I cried so hard at this part. I smoked during all 3 of mine. There is no greater shame for me in this life.
thank you for sharing your story.
How I finally ended a life long battle with smoking.
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thank you for sharing your story.
I can relate to so much of this! I cried, too, because the addiction speaks so loud and clear. ECF has been instrumental in my leaving cigarettes behind, as have stories like yours. Thank you, Glowgirl, for your honesty and for following up to share your success, too.
I can't believe after nearly a year here at ECF I haven't read this. I saw myself in nearly every situation, the shame, hopelessness and damage I have caused. What a beautiful and inspiring story. Thank you for your honesty!
And bump for the Noobs.
And bump for the Noobs.
**I am just a girl who quit and am not affiliated in any way with any vendors or people mentioned in this post.****[/QUOTE]
You're not just a girl. You're an inspiration.
You're not just a girl. You're an inspiration.
Very moving story and beautiful written too - great style! Thanks so much for sharing!
everything I am struggling to achieve has been validated by this story thank you xoxo
I loved this story of your life. I think you are so inspirational.
I am a new vaper and was very moved by this. I am 70 have COPD and smoked for 35 years. I quit Nov 14th. My daughter bought both her and I a eGo-T. She mixed me a flavor called Atomic Fireball (Because I love that candy). Anyway the day she got the e-cigs in the mail and fixed my flavor ..that was it. I haven't touched a analog since. This is the BEST gift she has EVER given me and I will forever be grateful to her.
Your story has shown me that I can do this and I will NEVER go back to those disgusting analogs.
I am a new vaper and was very moved by this. I am 70 have COPD and smoked for 35 years. I quit Nov 14th. My daughter bought both her and I a eGo-T. She mixed me a flavor called Atomic Fireball (Because I love that candy). Anyway the day she got the e-cigs in the mail and fixed my flavor ..that was it. I haven't touched a analog since. This is the BEST gift she has EVER given me and I will forever be grateful to her.
Your story has shown me that I can do this and I will NEVER go back to those disgusting analogs.
Thank you so much for sharing in such an eloquent manner. I had to stop reading and wipe the tears away before I could continue. I am still crying now. You express the emotions; the anger, the fear, the dread, the shame and redemption we all feel. You are amazing. Thank you!
I too was a closet smoker during my pregnacy, I felt the shame but couldn't muster up enough will power to stop. I am so grateful to read your story and know someone has walked in my shoes. Today is day 50 and even though i endangered my childrens lives when they were totally helpless to defend themselves from me, they are my greatest supporters.
I wanted to thank you for this story. I have shared it on my FB page in hopes my smoking friends will listen for once.
Thank you so much for sharing. I didn't "shudder in disgust" the first time. I lived half of that. <3
Really? You shared my story? How cool is that! Friend me so I can see it. Here is my FB link. Gabrielle Lange | Facebook
This is me jumping for joy because I love to read all of your comments. Thank you so much for reading my story. It makes me cry every time to think of all of you just starting on the path to freedom. The second picture is me at the finish line of a local run. I do them every month (at least) and I vape before and after. I hope all of you get to feel how wonderful it is to be able to run like the wind and breathe deep!
Thanks for sharing your story. As someone who smoked for 40+ years I can understand the hopelessness, shame, feeling of being worthless, and humiliation that those little cylinders filled with tobacco caused in life. You said it so much better than I ever could. It's nice to see that you've stayed in touch with the forum, I wish you all the best.
I quit recently (few days) and started vaping but I read all the success stories so I wouldn't think of smoking again also see the advantages in not smoking. I have been smoking only for 5 years but I did have my little battles to quit. I am the only one in my family who smoked. I have a colleague who wants to quit and another friend who wants to quit, both have been smoking for more than 20 years. I printing your story for them to read. It is good to know that you finally got through, Thanks to vaping.
My story is not that simple. I started to think about and try the electronic cigarettes around 2007. At first they provide a similar one to the analog, called simple 'E-Cig'. It was terrible. Small capacity in power and in liquid, some kind of sour and acid taste. It was a bridged atomizer as I know right now, but some smaller one.
I gave up after a week. It simply did not work.
Then after 2 years I tried again. At this time with a 601 Ruyan pipe. It was a little bit better, but not enough good to stay, so another step back to the world of analog.
And in the last year I was inspired with a good friend to try it out again. And it works. I got a simple eGo battery with bridge-atomizer and some non-Chinese liquid and I just vaping. After a while - at 21st of Feb this year - I quit from the analog finally. Before that I smoked 2 packs per day, so I was a heavy smoker. Right now, I'm a heavy vaper!
Usually I am fond of the electric gadgets. This not-so-good behavior true when we come to the field of the e-cigs.
