My story you ask? Well, pull a chair by the fire, grab a PV and let me tell you my tale. I will warn you, it is neither short nor for the faint of heart.
I'm 35 with a wife and two kids. I smoked my first analogs (I have to stop and say that this made me crack up the first time I read it, but it is such a great description that I've started using it) when I was about 11. One of my friends would swipe them from his mom and share them with a few of us, True lights if I remember correctly. We acted all grown up and generally coughed our lungs out.
I didn't really start smoking full time until I was 13 or 14. That is when I met a guy that later become a "good friend" (he was an ... majority of the time, but I was young and stupid) whose parents let him smoke in the house. He offered me one and like an idiot I took it. I have more or less been a full time smoker ever since that day.
In high school most of my friends smoked. Some were social and some were full timers like myself. When I was a sophomore I was smoking a pack to a pack and a half a day. My best friend (we'll call him Elvis) and I used to walk a mile and a half each way to go buy cigarettes at the gas station up the road from our house. We usually payed in rolled up change (mostly pennies) and at 15 they never said a word about selling to us. The only place I never smoked was in my parents house. Even though I didn't get along with them (what teenager does) I respected that rule and kept it outside. I smoked Camel Lights back then with the occasional Camel Filter or Marlboro red when I had to bum one.
In college I moved in with my high school sweetheart and we both smoked. I took a job at a local gas station and with the ability to smoke in the house, in my car, at work and on campus I was up to two packs a day with no problem. On occasions I actually smoked closer to three. The only time I didn't smoke back then was while I was eating and in class. My first classes were typically at around 10 am and I usually worked until 2 am which gave me about 16 hours of smoking per day. I was smoking cowboy killer Marlboro Reds at this point.
After college I had a few different jobs until I finally landed one in sales for a local company. I worked with a number of smokers and we had a covered, windproof area outside that we could all congregate and enjoy our "coffin nails" (one of the senior sales managers called them that). I married my girlfriend and my new wife and I continued to smoke. By this time I was at 2 packs a day all the time and she was talking to me about slowing down and/or quiting all together. I was 25 and still felt like I was 18.
A few years went by and I moved into marketing. I did actually slow down and was right at a pack to 1.5 packs a day. I didn't have the best place in the world to "install cancer" (joke from one of the IT guys), but as we all do, I found good spots to stay warm and dry while I smoked. I was also in a new house and my wife didn't want us smoking in it so that activity was moved to the back porch. Then one day, it happened. My wife started talking about having kids.
Now, I had always said that I would quit smoking the very day that I ever found out my wife was pregnant. We've all heard, seen or read what cigarette smoke can do to children and pregnant women and I was determined not to let anything happen to my future offspring. We both made our first attempt at quiting and while it stuck with her, I struggled every moment of every day. The fact of the matter was, I really enjoyed smoking. I took great pleasure in doing it and it relaxed me greatly. When I quit I turned into super jerk (I remember a cape and everything). I'd get mad at anything and everything that happened, not good when you have a child in the house. I've never laid a hand on my wife or my kids, but I can admit that I wanted to on more than one occasion just after quiting. I was in bad shape and I was miserable. Someone I loved had forced me into stopping something else I loved and wasn't ready to stop for someone else I loved. It sounds pretty sick saying that I loved smoking as much as my wife and child and while it really isn't on the same level it is pretty damn close.
So I eventually started smoking again. First behind my wife's back (like you can really hide it) and then out in the open, but never around her or my son. All this time I had her asking me when I would stop to which I replied, "I don't know." When we found out she was pregnant again we had a long discussion about me quitting and I decided that I would on New Years Eve of 2006. My daughter would be born a few months later and I agreed that we needed to be a smoke free house then. This time I actually went out and got the patch as I prepared to stop for good. To everyone's surprise, I actually did quit and I stayed that way for close to a year.
