I'm old. I've smoked Marlboro Reds for fifty years. Lots of them.
I'd call myself a chain smoker, except I don't literally light one cigarette with the other. But the time between putting out one and lighting the next one is, um, short.
Due to some health issues (ironically, not smoking-related at all), I've begun having some "smoking cessation ideation."
I have no illusions of any long-term health benefit, but I have been considering that not smoking might help the process of "keeping me comfortable" when I'm invaded by one of those "upper respiratory" micronasties, which invariably takes one look at my trashed immune system, calls all its friends and declares "Part-Tay."
I stand in slack-jawed awe at the people who have stopped smoking using the "cold turkey" method.
They're made of finer stuff than I, but after reviewing the options available, as well as some frank conversations with myself about the various realities of MY situation, I'm strongly inclined to think that e-cigarettes, in combination with medication and the proverbial "support," will give me the best chance at quitting.
I am delighted to have found this website, as googling for actual information on e-cigarettes is frustrating, to say the least, as almost all the returns, into the gazillionth thousand page of returns, are nothing but ad after ad on sites with names like "objectivereviewsbyrealpeopleaboutecigs.com."
I'm also epically overwhelmed. From zero information, I now find myself floating in a sea of it. I feel like I accidentally enrolled in an Advanced Quadratic Equation Theory class at MIT.
I'm old (did I mention that?) and some of the medications I take make me a little foggy (er).
I have read and read until my eyes have turned to those cartoon ones with spinning irises, and my brain is a matrix pattern of alphabet and number soup, hybrids and chargers and e-juice, oh, my! batteries and cartridges and oh! this one is so easy, all you have to do is adjust the rock-arm until the piston indicator reads somewhere between 9 and 10 microns per revolution, connect the gamma cable wires just as if you were performing routine maintenance on a nuclear warhead, whisk the jumper switches through a simple solution of .7% potassium chloride, insert the 4th LED into the simple combustion engine you built in step 27 - and you're ready to smoke!
Unless, of course, you want more flavor, in which case you might prefer to start by assembling a standard rocket launcher-style serial interface (you can use a common hamster wheel for this), and after re-calibrating the cantilever using the polynomial midpoint...
After comparing all that to my half-century old custom of:
1) remove cigarette from pack, place in mouth
2) flick lighter to ignite non-mouth-sittin' end of cigarette
3) inhale
and in light of the fact that I'm
A) old
B) confused and a little loopy
I'm just a teeny bit intimidated, and starting to second-guess myself.
I am, therefore, obliged to throw myself upon your most knowledgeable and awesome mercies, and hope that you will:
1) forgive me for being so long-winded.
2) HELP!
2.1 Am I kidding myself? Is the idea just too preposterous? Could there possibly be a "right e-cigarette" for someone who is:
a: old
b: a little loopy
c: a very heavy smoker for 50 years
e: is neither mechanically nor mathematically inclined
f: poor - and here's the
TWIST: I don't pay for cigarettes. I apologize for mentioning that, and in the same breath saying I'm not able to discuss it, but I have to mention it, because it has a significant impact on the financial aspect of the product-choosing process.
Addendum: I do sit at the computer most of the time. I don't get out much. Doctor, drugstore is about it.
So the USB doodleding sounds like a plan if I could figure it out, BUT -
One of the things that attracted me to the e-cigarette idea is that it also addresses the whole physical habit of holding something in the fingers.
I'm not without some muscle memory, etc association with hookah-type devices but most of the time, I'm used to holding a cigarette.
So there it is! Thank you for plowing through this.
All advice, opinions, and recommendations will be appreciated.
(If this is not posted in the right place, please put it wherever it should be and accept my apologies)
=================================
Additional Bonus Ramble-Sermonette Combo
(Because it's your lucky, lucky day)
=================================
I come from a time when doctors offered you a cigarette and lit it for you before lighting their own, then sat down and told you when to ice or not ice your stubbed toe.
All teachers, from 1st grade on up, smoked, ashtray right there on the desk.
Once you got to the tenth grade, whether students could smoke in class or not depended on the teacher. With the exception of the chemistry lab, and art class (lotta turpentine spillage in the pre-acrylic era) virtually every classroom had a table in the back, with plastic ashtrays.
If you smoked, and most of us did, you grabbed one and took it to your desk. At the end of the class, you emptied your ashtray and returned it to the table. Depending on the teacher, repeated failure to do this could get you sent home with a note:
Today, things are different. You know those "faux articles" that are used to spam the google returns?
In Part 6 of his Illustrated Guide to E-cigs, DonDaBoomVape observes that
It's the lowest and basest of human emotions dressed up in a designer "health concern" suit.
As harmful as cigarette smoking is - and that's a lot - it's nowhere near as harmful, nor is it responsible for the loss of nearly as many lives - as hatred.
I'd call myself a chain smoker, except I don't literally light one cigarette with the other. But the time between putting out one and lighting the next one is, um, short.
Due to some health issues (ironically, not smoking-related at all), I've begun having some "smoking cessation ideation."
I have no illusions of any long-term health benefit, but I have been considering that not smoking might help the process of "keeping me comfortable" when I'm invaded by one of those "upper respiratory" micronasties, which invariably takes one look at my trashed immune system, calls all its friends and declares "Part-Tay."
I stand in slack-jawed awe at the people who have stopped smoking using the "cold turkey" method.