I buy everything, try everything, sometimes I keep those things, sometimes I sell it or just give away as a gift for the newbies to try vaping out.
My switch was easy and natural. On 20th of Feb I smoked as I did it before, in the morning of 21st of Feb I just vaped. I have 15 analog cigarettes on a shelve. So I can start to smoke immediately when I want. But I just do not want.
If something happens and in the similar situation I just wanted to smoke, now, I want to vape. So finally everything is fine and I'm happy with my e-cis-arsenal.
I gave up after a week. It simply did not work.
Then after 2 years I tried again. At this time with a 601 Ruyan pipe. It was a little bit better, but not enough good to stay, so another step back to the world of analog.
And in the last year I was inspired with a good friend to try it out again. And it works. I got a simple eGo battery with bridge-atomizer and some non-Chinese liquid and I just vaping. After a while - at 21st of Feb this year - I quit from the analog finally. Before that I smoked 2 packs per day, so I was a heavy smoker. Right now, I'm a heavy vaper!
Usually I am fond of the electric gadgets. This not-so-good behavior true when we come to the field of the e-cigs.
I buy everything, try everything, sometimes I keep those things, sometimes I sell it or just give away as a gift for the newbies to try vaping out.
My switch was easy and natural. On 20th of Feb I smoked as I did it before, in the morning of 21st of Feb I just vaped. I have 15 analog cigarettes on a shelve. So I can start to smoke immediately when I want. But I just do not want.
If something happens and in the similar situation I just wanted to smoke, now, I want to vape. So finally everything is fine and I'm happy with my e-cis-arsenal.
This was a great, great story. I know I'm two years late, but that's okay 
. My story actually plays out quite similarly, except that I don't even have the excuse of growing up in a smoking household; my parents smoked a little in college and cold turkeyed it like it was nothing way before they had me. I was just a dumb kid trying to make friends. Over a twelve year span, I did everything I could to get a cigarette. I digged in trash cans, I took butts from public restaurant ashtrays, I stole money from friends and family and the same with credit cards....the addiction had me cold. All the while I was telling myself that I LOVED to smoke and that I'd NEVER give it up and I hated anyone who tried to convince me otherwise. I thought I was so smart. Well finally, I am. A little over twelve days ago I got my first REAL PV kit and haven't even thought about an analog since. I'm going to have to do a lot of work to make up for what I've done all in the name of getting analogs, but Hell, maybe now I've gained a lot more time in which to do it in. Thank you again for this great story, glowgirl. Very inspiring.
. My story actually plays out quite similarly, except that I don't even have the excuse of growing up in a smoking household; my parents smoked a little in college and cold turkeyed it like it was nothing way before they had me. I was just a dumb kid trying to make friends. Over a twelve year span, I did everything I could to get a cigarette. I digged in trash cans, I took butts from public restaurant ashtrays, I stole money from friends and family and the same with credit cards....the addiction had me cold. All the while I was telling myself that I LOVED to smoke and that I'd NEVER give it up and I hated anyone who tried to convince me otherwise. I thought I was so smart. Well finally, I am. A little over twelve days ago I got my first REAL PV kit and haven't even thought about an analog since. I'm going to have to do a lot of work to make up for what I've done all in the name of getting analogs, but Hell, maybe now I've gained a lot more time in which to do it in. Thank you again for this great story, glowgirl. Very inspiring.
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I too shared your story on Facebook and sent you a friend request, everyone should. Many smokers will relate to your story and might just be inspired to make that first tentative step away from tobacco.
I have diarised my smoking experience and update it every so often. I have pasted it below to hopefully add a little more momentum to the cause. I have removed any reference to company names to try and present it as an unbiased account.
I make no apology for the fact that ecigs saved my life.
My Life My Choice
How 40 years of smoking led me to electronic cigarettes and a passion for Smoking Harm Reduction.
I began writing this on the 6th May 2010 - I have made additions and will probably make more.
Those of certain ages will remember where they were when war was declared in 1939, or when John F Kennedy was assassinated, when Elvis or Michael Jackson died. Such events are defining moments in our lives, but ask smokers when or where they had their first cigarette and the majority will not remember, despite it being a significant event in their lives. The thing is, I didn’t realise what I was letting myself in for when I took that first seductive drag, followed by the inevitable coughing fit that nearly choked me! The dependency, habit and addiction would be enough to contend with but, as time passed and I became more knowledgeable, more sinister threats began to prey on my mind, cancer, heart disease, respiratory illness etc.
In 1963, when I was 8, I used to roll cigarettes for my Dad to take with him to the pub across the road where he did some part time work to make some holiday money. That and polishing his shoes were my favourite jobs (we had to work for our pocket money!) and were much better than going into the scary cellar for coal to keep the fire going, our one and only source of heating in the house. Life though was good and I loved my Dad to bits, even though he was the biggest prankster going!
