How many years have you been smoking ?

[67Tele]

I started when I was 15 so it's been 45 years now. Even years before my dad would send me up to the store to get his 35 cent pack.

For the first 30 or so years I smoked Salem then switched to American Spirit. Was up to a little over a pack and a half a day. I started vaping about 3 1/2 weeks ago. The transition has been almost effortless. The gratitude enormous.

 

[sbc83]

Started @ 15 years old and smoked for a total of 15 years. Started off gradually as they became available (underage). 18-30yo it varied between half a pack to a full pack (Drinking days) and back to about 8 or 9 by the time I switched over. Been vaping over a year with much success. Started at 18 and am currently at between 9-12mg.

I smoked primarily menthol's so it didn't really matter to me what kind they were as long as they were menthol's. If they had buy1get1's I'd grab those first, probably why I wasn't picky or loyal to one certain brand. That stopped when they actually became "b1g1- aka: buy 2 save .50 cents". What a crock that was.

But usually...

Marb menthol
Salem
Camel Crush
Kool
Newport
Anything...

 

[VLadies]

I smoked for around 20 years, started with just one while drinking then said I would never want to wake up with a cigarette in the morning. Well guess what? After 15 years I sure enough wanted one first thing in the morning. Started with Marlboro light, then American spirits, then menthol and ended up smoking about a pack a day Camel menthols. Loved the crush. About a year and a half ago I tried Green smoke but kept on smoking analogs too. Then my sister quit about 6 months ago with Ecigs. I tried hers and decided to buy an ego-c twist. I never looked back..didn't even set my heart on quitting. It sorta just happened. But wow, am I glad it did.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bamani71]

I smoked for 24 years (started at 18) with Marlboro Menthols, Benson and Hedges, Virginia Slims, and Mistys at a pack a day. Around 8 years ago I moved in with my then bf, and cut down to 1/2 a pack since we started smoking outside. I tried ecigs in 2012 after seeing a Blu commercial but cut back my nic too quickly and was back to smoking after 2 1/2 months. I had a brief attempt at quitting with a program through work (didn't work, was still smoking with the patches). My now husband decided to quit in May because of allergies and at the end of June I decided to do so as well so he wouldn't have to smell my smoke. I'm only 3 weeks into it so I don't know if it will stick this time, but since I don't plan on cutting back on the nic anytime soon it might last!

 

[jstraw20]

I smoked for 37 years. Started off with Parliaments, smoked Merits, Camel Lights, ended up smoking about 1 1/4 packs of Marlboro Light 100's a day. I actually quit for about a month and a half at one point, but only because I had a bad case of pneumonia and the doctor told me that if I smoked I'd end up in the hospital. Never should have picked up another one but I did... I'm sure you can guess what happened.

Tried various tapering down regimens and failed (I was chomping on so much hard candy that I broke a couple of teeth!), tried nicotine gum and failed.

By this point I was in my early 50's and found myself with a chronic smoker's cough, getting winded going up stairs, wheezing badly whenever I laid down. All that coupled with the skyrocketing price of cigarettes finally drove me to try Blus. Not terribly satisfying but I did manage to cut back the number of cigarettes I smoked each day. Since the place I was buying the Blus from charged the same for a Blu as a pack of cigs I gave up on them.

Then I discovered a brick and mortar vape shop a couple of towns over and decided to give it a whirl. I bought my first rig on a Friday and smoked my last cigarette the following Sunday night. No cigarettes since and I'm NOT going back.

 

[KODIAK (TM)]

40 <cough> years <choke> for yours <spit> truly.

I was up to 3 packs per day towards the end there. My brand is something nobody's heard of much less smoked. I single-handedly kept at least 12 people employed full time just making them. I suspect they contained mostly broom sweepings from a sweat shop somewhere in Guatemala. I'm sure there was even some tobacco in a few of them.

Those cursed Blu's nobody likes actually got me to quit on day 1. Go figure. Two months and one ECF later I'm vaping like stoked locomotive for about $12 per month.

 

[cthulhufan]

Back when I was on brands: Camel Turkish Gold.

Then on to "roll your own" with "pipe" tobacco.

I discovered e-cigs with a chance encounter at a mall kiosk and spent way too much money on a 510 auto kit.

Now I have a REO and I build my own coils/wick and I make my own juice. Can't complain.

