I beat cigarettes.

 

[Cinnamonkey]

May 18th will be a year for me. I did it for my kids. My son has begged me for years to quit. My husband actually got me into the ecigs when we decided to quit together. I started with V4L, and don't get me wrong, they are a great company. They are the ones that started me on my journey. I started looking for something a little more "made in America" when it came to my juices though. It all began when I was searching for the perfect Cinnamon flavor. I mean I searched and tried. It was either too sweet and not hot enough...or so hot I just couldn't vape it. There was no middle ground.

I kept browsing the forum. I found Ms. T's thread and searched her website. After so much disappointment, I was hesitant...surely I wasn't going to find juices that actually taste like favorite foods and candies, right???? I gave it a shot and I haven't left yet. I am thankful for Ms. T. Her juices have ensured that I will never go back down the ciggy stinky path. I have not had one Marlboro since quitting. I actually find the smell of ciggy smoke abhorent now (like a really bad egg fart that peels the paint off walls) but without the superb delicious juices created by Ms. T, I honestly don't know if I would have been able to keep searching, searching, searching, and never finding juices good enough to stick with.

I can't wait til my one year vape-a-versary. I am holding my head up high without yacking and hacking my spleen out. Thank you Ms. T!!!!

 

[Karla Lyle]

Both my husband and I started vaping Dec 28th 2011 so about 2 1/2 months. I was one of those who NEVER thought I could quit smoking. My husband kept saying, maybe we should try to quit, and I always said there was just no way I could. I have gone through 3 pregnancies since 2009 and with all of them I was never able to completely quit. I know that sounds terrible and of course I feel terribly guilty, but I couldn't do it. I cut back but never fully gave it up. 2 months after my last child was born I discovered e cigs and so glad I did. Haven't picked up a cigarette since. I had smoked since I was 12 years old. Didn't have a PAD habit til I was about 16 though, so I had smoked almost 20 years. More than half my life. When I was in the hospital after giving birth I was given a nicotine patch and still had to sneak out to smoke. They just didn't work for me. I also tried Zyban years ago as well as cold turkey. Nothing worked. Do you know how bad that looks when a woman who just gave birth sneaks out in a hospital gown to smoke a cigarette. Security at the hospital got to know me very well, since you aren't even allowed to smoke on hospital grounds. LOL Luckily none of my kids had any issues from my smoking, but I'm so happy they will now be raised in a household that does not smoke.
I first started my vaping experience with an Ego-T and some Dekang 555, Dekang apple, and Dekang butterscotch, which was all fine because I didn't know any better. It kept me away from cigarettes which was most important. Next I bought a Kgo and discovered LR cartomizers and started trying other vendors juices, most of which were either way to weak in flavor or just down right awful . After waisting a ton of money on juices that I didn't like, I finally discovered juices I love. Ms T's is definitely the top of the line in juices along with a very few others. I now use a LavaTube with SR Boge cartos and have found a select number of juices that I love and know for sure I will never be a smoker again and I have a much better chance of being around longer for my kids.