What's your Vaping story?

[Diche]

Why did you start vaping?
How long have you been a vaper?
Are you a smoker, an ex-smoker or a non smoker?
How has vaping effected you?



Tell your story!

Add it to the thread and it will be added to a growing body of stories from across the world in many languages and from every continent. Plans are afoot to create a database where every story can be found. Your story will be included in this database. Our vaping stories are some of the most powerful weapons we have when it comes to convincing politicians, medical professionals and the general public about how effective vaping can be.


If you are happy to leave your real name and which town you live in that would be fantastic. It would help make sure these stories cannot be ignored by the sceptics, but the important thing is your story, so if you aren’t able to leave your name, PLEASE still leave your story.

 

[Chrissie]

My story -

I was a very heavy smoker - averaged 50 a day for many years

My breathing was laboured & I was constantly getting colds & chest infections. I'd wake up in the night gasping for breath & when I got up, I'd cough until I was almost sick.My bank balance was also suffering badly. I tried just about everything to either give up or at least cut down, but nothing worked.

I bought my first e-cig (a ciggy lookalike), over 7 years ago. I instantly cut down to on average 10 a day. After some upgrades I cut down to 2 a day & was more than happy with that. Then one day, I suddenly realised I was no longer enjoying those 2 cigs & infact, hated the smell of them.

How has vaping effected me? - it's given me my life back. I can now breath so easily, no longer wake up in the night gasping for breath or coughing my guts up when I get up. I hardly ever get a cold & no chest infections. Plus I have saved a small fortune

 

[Diche]

Here are the stats so far 128 stories have been collected and the breakdown is as follows:

Facebook: 58
POTV: 28
UKV: 18
Vapers in Power Blog: 11
TVF: 8
AAEC: 4
ECF: 1


Keep the stories coming, every single one is important

 

[Sean cannon]

Well I started vaping about 6 months ago I am an ex smoker and got to a stage of smoking 2 oz of hand rolling baccy every three days myself and my missus for worried as I couldn't make it up stairs without being out of breath and the early morning coughs where horrendous so after a while of putting off and putting off my wife came back with one of those £15 starter ego packs 900mah batt and cartomiser charger and 24 mg nicotine juice (tobacco to start with ) and me full of trepidation well it worked for me straight away I loved it , I've had the odd ciggy along the way but my cough has gone I can walk further and love the flavours and tastes to the point of hating the smell and taste of analogues I am currently using a cool fire 4 with an iclear 30 tank my choice of juice is one made by the shop I visit called black pearl and also love black jack flavour

 

[pfaber11]

I started vaping in 2009 with a dse 801 pen style. For the first 2 years it was a struggle I'd vape for a couple of weeks then smoke for a few days and so on. In the last 4 years i have smoked 65 cigarettes and now find it easy to say no thanks i don't smoke. As from now i don't think I'll smoke again . Got myself a good setup now and into sub ohming which is a satisfying vape. Got no reason to smoke again. I have an mvp 2.0 and a defender 36 watt . I use a kanga pro tank 2 on the mvp 2.0 and an Arctic sub ohm tank on my defender at 35watts and 0.5 ohms . Things are so much better these days for new vapers . Anyway have a nice day. I live near Nottingham in the UK.

 

[jhelliwell]

OK one more story for you then. After 20 years of smoking Marlboro Reds I swapped this for another 7 years on rollies. There were various quit attempts, none of them successful. The final (successful) quit attempt went like this:

I reached the end of what I could cope with. Stinking of tobacco, yellow fingers, coughing, wheezing, being terrified I was going to smoke until it killed me. Uuurgh. I walked half a mile up the road, shoved all my baccy, papers etc in the bin outside a pharmacy, went in and bought some Level 1 patches. I spent the next few weeks high as a kite on nicotine, dizzy, rushing, elevated heart rate, nightmares. God I hate patches. After 2 weeks you are supposed to go down to Level 2 patches but I was completely unwilling to. 8 weeks later still on L1 patches. Went out for a beer or 2 with some mates, all of whom were smoking. The alcohol dissolved my resolve. They all knew I had quit so I didn't want to cave in in front of them. I planned to buy a packet of cigs on the way home. But it didnt pan out that way! A mate pulls out his eGo+CE4 setup with blueberry eliquid. I had never seen one before. He explained what it was, and that pure nicotine wasnt a carcinogen and invited me to take a drag. I did so, and blessed relief flooded through my nicotine-deprived self. I knew instantly I never needed to smoke another cigarette in my entire life. Off came the rubbish patches, and I popped down to the local B&M next day and got myself a starter kit. Sorted. Haven't smoked in a couple of years now. Will never go back to it either.

Gone are the yellow fingers, I don't stink and I'm not terrified that smoking will kill me. My health has improved, I don't get all the sinus problems and colds, I don't wheeze. What a miracle that one drag off en ecig was. If someone had told me I could get you to quit smoking with one pull from an ecig I would have laughed in their face. And I would have been wrong! It was so most painless quit method I've ever used. In fact I barely noticed it. When I read so called "articles" claiming that there is no evidence ecigs aid quitting I just shake my head and wonder whose pockets the author is in.