He had some illnesses and a number of times had what the adults referred to as a coronary thrombosis, which didn’t really mean anything to me; I just knew he had to go into hospital a number of times and we visited him. It was during one of those hospital stays that a friend who lived down the street and had a telephone came to our house early in the morning and told my Mum she was needed at the hospital. My elder brother and I went with her and she looked very upset. Apparently my Dad had suffered another thrombosis or, as I now know, a heart attack, his sixth. It was a major one and we arrived at the hospital too late to even say goodbye, he was already dead; it was the 6th May 1965, just 5 days after my tenth birthday. For all intents and purposes, the world might as well have ended there and then. Why didn’t he stop smoking when the Doctor told him it was dangerous?
Dependency, habit, addiction, all played their part, but the overwhelming reason for us smokers not quitting is that WE ENJOY SMOKING. Insane as it is, we enjoy it, even when we know it's killing us, even when I know it killed my Dad in 1965.
So, at just twelve years old I embarked on my epic smoking journey, yes what an idiot, just like millions of other idiots across the whole of the world. At first it was the cool thing to do, but it very soon became an integral part of my life, a part that I couldn’t be without, and so it went for over forty smoky, lung-destroying, health-sapping, stinking years.
9th of October 2008
I attended an interview for a customer service job that sounded interesting. I had just been made redundant and needed to get back in work quickly. The interviewer, a Director of the company, was a pleasant and positive young man who was obviously good at his job, being a Director at 25 years old. Despite being old enough to be his Dad, we got on very well and the interview proved to be successful for me. One of my first questions to him was, "Are these electronic cigarettes that you want me to sell any good, or are they just another gimmicky gadget?" David took me through to where Chris, the MD, was working, introduced me and asked Chris to give me one to try. I took hold of what looked like a cigarette, but weighed a little heavier, and took a drag as I would with one of my own hand-rolled cigarettes. I didn’t expect anything to happen and certainly didn’t expect it to be so much like a real cigarette it nearly had me coughing like I was that stupid twelve year old again! I took a few more drags and could not believe how realistic the sensation of smoking was. That was yet another defining moment in my life and one for which I will be eternally indebted to the God of fortune. Chris told me to keep the sample and gave me refill cartridges and a charger for the battery. The next day I got a phone call from David offering me the job and on the 13th I started work for the company. Over the weekend I used the ecig Chris had given me, although I was still smoking my roll-ups as well. The following week was interesting as I gradually smoked less and less, preferring my ecig instead, especially as I could use it in the workplace; the smoking ban does not include electronic cigarettes as they do not use lit tobacco, instead they vaporise a tiny amount of Nicotine liquid which is inhaled by the user.
8.00am Tuesday morning, 21st October 2008
Today saw another, probably the most significant, defining moment of my life. Being able to use my ecig at work meant that I no longer smoked tobacco during the day and had even reduced my smoking in the evenings to just a couple of roll-ups. I dropped my wife off at her work just before 8.00am and had made one roll-up to have while driving to my workplace. I lit it, took two drags and threw it out of the window in disgust, it tasted absolutely horrible and I had to stop at a shop to buy some mints it was that bad. I was overwhelmed with what had just happened and the tide of emotion that followed. I had been smoking for over forty years and here I was feeling disgusted with my friend! After just twelve days using this new-fangled device I had genuinely lost the desire to smoke tobacco, but I didn’t feel like I had given up smoking because the ecig was providing me with a realistic sensation. I had no intention of giving up, I didn’t want to give up, as stupid as that sounds from someone who suffered a minor stroke a few years ago. I forgot to mention that, how stupid I was to continue smoking after such a stark warning, such is the nature of the addiction.
I had no withdrawals from cigarettes and the smell of burning tobacco has become worse and worse as my sense of smell has got better and better. My kids love it because I don’t stink, the car and house don’t stink and they might get an extra few years out of me! Within a few days I could feel the changes in my body as it was cleared of carbon monoxide, tar and the other 4,000 chemicals contained in cigarettes. It was, and still is amazing.
March 2009
I was manning a stand at a Trade Show and decided to use zero nicotine refill cartridges as I would be demonstrating the ecig all day long. At the end of the day I felt fine, so I carried on with the zero the following day and felt fine again. After a week without nicotine I expected to feel like I did when I had tried to give up years ago, ready to tear someone’s throat out for a cigarette, but I had absolutely no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. Although this reinforced a theory I had believed in for some time, it still came as a bit of a shock, in fact I almost felt cheated because I hadn’t suffered! Over a year later I am still free from tobacco and nicotine and I know that I will never use either again. I still use my ecig with zero nicotine liquid (glycerine and de-ionised water) but much more sparingly. I use it because I haven’t given up and because I still enjoy the sensation, it’s relaxing, reassuring, pleasurable and, I firmly believe, harmless.
