Okay- I received my "Smoking Everywhere" kit today, containing a battery, charger, vaporizer, and five full-strength cartridges.
Nice packaging, but not worth the extra 50 bucks that the kit costs above the Blu pack (that contains five times as many refills.) I ordered a black model, but got a silver, instead- no big deal, there- I'll just look like an elitist, instead of an aging goth hipster.
Read the manual: They definitely need to hire a better chinese-to-english translator. Some of the sentences were downright incomprehensible.
I loaded the whole shebang up with a new cartridge, and took my first hit:
Urgh- I made the mistake of holding it at a slight upward angle, and I was rewarded with a drop of the liquid on my tongue and lips, when I sucked in.
I decided to pick up the poorly-written manual again, and learned that it's best to have the e-cig at a horizontal or declining angle, while taking a drag.
Lesson learned.
Nicotine rush? Check. Tingling sensation on the tongue? Check. Nice "throat hit" when inhaling? Check.
But, as this forum has constantly warned newcomers: It was entirely different than smoking cigarettes.
The flavor: while I can see that they dilligently attempted to duplicate a tobacco flavor, they fell short of the mark. There's a sweet chemical taste that will take some getting used to. I'm tempted to try other flavors, but the tobacco flavor was one of the intrinsic things I enjoyed about smoking.
And another, more disturbing thing:
After getting my e-cig, I went out with some friends for a birthday celebration. I brought the rig along, and about six times over the next four hours, I took a discreet drag, and put it back in its case. The minimal amount of exhaled vapor was unnoticeable to the others at the table, much less the wait staff at the non-smoking restaurant.
I would usually be antsy and jonesing, but the e-cig kept the demons at bay.
But, of course, after I got home, I picked up an analog (I still have five packs of american spirits in the house, and figure I'll use them to gradually wean off.)
I stepped out onto the balcony (I don't smoke inside of my house,) and torched up.
I took about three drags, stubbed it out, and came back inside, and noticed something:
I felt like crap- the Carbon monoxide was flooding my brain, making me woozy, my chest was tight, and I was coughing to clear my throat.
But this was all that was to be expected- I've put up with it for the last twenty years. But it hit me:
I just vaped, for the past four hours, and hadn't once felt those deathly-nauseating feelings.
I wonder:
Can I get used to a way of "smoking" that doesn't make me feel like crap?
All in all:
I will continue to smoke analogues, over the following weeks, but as time passes, I can see myself adapting to and accepting this new way of "smoking."
BTW:
TL
R details:
I've smoked for so long, because I work as a creative professional, and whenever the times came that my brain seemed bereft of ideas, nothing would get the juices flowing like just sitting back, lighting up, taking a drag or two, and centering my thoughts.
I have tried to quit, every year for the past ten. I tried patches, gum, cold turkey, yoga, meditation, deep breathing exercises, and despite being able to "quit" for six months under the administration of Chantix (twice,) I have always found myself gravitating back to the butts.
Whenever I walked down the streets, I could smell that oh-so-seductive scent of someone enjoying a smoke, and I'd feel a pull that went down to my dna. I will confess that twice, during a quit attempt, I picked half-smoked butts out of ashtrays, finishing them, and lying to myself that that wasn't disgusting, and cheating.
In the early days, I felt like such a loser, everytime I failed at quitting, but that self-pity soon became acceptance.
But this- in this I see potential- vast potential.
E-cigs and vaping, despite all of the troubles and hassles that people seem to be experiencing here, is the only way forward, not only in my own life, but for smokers in general.
The FDA, along with Big Tobacco, might succeed in blocking this technology for a while, but there will always be folks like you and I, who consider "smoking" to be as an acceptable and neccesary extension of our lives as our right arms (with apologies to the lefties.)
The e-smoking cat is out of the bag, and in a society such as the US, where we love tech innovation, personal initiative, and a healthy disregard for authority, it's only a matter of time before e-cigs are standardized, streamlined, perfected to the standards of a swiss watch, and freely available.