(from Sheffield BTW)

 

[liquidator]

I started vaping in 2012 after researching on this forum. The first 6 months I weaned myself off the cigs, 30 per day down to 0.

I started vaping because of health and cost, now three years later I can breath, no coughing and I have saved about £6,000.

I smoked for 40 years and never intended to give up until I found this alternative, now I do not like the taste of cigs, as for the cost, £2 per week to vape! It's a no brainier really, especially with some of the kits out there that produce as much vape as a smoke machine, it pales smoking into insignificance.

 

[rhodzy]

This is my story!

I was quite a late smoker (I started at 18/19) it started happening when I went out drinking! Just something to do when drinking and I quickly caught the bug for it.

During the ten years of smoking I tried to give up numerous times:

Gum = FAILED
Tablets = FAILED
Patches = Can't use
ecig = WORKED for about 3 months (but due to them not being easily avaliable at the time it broke and couldn't get hold of another) So I ended up starting again
Champix = WORKED (for about 4 months)
ecig = WORKED for a good 9 months then I just suddenly started again on a night out, one of those I'll keep the left overs for the next time (nope had them the next morning!)
Champix = FAILED (Made me a completely different person, people saying that I had no feelings and was just blank)
ecig = WORKED (Still going strong with rebuildables and MODs)

So that is pretty much my story of everything I had tried, the last time I got onto ecigs nearly two years ago, I was upto 25 cigs a day, health was getting bad, needing to smoke all the time and doubling up!

Now on ecigs I feel so much better, better health, fitter plus it's nice to taste food and drink how they should be!

One of the problems I had with ecigs and drinking was the taste in my mouth the morning after... still not sure what it was, maybe it was the alcohol? and not an ash tray. that has now gone now and I don't notice it anymore.

it's also nice going out for a drink now, big session or little session and not having any craving for a smoke. Although it does get pretty annoying carrying juice, batteries and coils just in case

 

[pfaber11]

It's really good to read such stories of success if you don't first succeed try try again because ecigs can really do it for you. vape on

 

[sapphire rose]

Im 46 yes old been smoking for nearly 30 yrs and managed to get up to 50 roll ups a day, tried a look a like e cig a couple of yrs bk and hated it also tried champix ( not a good experience) patches etc including cold turkey.Was in my local town center bout 5 weeks ago and came across the local vape shop i popped in and have been vaping eversince ive quit the cigs feel so much better and woukdnt ever smoke again l

 

[Colleen3429]

I started vaping 2 years ago with a Blu e-cig. I was able to quit smoking the day I brought the e-cig home. Before vaping I smoked almost 2 packs a day and constantly had sinus infections, colds and even pneumonia. I have not had any respiratory illness since I started vaping. I am a very happy vapor and have lots of mods and make my own juice and coils.

 

[liquidator]

I have an addition............

A few weeks ago, I saw my nephew who had recently given up smoking, he was vaping on one of those off the shelf sub-ohming devices, a Kanger Subox starter kit. When I saw the enormous amount of vapour it produced, I had to try it, I was not only impressed by the volume of vapour but also how smooth it was, this was down to the juice he was using.

What made the juice so smooth was quite simple, home made weak mix. I have always found the off the shelf juice to be too harsh for direct lung inhaling.

Anyway, I now have one of these and they are awesome, massive amounts of vapour, so much so that I have to be careful when driving to keep the window open.

 

[DavidW85]

Smoked for about 6-7 years wasn't a heavy smoker maybe 10-15 a day depending but always found it really hard to quit and would get bad colds all the time always sneezing and clearing my throat, started vaping 2 weeks ago on the 1st of October (Vapetober lol).

Funny thing is I actually "stopped" a few days before the 1st on the Sunday and vaped a day or 2 but then had a few cigs left over which I finished on the wednesday cause I had to go to an appt which was a bit stressfull and didnt feel comfortable walking around with an e-cig just yet. When you vape then go back to a cig you can really taste the nastiness in the cigs like its your first allover again even after just a few days away from smoking it was like inhaling vomit or something.
So I was stood outside the dentist (lol) smoking next to one of those bins with the ashtray on top retching about the place spitting so I wouldnt throw up just thinking WTF am I doing? Not had another cig since and really not bothered at all.
Had to go back to dentist for a followup and vaped that time just had to think to myself what is worse? Standing next to a bin with vomit breath or vaping some coffee juice and maybe not even needing to go to the dentist so often?

 

[Vapin Dave]

Cigarettes were killing me, I HAD to do something.

 

[pfaber11]

When I was using my mvp 2.0 it kept me from smoking but I was never completely satisfied. Now that I am sub ohming i am even with 8mg juice. I guess what I'm saying is if you are not satisfied up your game.