you have to admit that if a doctor said something really nasty is going to happen, you would probably find another excuse
No, I'm no idiot and if I was having serious health problems, things would change. At present the effects are varying degrees of lethargy at times, reduced muscle tone and the paler / less healthy looking facial skin all smokers are familliar with. No coughing, wheezing, chest pains etc. My blood pressure is 63/61, doc says my lungs are great for my age and I could go run 3 miles straight out of bed any given morning and even the face thing, a bit of toner and daily moisuriser and honestly, I still look younger than my age and have better complexion than some non smokers.
Perhaps that's the dealio, nothing too scary yet, nothing to push me.
But I do want to cut down, honestly do.
I don't truly want to stop my few in the evening though, I guess. I mean I would like to ideally, especially if I honestly found vaping as satisfying, but am not ready for that yet, as after a day of teaching, it gives me the relaxation I want when I get back on my own time and vaping doesn't do that yet. But I do want to stop the ones at the weekend, which is usually around a pack or 2 and am going to give the direct dripping a go next time I go out to the places where i would smoke a lot. It should work because I found that after 6 good hits from direct dripping, if you try smoking a cig after, you can barely taste it and you just don't feel like you want to smoke it and I end up just trashing it after 1 puff.
So that will get me from 2 - 3 packs a week to one, a significant improvement really. And when my 6mg liquids eventually get here (seems they have been seized by customs as it's been 20 days since ups gave me the tracking number) who knows, they may be enough for me in the evenings without causing sleeplessness.
So yeah, a reduction will be no small cheese and a good thing all round. I'll go out this weekend and buy some new juices and drip tips etc, clean all my eqpt and give it another positive effort and apply the same advice I have given others on this site in the same boat - don't push yourself and find your own pace.
After all, looking after oneself is an act of self kindness or compassion and part of that is not placing yourself or pushing yourself too far outside of what you are comfortable with. And yeah, realising that every cig not smoked is worthy of a pat on the back rather than self chastisation at the few you do still smoke.
It's really funny how I seem to swing between extremes with vaping. I'm either raving about it on this site or really laying in to it and dissapointed with it. Part of it is frustrating as I dont have a c/card at the moment so can't order much outside of my friend who uses his for me, but he works a lot so it's a lot of hassle. And the juices at the stores here are at least $15 for just 10ml. Part of it also is that there is such a disparity between how much other posters seem to enjoy it and my experience of it with is that I find it kind of so-so.
Still I'm going to make one more effort and pony up $60 this weekend that I will save from not drinking and go to the janty store here in Chilgok-gun, Korea and get 4 new juices to re-introduce some fun and interest into my vaping experience.
I'll try embracing it again, but not go too gung ho or get too affected if it doesn't work out perfectly like it seems to for some here. I'm pretty sure with the kick from dripping though I can manage to eliminate a very high percentage of my weekend smoking bar the odd one or two before bed.