I guess everybody is different. At least that's what our fingerprints seem to indicate. On the other hand, our similarities are sometimes amazing. Take the common progression of using an electronic cigarette. Most of us start out wanting something that looks, feels, tastes, and behaves like a cigarette, but wind up with something almost nothing at all like cigarettes.
My story is not unique. I had been struggling with quitting analogs for years and I just sort of stumbled across e-cigs in a mall kiosk on my third day of yet another trip through cold-turkey hell. I had already made the decision that I was going for some smokes when I left the mall, but I ran into this little sno-cone stand where a guy was hawking e-cigs. I paid something around $200.00 for a kit with two look-alike e-gigs and a bottle of juice. I paid an extra twenty for a set of three "cartomizers" because the guy said the three pre-filled ones in the kit would only last about a month (Salesmen, go figure). The juice was labeled "14mg full strength." I immediately started chain vaping them and it actually seemed to be taking the edge off of my withdrawals.
After a week, I still hadn't smoked any cigarettes, but I was having a hell of a time keeping the batteries charged. On a hunch, I dropped by a local head-shop and found some (whoa mama!) 18 mg juice! I also found the EXACT SAME cigarette looking batteries for $12.00 apiece!
And blueberry. They had freaking blueberry.
This was a little closer to turning my nut, but I was still having wild cravings and feeling the weird psudo-hunger pang of nicotine withdrawal. Somewhere in there I started shopping for equipment and juice on the internet and found the ECF. I was directed to a manual push-button battery called a "riva." It was 30 bucks, hand a button and looked NOTHING like a cigarette, but I decided to try it and I'm very glad I did. I got some 24 mg juice (Sweet Mother of Jupiter!) and I was very close to as comfortable as I'd been on my standard 1+ pack a day Marlboro habit. I was never really satisfied until I found 30 mg juice, and started punching cartos to run an a tank on top of my ProVari. That's when I knew I never had to go back to combustibles again. Sure, if the stinking rotten FDA has it's way and bans it, I'll probably be back on cigs in a week, but for now. I'm good.
But I digress. Here's the point I wanted to make: I think we do people a disservice when we try to start them out vaping wimpy juice on under-powered batteries. I mean, if you are not a smoker and are just checking it out for gits and shiggles, sure, a zero-nic lookalike might get you there, but I'm guessing you'd have more fun at the movies. If you are trying to replace a nicotine addiction, well, what the patient ought to have is something more like 36 mg blown out of a theatrical fogger. Sure, as new patients we say dumb things like "I want it to look like a cigarette and light up when I suck it, and I don't want too much nicotine because I'm trying to quit." We should be politely ignored during this phase.
When I started, I wanted it to be "just like smoking," or so I thought. And, as long as it didn't cost me (much) more than the $150 I was shelling out each month, I'd be happy, or so I thought.
To be fair, my original requirement were almost met. It had to be white with a brown filter; light up on the end; same size as a cigarette; taste like a Marlboro 100, and keep me from getting "hungry." Now, almost two years from my last cigarette, I have three or for big battery tube mods, a couple of variable voltage disposable batteries, that all look more like avionics equipment than cigarettes, and I vape Gingerbread and Cola flavored juices at 30 mg because I can't find anything stronger.
I know "coulda-shoulda-woulda" is a fools game, and if you'd offered me a free ProVari with a tank full of Bobba that day at the mall, I probably would have said no-thank-you, and reported you to the authorities. But still, I think the transition would have been a little easier if my mall-sticks had been loaded with a much higher octane,
Today, I actually like the form factor of my big battery tube mods. I'm now fully acclimated to carrying around a huge device that looks like a cross between a Star Wars prop and a sex toy, and if they came out tomorrow with a look-alike that had the same performance as my VAMO/Vivi Nova rig, I'm not sure I'd even want it.
I recently charged up one of my mall sticks and filled up a carto with some Virginia/Turkish, just to reminisce, but I didn't like it at all; it was actually too much like smoking a cigarette.