I wish my Dad could have had one, but that would have changed history I suppose.
I used to hate people lecturing me on how my lungs were being damaged, how I was harming children etc, etc and would say to them, "My life, my choice", even though inside I really knew the dangers and I really wanted to quit smoking tobacco.
Now I can honestly and proudly say, "My life, my choice" and I really have quit, forever.
June 2010
I thought I had finished my story, but there’s often a twist in the tale! On June 14th and 15th 2010, I was in Glasgow for the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference, held at the prestigious Radisson Hotel. I’ll skip the report on the Conference as that is documented on the company website, but one significant event did take place. Blackpool NHS had a stand there offering a lung function check-up. Having hit zero on two different Carbon Monoxide monitors, I was keen to find out the state of my lungs. The tests were somewhat revealing but also hit me like a locomotive. I am 55 years old; my lungs are 76 years old. I was just 2 points away from being classed as 'at serious risk of lung disease'. The only thing that saved me was giving up smoking tobacco in October 2008. I was told that now, my lungs should deteriorate at the normal rate......for a 76 year old. I suddenly realised why I still feel out of breath when I try to run; I might have given up smoking but the irreparable damage caused by over 40 years of smoking is taking its toll. If anyone wants to give up smoking tobacco, come and spend a day with me and you’ll have a fighting chance, I promise you no less than that.
March 2011
Well, here I am again, February 2011 saw me having coughing fits and breathing difficulties which led to having time off work. My Doctor has diagnosed Chronic Bronchitis and gave me a whole heap of tablets to take, including steroids and anti-biotics. My chest has eased a little, but I know that this is the kind of thing I will have to endure, all because of me smoking for so long. With what I have left of my life, I want to try and help as many people as possible kick the habit. It really does break my heart to see so many young people with that feeling of immortality, just as I felt, but not realising what might lie in store for them. I will persevere for as long as possible because I have the passion and the need to do something positive. I imagine there will be more updates to my story and hopefully for some time to come!
January 2012
Almost 12 months since the last update, time has been flying this past year with the company making progress toward bringing a licensed medical product to the market.
On a personal note, I am feeling good in myself and have been trying to get some exercise as I need to lose weight. Breathing is often still a problem but I have found that walking is good for getting my heart and lungs running rhythmically – my wife and me spent a nice week (well, wet and windy really) on Anglesey last September and had some amazing walks that took in coast and country. We’re planning to do lots more this year.
Having been off the cigarettes since October 2008, I find I still have the passion for helping others to do the same. Working for the company goes quite a way to satisfying that passion, but I would like to be involved on a more personal level and am looking at offering my counselling and support services in my spare time. Working with a few selected clients and delivering an innovative service by shadowing them for one to two weeks each (living in their pockets!) is something that I would like to develop as I believe that it would be extremely effective, more of that in the coming months.
Meanwhile, I took a decision to stop taking various tablets for blood pressure and cholesterol as I felt they were having some side effects; I was right, I have been off them for three weeks and feel a good deal better in myself. I will now use exercise and the fact that I feel good to lower my blood pressure. The cholesterol level is interesting – I have had a low level for many years, with my being vegetarian since 1979 contributing greatly to that. However, I had a spell for 18 months where I used zero-nicotine refills and my cholesterol level went up significantly. I went back to using a medium nicotine level recently and my cholesterol returned to a much lower level. Possibly my metabolism has become so accustomed to the presence of nicotine that abstinence causes an imbalance.
.......to be continued.......I hope!
March 2012
It's time to fasten seat belts as the rollercoaster has made a u-turn, dropped a few hundred feet whilst going through a 720 degree twist, then leapt off the rails and landed on another big dipper that is going just as fast!!!!!
I reached an agreement with the Directors of the company to buy one arm of the business from them. The parent company, has grown into an international, corporate entity and is set to launch their medical version of the ecig within the next year.
The company has come of age and I feel it's time to do it all again, from scratch, with my own company. I’m now free to focus more sharply on Smoking Harm Reduction, which is probably why most of us ex-smokers are here. I’ve had a life full of experiences, good and bad, and I feel that now is a good time for me to put something back. It breaks my heart to see anyone smoking, but particularly young people who like me, had that sense of immortality. They are difficult to reach but worth all the effort. For those who tell me ‘my granddad smoked a pack a day and lived to be 95’, I reply that he was the 100 to 1 shot, the rest were in the cemetery long before him.
May 2012
I'm still alive and wake up every day thankful for it.
Best wishes
John.
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