Hello e-cigarette-forum. Thanks to everyone for the advice that I have read without, until now, feeling the need to post. This forum has been an invaluable resource.
Now that I'm fairly far along the vape-trail, or at least far enough to know that I won't be going back to real cigarettes (analogues) again, I thought that I'd post my experiences up here. Maybe it'll help somebody. Maybe it'll be what I point my smoking friends at, to help them move onto vaping. Maybe it'll just be me putting up a rather self-indulgent diary post that is only of interest to me. Harmless enough, in any case. Feel free not to read it!
Stage one was, for me, about social acceptability. I saw somebody smoking an e-cigarette in a pub. It looked roughly like an analogue (a cig-a-like) and I had a couple of puffs. Nothing dramatic, but it was the first time I had tried one and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it felt roughly like an mild analogue to smoke in terms of how it felt to inhale and how it looked and felt to exhale. I asked around a bit and a few smokers said that they had tried it but it wasn't enough to get them off cigarettes, so they hadn't taken it any further. In any case, it was clear to me that these things were becoming a bit more prevalent, so were surely worth a look.
As I was only a very light smoker (about 20 a week) I figured that even a slightly substandard experience might be enough for me and the advantages were obvious. The main one for me was health: if I don't smoke much, then surely not smoking much of something that isn't even bad for me (probably) could only be a good thing. I also hoped that I could do some investigating on behalf of my smoking friends and try to find out if digitals had more potential than they had realised. Does anyone call them digitals? I find that 'ecig' doesn't roll off the tongue for some reason.
A bit of googling got me a few options for cig-a-likes, but they looked surprisingly pricey. A bit more googling brought me here and I found my way to eciggies.co.za (highly recommended). I found a cheap 510 starter pack (1 battery, 1 cartomizer, 1 charger, 1 atomiser and a few small cartridges) and did a bit of digging to find that 510 is a very standard fitting and those things were fundamentally all I needed. Didn't seem like a bad place to start, so I added a 10ml bottle of 12mg 'tobacco' eliquid. For the benefit of others: the battery is the permanent bit with the light and button, the atomiser+cartridge is the same as a cartomizer just in two bits rather than one. With this set-up you have to press a button to get the thing working, which feels odd at first, but you soon see the advantages over the alternative.
The cartomizer was white, so I didn't fancy the look of it (makes the 510 look like a very small wand) and put it to one side. I got stuck into the little cartridges and the atomizer, which seemed to work okay. Certainly a lot closer to smoking a cigarette than the cig-a-like I had tried. I got the burnt taste very quickly though, so kept finding myself having to top up the tiny cartridges. Unplug things, pour liquid in thing, end up licking sweet chemically juice off the cartridge tips. It was all a bit fiddly and sticky. Couldn't see me converting many of my smoking friends if it involved so much faffing about. So I tried the cartomizer.
Much better.
That thing could take about 10 drips of liquid, so lasted as long as I dared leave it until topping up. In fact I was topping up too much (so making a bit of a mess), for fear of burning the white fluffy stuff inside. I only had one, so I didn't want to kill it. More importantly, it produced proper thick vapour and hit the back of my throat hard enough that I had to take shorter drags and didn't always inhale. I started taking it out in pubs (outdoors only, to avoid arguments) and for sort-of-cigarette breaks. People looked at me a bit funny, but it started a few conversations and I got over feeling awkward after a few outings. Several people said, "I should try those. How are they?" At that point I wasn't that convinced still, so I tended to say that I was still experimenting with them. It isn't the same as smoking, so for a while it feels somewhat inferior and therefore not an obvious thing to tell others to try. That's my experience, anyway.
The only issue was that the battery only lasted the equivalent of about 2 analogues, so maybe 2x10 minutes of having it in my hand and taking a drag every few seconds. No problem during the day, when I don't often smoke and could always charge it at my PC. But it would often letting me down at the pub. Pretty fundamental really and clearly no good for, say, a 10-a-day person.
At this stage I had discovered many of the joys of vaping and was no longer shy about telling others to give it a go. None of this lot, for a start:
Plus some advantages that I hadn't really thought of:
Less like a habit. More like a hobby.
That was the end of stage one, for me. I've tried a few more things now, which I'd also like to document in this thread, but that's enough for now. If anyone has read this far: well done. And thank you.
Now that I'm fairly far along the vape-trail, or at least far enough to know that I won't be going back to real cigarettes (analogues) again, I thought that I'd post my experiences up here. Maybe it'll help somebody. Maybe it'll be what I point my smoking friends at, to help them move onto vaping. Maybe it'll just be me putting up a rather self-indulgent diary post that is only of interest to me. Harmless enough, in any case. Feel free not to read it!