They're made of finer stuff than I, but after reviewing the options available, as well as some frank conversations with myself about the various realities of MY situation, I'm strongly inclined to think that e-cigarettes, in combination with medication and the proverbial "support," will give me the best chance at quitting.
I am delighted to have found this website, as googling for actual information on e-cigarettes is frustrating, to say the least, as almost all the returns, into the gazillionth thousand page of returns, are nothing but ad after ad on sites with names like "objectivereviewsbyrealpeopleaboutecigs.com."
I'm also epically overwhelmed. From zero information, I now find myself floating in a sea of it. I feel like I accidentally enrolled in an Advanced Quadratic Equation Theory class at MIT.
I'm old (did I mention that?) and some of the medications I take make me a little foggy (er).
I have read and read until my eyes have turned to those cartoon ones with spinning irises, and my brain is a matrix pattern of alphabet and number soup, hybrids and chargers and e-juice, oh, my! batteries and cartridges and oh! this one is so easy, all you have to do is adjust the rock-arm until the piston indicator reads somewhere between 9 and 10 microns per revolution, connect the gamma cable wires just as if you were performing routine maintenance on a nuclear warhead, whisk the jumper switches through a simple solution of .7% potassium chloride, insert the 4th LED into the simple combustion engine you built in step 27 - and you're ready to smoke!
Unless, of course, you want more flavor, in which case you might prefer to start by assembling a standard rocket launcher-style serial interface (you can use a common hamster wheel for this), and after re-calibrating the cantilever using the polynomial midpoint...
After comparing all that to my half-century old custom of:
1) remove cigarette from pack, place in mouth
2) flick lighter to ignite non-mouth-sittin' end of cigarette
3) inhale
and in light of the fact that I'm
A) old
B) confused and a little loopy
I'm just a teeny bit intimidated, and starting to second-guess myself.
I am, therefore, obliged to throw myself upon your most knowledgeable and awesome mercies, and hope that you will:
1) forgive me for being so long-winded.
2) HELP!
2.1 Am I kidding myself? Is the idea just too preposterous? Could there possibly be a "right e-cigarette" for someone who is:
a: old
b: a little loopy
c: a very heavy smoker for 50 years
e: is neither mechanically nor mathematically inclined
f: poor - and here's the
TWIST: I don't pay for cigarettes. I apologize for mentioning that, and in the same breath saying I'm not able to discuss it, but I have to mention it, because it has a significant impact on the financial aspect of the product-choosing process.
Addendum: I do sit at the computer most of the time. I don't get out much. Doctor, drugstore is about it.
So the USB doodleding sounds like a plan if I could figure it out, BUT -
One of the things that attracted me to the e-cigarette idea is that it also addresses the whole physical habit of holding something in the fingers.
I'm not without some muscle memory, etc association with hookah-type devices but most of the time, I'm used to holding a cigarette.
So there it is! Thank you for plowing through this.
All advice, opinions, and recommendations will be appreciated.
(If this is not posted in the right place, please put it wherever it should be and accept my apologies)
=================================
Additional Bonus Ramble-Sermonette Combo
(Because it's your lucky, lucky day)
=================================
I come from a time when doctors offered you a cigarette and lit it for you before lighting their own, then sat down and told you when to ice or not ice your stubbed toe.
All teachers, from 1st grade on up, smoked, ashtray right there on the desk.
Once you got to the tenth grade, whether students could smoke in class or not depended on the teacher. With the exception of the chemistry lab, and art class (lotta turpentine spillage in the pre-acrylic era) virtually every classroom had a table in the back, with plastic ashtrays.
If you smoked, and most of us did, you grabbed one and took it to your desk. At the end of the class, you emptied your ashtray and returned it to the table. Depending on the teacher, repeated failure to do this could get you sent home with a note:
People smoked on buses, in airplanes, courtrooms, waiting rooms - everywhere. About the only exception I can recall were some religious services. Then people would quietly get up and go stand in the open doorway of the sanctuary or main worship area, smoke, and return to their seats. Anywhere else in the building, offices, activity or event halls, etc, smoking went on as it did anywhere else."Dweezlina is a bright girl and does excellent work, but repeatedly forgets to empty her ashtray at the end of class."
Today, things are different. You know those "faux articles" that are used to spam the google returns?
If you go to the Dr with a stubbed toe today, you'll find that he has apparently swallowed a faux article generator:"Have you been wondering about 18th century German philosophers? We have the lowest prices for brand name 18th century German philosophers. Click here to for your discount code for 18th century German philosophers.."
Today, if a kid writes a story for a creative writing assignment that contains a character who smokes, she'll be ordered to counseling and child services will swoop down to investigate the home environment."Stubbed toes like yours are caused by cigarette smoking. If you'd quit smoking, that stubbed toe problem you've been having would go away."
In Part 6 of his Illustrated Guide to E-cigs, DonDaBoomVape observes that
He's right. I'll resist the temptation to hold forth at even greater length than I have already, but the bottom line is that an alarmingly large chunk of "anti-smoking-ism" is nothing but "acceptable hate."the intense antismoking attitudes held by a great many people – attitudes and an intensity that I believe go beyond concern about the real health risks
It's the lowest and basest of human emotions dressed up in a designer "health concern" suit.
As harmful as cigarette smoking is - and that's a lot - it's nowhere near as harmful, nor is it responsible for the loss of nearly as many lives - as hatred.
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