To all my fellow smokers of anologs: dive in, the water's fine.
Nice packaging, but not worth the extra 50 bucks that the kit costs above the Blu pack (that contains five times as many refills.) I ordered a black model, but got a silver, instead- no big deal, there- I'll just look like an elitist, instead of an aging goth hipster.
Read the manual: They definitely need to hire a better chinese-to-english translator. Some of the sentences were downright incomprehensible.
I loaded the whole shebang up with a new cartridge, and took my first hit:
Urgh- I made the mistake of holding it at a slight upward angle, and I was rewarded with a drop of the liquid on my tongue and lips, when I sucked in.
I decided to pick up the poorly-written manual again, and learned that it's best to have the e-cig at a horizontal or declining angle, while taking a drag.
Lesson learned.
Nicotine rush? Check. Tingling sensation on the tongue? Check. Nice "throat hit" when inhaling? Check.
But, as this forum has constantly warned newcomers: It was entirely different than smoking cigarettes.
The flavor: while I can see that they dilligently attempted to duplicate a tobacco flavor, they fell short of the mark. There's a sweet chemical taste that will take some getting used to. I'm tempted to try other flavors, but the tobacco flavor was one of the intrinsic things I enjoyed about smoking.
And another, more disturbing thing:
After getting my e-cig, I went out with some friends for a birthday celebration. I brought the rig along, and about six times over the next four hours, I took a discreet drag, and put it back in its case. The minimal amount of exhaled vapor was unnoticeable to the others at the table, much less the wait staff at the non-smoking restaurant.
I would usually be antsy and jonesing, but the e-cig kept the demons at bay.
But, of course, after I got home, I picked up an analog (I still have five packs of american spirits in the house, and figure I'll use them to gradually wean off.)
I stepped out onto the balcony (I don't smoke inside of my house,) and torched up.
I took about three drags, stubbed it out, and came back inside, and noticed something:
I felt like crap- the Carbon monoxide was flooding my brain, making me woozy, my chest was tight, and I was coughing to clear my throat.
But this was all that was to be expected- I've put up with it for the last twenty years. But it hit me:
I just vaped, for the past four hours, and hadn't once felt those deathly-nauseating feelings.
I wonder:
Can I get used to a way of "smoking" that doesn't make me feel like crap?
All in all:
I will continue to smoke analogues, over the following weeks, but as time passes, I can see myself adapting to and accepting this new way of "smoking."
BTW:
TL
R details:I've smoked for so long, because I work as a creative professional, and whenever the times came that my brain seemed bereft of ideas, nothing would get the juices flowing like just sitting back, lighting up, taking a drag or two, and centering my thoughts.
I have tried to quit, every year for the past ten. I tried patches, gum, cold turkey, yoga, meditation, deep breathing exercises, and despite being able to "quit" for six months under the administration of Chantix (twice,) I have always found myself gravitating back to the butts.
Whenever I walked down the streets, I could smell that oh-so-seductive scent of someone enjoying a smoke, and I'd feel a pull that went down to my dna. I will confess that twice, during a quit attempt, I picked half-smoked butts out of ashtrays, finishing them, and lying to myself that that wasn't disgusting, and cheating.
In the early days, I felt like such a loser, everytime I failed at quitting, but that self-pity soon became acceptance.
But this- in this I see potential- vast potential.
E-cigs and vaping, despite all of the troubles and hassles that people seem to be experiencing here, is the only way forward, not only in my own life, but for smokers in general.
The FDA, along with Big Tobacco, might succeed in blocking this technology for a while, but there will always be folks like you and I, who consider "smoking" to be as an acceptable and neccesary extension of our lives as our right arms (with apologies to the lefties.)
The e-smoking cat is out of the bag, and in a society such as the US, where we love tech innovation, personal initiative, and a healthy disregard for authority, it's only a matter of time before e-cigs are standardized, streamlined, perfected to the standards of a swiss watch, and freely available.
To all my fellow smokers of anologs: dive in, the water's fine.