Stage one was, for me, about social acceptability. I saw somebody smoking an e-cigarette in a pub. It looked roughly like an analogue (a cig-a-like) and I had a couple of puffs. Nothing dramatic, but it was the first time I had tried one and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it felt roughly like an mild analogue to smoke in terms of how it felt to inhale and how it looked and felt to exhale. I asked around a bit and a few smokers said that they had tried it but it wasn't enough to get them off cigarettes, so they hadn't taken it any further. In any case, it was clear to me that these things were becoming a bit more prevalent, so were surely worth a look.
As I was only a very light smoker (about 20 a week) I figured that even a slightly substandard experience might be enough for me and the advantages were obvious. The main one for me was health: if I don't smoke much, then surely not smoking much of something that isn't even bad for me (probably) could only be a good thing. I also hoped that I could do some investigating on behalf of my smoking friends and try to find out if digitals had more potential than they had realised. Does anyone call them digitals? I find that 'ecig' doesn't roll off the tongue for some reason.
A bit of googling got me a few options for cig-a-likes, but they looked surprisingly pricey. A bit more googling brought me here and I found my way to eciggies.co.za (highly recommended). I found a cheap 510 starter pack (1 battery, 1 cartomizer, 1 charger, 1 atomiser and a few small cartridges) and did a bit of digging to find that 510 is a very standard fitting and those things were fundamentally all I needed. Didn't seem like a bad place to start, so I added a 10ml bottle of 12mg 'tobacco' eliquid. For the benefit of others: the battery is the permanent bit with the light and button, the atomiser+cartridge is the same as a cartomizer just in two bits rather than one. With this set-up you have to press a button to get the thing working, which feels odd at first, but you soon see the advantages over the alternative.
The cartomizer was white, so I didn't fancy the look of it (makes the 510 look like a very small wand) and put it to one side. I got stuck into the little cartridges and the atomizer, which seemed to work okay. Certainly a lot closer to smoking a cigarette than the cig-a-like I had tried. I got the burnt taste very quickly though, so kept finding myself having to top up the tiny cartridges. Unplug things, pour liquid in thing, end up licking sweet chemically juice off the cartridge tips. It was all a bit fiddly and sticky. Couldn't see me converting many of my smoking friends if it involved so much faffing about. So I tried the cartomizer.
Much better.
That thing could take about 10 drips of liquid, so lasted as long as I dared leave it until topping up. In fact I was topping up too much (so making a bit of a mess), for fear of burning the white fluffy stuff inside. I only had one, so I didn't want to kill it. More importantly, it produced proper thick vapour and hit the back of my throat hard enough that I had to take shorter drags and didn't always inhale. I started taking it out in pubs (outdoors only, to avoid arguments) and for sort-of-cigarette breaks. People looked at me a bit funny, but it started a few conversations and I got over feeling awkward after a few outings. Several people said, "I should try those. How are they?" At that point I wasn't that convinced still, so I tended to say that I was still experimenting with them. It isn't the same as smoking, so for a while it feels somewhat inferior and therefore not an obvious thing to tell others to try. That's my experience, anyway.
The only issue was that the battery only lasted the equivalent of about 2 analogues, so maybe 2x10 minutes of having it in my hand and taking a drag every few seconds. No problem during the day, when I don't often smoke and could always charge it at my PC. But it would often letting me down at the pub. Pretty fundamental really and clearly no good for, say, a 10-a-day person.
At this stage I had discovered many of the joys of vaping and was no longer shy about telling others to give it a go. None of this lot, for a start:
- regular sense of mild-to-strong guilt
- smelly clothes/bins/ashtray
- vile throat after a night out
- consciousness of having smokey breath if you have a meeting or give somebody a kiss soon after ducking outside for a break.
Plus some advantages that I hadn't really thought of:
- having a quiet vape whilst sitting in a hotel room
- no restriction on how long or short the session is (sometimes one toke at the traffic lights, sometimes 20 minutes in one go at the pub)
- a somewhat calmer approach to the whole thing (more inclined to take it easy, play with the vapour and generally enjoy it, rather than sucking down an analogue in a few drags)
- opportunity to muck about with flavours and things.
Less like a habit. More like a hobby.
That was the end of stage one, for me. I've tried a few more things now, which I'd also like to document in this thread, but that's enough for now. If anyone has read this far: well done. And thank you.