Unfortunately, things at work started to get more stressful and <insert other crappy excuse here> I started again. I started very slow and was just having one or two a day. I only smoked at work and never in my car or around my family. I actually smoked in secret for a little over a year without my wife or anyone else in my family knowing. I felt like a drug addict or alcoholic though. I was hiding packs and finding excuses to go be away from my family so that I could smoke. I was lying to my wife on a regular basis and being a complete hypocrite around other smokers. I hated who I was and what I was becoming, but the fact that my wife hated smoking so much made me afraid of what might happen if she ever found out. Of course she eventually did and it has caused a number of problems for us. Not only ways I lying to her and keeping secrets I was smoking again. We went through a lot of trust issues after that and I worked my .... off (no pun intended) to regain hers. Something I'm not completely sure I have yet. Still in the end the big problem is that I still smoke. While my kids have never seen me, I know they have smelled it and I pray that they are too young to understand what it is.
All of that brings us to the present. I smoke about a pack a day right now and I am looking to quit. The big problem is that I don't really want to quit, know what I mean? I ran into one of those Smoke51 booths in the mall and was instantly in love with the idea. They let me try one and I knew then that this was the answer to all my problems. I could continue to do what I enjoy while removing all the major negatives from the picture and I was ready to buy one that very second.....then they told me the price and I knew that there was no way I was going to pay over $150 for their starter kit. I thanked them and went to look up more on the subject. Oddly enough I walked into a gas station near my house that was selling Gamucci disposable e-cigarettes and I picked one up. I then realized that there were other brands and variations out there that I could pick up. Hope soared in me again and I raced home to hop on the web. I searched Google for a few hours and after seeing countless companies selling the same sort of set up that Smoke51 was selling, I came across this forum.
Like the typical research junkie that I am, I began to pour over the site like a man possessed. I gathered all the information and videos I could find to show my wife. After looking at it she still had a few questions and we were able to answer those with the combination of the forum and YouTube. I ordered my first kit last night from Cig Easy. It is the Easy Max Starter Kit with 2 Kr808 batteries, a pass through, 5 cartomizers and 10 ml of juice. I am really hoping to see it by this Friday. This New Members section has been wonderful and oh so educational. I thank everyone that put together the information on this site from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea what you have done for my family and I. The past few days with the couple of disposable ecigs I picked up has been great. While they don't taste wonderful (like cigarettes do either, right?) they certainly give me the feel of smoking along with the nicotine that I need.
Thanks if you read all of that. I can be very long winded (obviously), but I will try to be brief with my follow up once I have the kit and have finally quit smoking for good.
I'm 35 with a wife and two kids. I smoked my first analogs (I have to stop and say that this made me crack up the first time I read it, but it is such a great description that I've started using it) when I was about 11. One of my friends would swipe them from his mom and share them with a few of us, True lights if I remember correctly. We acted all grown up and generally coughed our lungs out.
I didn't really start smoking full time until I was 13 or 14. That is when I met a guy that later become a "good friend" (he was an ... majority of the time, but I was young and stupid) whose parents let him smoke in the house. He offered me one and like an idiot I took it. I have more or less been a full time smoker ever since that day.In high school most of my friends smoked. Some were social and some were full timers like myself. When I was a sophomore I was smoking a pack to a pack and a half a day. My best friend (we'll call him Elvis) and I used to walk a mile and a half each way to go buy cigarettes at the gas station up the road from our house. We usually payed in rolled up change (mostly pennies) and at 15 they never said a word about selling to us. The only place I never smoked was in my parents house. Even though I didn't get along with them (what teenager does) I respected that rule and kept it outside. I smoked Camel Lights back then with the occasional Camel Filter or Marlboro red when I had to bum one.
In college I moved in with my high school sweetheart and we both smoked. I took a job at a local gas station and with the ability to smoke in the house, in my car, at work and on campus I was up to two packs a day with no problem. On occasions I actually smoked closer to three. The only time I didn't smoke back then was while I was eating and in class. My first classes were typically at around 10 am and I usually worked until 2 am which gave me about 16 hours of smoking per day. I was smoking cowboy killer Marlboro Reds at this point.
After college I had a few different jobs until I finally landed one in sales for a local company. I worked with a number of smokers and we had a covered, windproof area outside that we could all congregate and enjoy our "coffin nails" (one of the senior sales managers called them that). I married my girlfriend and my new wife and I continued to smoke. By this time I was at 2 packs a day all the time and she was talking to me about slowing down and/or quiting all together. I was 25 and still felt like I was 18.
