almost everyone I've read about on here started for the same purpose, to quit smoking. <SNIP> Anyone vape as its own thing as opposed to a replacement kind of thing? I was kind of iffy about starting because I've read vaping is not for non smokers which I never considered myself. but I have my first starter ego in the mail and im excited!
I am glad you started this thread because I wanted to ask the same thing. I am a smoker but didn't start vaping to stop smoking! I was intensely curious as to what it was, since I had heard about it from a friend (she is on midnight shifts so we only talk on the phone--so I had never even seen anyone Vape!) She had mentioned that a certain day in September, her health plan is going to give everyone a test for a nicotine derivative (cotinine) and that the test is "much more accurate". She said she had passed the test last year (it was her first year there) by stopping smoking for several days before. But with the new test (cotinine) you have to quit smoking for a "really long time" before the test and she didn't think she could do it. She said the penalty would be that you would have to pay at least $600 more (a year I think) on your health insurance.
She said they also said you can take, i don't know, some internet "class" and get free smoking cessation stuff like patches or something and then be able to re-take the test and pass it then. We haven't talked since then, but I feel she was leaning toward not "worrying" about the quitting, just try and take all the "makeup stuff" and she could get her non-smoker status back. She doesn't google stuff like I do but I googled the cotinine test and it looked pretty much like you would have to stop smoking 10 days before the test AND it would work better if you even "cut back" before that. I kept thinking about it afterward, thinking "I wonder if I could do that 10 day stint if I tried the e-cig things?"
And it kept "eating at me" that she was making a big problem for herself turning up as someone who "lied" and said they were a nonsmoker and maybe--if she stays with that job (or even that industry, nursing) it will just follow her forever and she would be tested more often. Of course this is her problem but I kept wondering, could *I* do it? For 10 days, like could these e-digs satisfy me for 10 days? So that was how I started! LOL I never intended to quit smoking, I figured I will be smoking till I drop over dead, I am already in my 60s. And I liked smoking.
So technically I started to "quit smoking" but actually it was "to see if I could do without smoking for 10 days" and then go back to it, none the worse for wear.
But now I am 4 days into Vaping and really enjoying it more than cigarettes! Let's face it, though I say I "like" smoking, there are a billion and a half drawbacks to it and irritating things about it, like smelling like an ashtray.
I will love to hear from others who feel they get or may get benefits from it besides "not smoking" like that not "snacking" --which seems like it might be feasible with all the super flavors. Vape on!