A few years went by and I moved into marketing. I did actually slow down and was right at a pack to 1.5 packs a day. I didn't have the best place in the world to "install cancer" (joke from one of the IT guys), but as we all do, I found good spots to stay warm and dry while I smoked. I was also in a new house and my wife didn't want us smoking in it so that activity was moved to the back porch. Then one day, it happened. My wife started talking about having kids.
Now, I had always said that I would quit smoking the very day that I ever found out my wife was pregnant. We've all heard, seen or read what cigarette smoke can do to children and pregnant women and I was determined not to let anything happen to my future offspring. We both made our first attempt at quiting and while it stuck with her, I struggled every moment of every day. The fact of the matter was, I really enjoyed smoking. I took great pleasure in doing it and it relaxed me greatly. When I quit I turned into super jerk (I remember a cape and everything). I'd get mad at anything and everything that happened, not good when you have a child in the house. I've never laid a hand on my wife or my kids, but I can admit that I wanted to on more than one occasion just after quiting. I was in bad shape and I was miserable. Someone I loved had forced me into stopping something else I loved and wasn't ready to stop for someone else I loved. It sounds pretty sick saying that I loved smoking as much as my wife and child and while it really isn't on the same level it is pretty damn close.
So I eventually started smoking again. First behind my wife's back (like you can really hide it) and then out in the open, but never around her or my son. All this time I had her asking me when I would stop to which I replied, "I don't know." When we found out she was pregnant again we had a long discussion about me quitting and I decided that I would on New Years Eve of 2006. My daughter would be born a few months later and I agreed that we needed to be a smoke free house then. This time I actually went out and got the patch as I prepared to stop for good. To everyone's surprise, I actually did quit and I stayed that way for close to a year.
Unfortunately, things at work started to get more stressful and <insert other crappy excuse here> I started again. I started very slow and was just having one or two a day. I only smoked at work and never in my car or around my family. I actually smoked in secret for a little over a year without my wife or anyone else in my family knowing. I felt like a drug addict or alcoholic though. I was hiding packs and finding excuses to go be away from my family so that I could smoke. I was lying to my wife on a regular basis and being a complete hypocrite around other smokers. I hated who I was and what I was becoming, but the fact that my wife hated smoking so much made me afraid of what might happen if she ever found out. Of course she eventually did and it has caused a number of problems for us. Not only ways I lying to her and keeping secrets I was smoking again. We went through a lot of trust issues after that and I worked my .... off (no pun intended) to regain hers. Something I'm not completely sure I have yet. Still in the end the big problem is that I still smoke. While my kids have never seen me, I know they have smelled it and I pray that they are too young to understand what it is.
All of that brings us to the present. I smoke about a pack a day right now and I am looking to quit. The big problem is that I don't really want to quit, know what I mean? I ran into one of those Smoke51 booths in the mall and was instantly in love with the idea. They let me try one and I knew then that this was the answer to all my problems. I could continue to do what I enjoy while removing all the major negatives from the picture and I was ready to buy one that very second.....then they told me the price and I knew that there was no way I was going to pay over $150 for their starter kit. I thanked them and went to look up more on the subject. Oddly enough I walked into a gas station near my house that was selling Gamucci disposable e-cigarettes and I picked one up. I then realized that there were other brands and variations out there that I could pick up. Hope soared in me again and I raced home to hop on the web. I searched Google for a few hours and after seeing countless companies selling the same sort of set up that Smoke51 was selling, I came across this forum.
Like the typical research junkie that I am, I began to pour over the site like a man possessed. I gathered all the information and videos I could find to show my wife. After looking at it she still had a few questions and we were able to answer those with the combination of the forum and YouTube. I ordered my first kit last night from Cig Easy. It is the Easy Max Starter Kit with 2 Kr808 batteries, a pass through, 5 cartomizers and 10 ml of juice. I am really hoping to see it by this Friday. This New Members section has been wonderful and oh so educational. I thank everyone that put together the information on this site from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea what you have done for my family and I. The past few days with the couple of disposable ecigs I picked up has been great. While they don't taste wonderful (like cigarettes do either, right?) they certainly give me the feel of smoking along with the nicotine that I need.
Thanks if you read all of that. I can be very long winded (obviously), but I will try to be brief with my follow up once I have the kit and have finally quit smoking for good.