 

[Caffeine7]

I had my first cig when I was 10. Started smoking regularly at 14. Pack a day of Marlboro reds and 100s when they still came in gold packs. At 19 I decided I hated menthols so that's all I would smoke until I quit. I stayed pretty true to that for the next 25 years or so with 1 1/2 or 2 packs a day of kools and then pall mall menthols when kools got expensive. My girlfriend got me a. Ego/iclear 16 setup for my birthday in 2013 and I smoked for about the first week then when my carton ran out I didn't buy more. It has been pretty easy with vaping for the last year. I had a smoke after about a month of vaping and it was awful. But at the same time it was wonderful because it took away any urge I had for another cig. Now she just laughs at me when I get shinyitis and get a new toy or if we are watching a movie and I'm wrapping a coil or re wicking a dripper or when I have 5 or 6 juices in front of me and I'm vaping away.

 

[Rlrick]

As a smoker of 47 years I would like to take time to share my experiences with you. I started smoking at age of 10 years old stealing my fathers camel non filtered cigarettes switching over to Marlboro and smoked for 47 years. At the age of 40 years old I had a massive heart attack while using the patch. On the way to the Hospital I had to be defibed two times and several other times while Dr. saved my life. After getting out of the hospital about three weeks later I was back on cigarettes and continued to smoke for the next 18 years. Then I had another heart attack December 2013 eight months ago. After which I was headed right back to cigarettes when I was introduced to Vaping. I have not smoked a cigarette since and plan not to. I started out at 12% nicotine and have reduced down to 2% nicotine. My plans are to be nicotine free by March of 2015 and free at last. I just recently had a heart Doctors appointment on the 14th of July 2014 and the Dr. told me that my lungs were not rattling and sounding much better. As a matter of fact I do not have to go back to him for a whole year and just so you know my first heart attack I received 2 stents then my last one I received 2 more. And yes I discussed my vaping with him, we also talked about why the NRT’s didn’t work and what all I had tried which was hypnosis, patches, gum, lozenges all of them. He told me that he was glad vaping had gotten me away from smoking.

The one thing that really opened my eyes was I became a Grandpa by both my sons in 2013. One was a baby grandson and the other was a baby granddaughter. I decided that I did not want them remembering their Grandpa stinking like cigarettes.

 

[Raztax]

Smoked for 30 years, started at age 13. Ive been vaping for 2 weeks and have been off the smokes for 9 days now and have never felt better! I don't wake up coughing a lung up anymore. Since I still get nicotine, I think the odds of going back to cigs are almost none.

 

[Lurch]

Probably smoked for around 45 years total. Started when I was young, around 15 or 16 years old. At that time smoked whatever I could get. Later in life I smoked Benson and Hedges for probably 20+ years between a pack and a pack and a half per day. Quit for a year in 1998, but started back up again.

Sometime around the turn of the century (man does that sound like I am old!) I started smoking small cigars, Swisher Sweets. Smoked anywhere between 10-15 per day. In April I was passing a local B&M that opened in our area and decided to stop and check it out.

Because the guys running the shop were willing to spend some time with me and show me how things worked, I left there with a basic start up set and some juice. Vaped and smoked for two days, cutting way back on the number of cigars. On the third day decided I would not smoke a cigar at all, but vaped almost continuously. After dinner on the third evening I went outside for a smoke (never smoked in the house). Lit a cigar, took two puffs, got an instant headache and it tasted terrible! Put it out and haven't had a desire for one since!!

 

[Rlrick]

Not "have" ..... HAD!

Close to 60 years.

At about the age of nine I discovered that if I swiped one of my fathers cigarettes I could make the throat tick go away (Tourette's syndrome), that was in 1949 or 50. As a result I found myself addicted to smoking by the time I outgrew the Tourette's as a teanager. Then for years I never gave smoking much thought because it was "the thing to do" anyway, and by the time I did think about quitting I found that I could not.
Since then I failed at trying to quit smoking far more times than I would care to admit to. Even after triple bypass surgery I was unable to quit, and finally just came to the conclusion that "these things are going to kill me" ..... and they almost did.
In April of 2011 a friend introduced me to e-cigarettes, and I found the transition from smoking to vaping literally seamless. So I know that vaping works, because it already has ..... I'm still alive!
Now at the age of 73, I just might get to hang around for another decade or two.

I'm Proof

You know TJ99959 what really upsets me most of all is there is finally one thing out there that really works. You and I are both proof of that. For I also tried all their little NRT devices and they didn't work. Had these been around years ago I probably would not have had a massive heart attack. Now they are trying to ban them and tax them to death. Just goes to say one thing, they are not interested in our health just the money involved. I am not going to stand here and tell someone they are good for you but they have to be better than a life time of smoking real cigarettes. Especially when we as long time smokers can lay the combustible's down almost overnight and say enough is enough. Good luck my friend.

 

[Thayamax]

I smoked heavily for 42 years, working my way up to 3 1/2 to 4 packs a day for the last 3 years. I was rarely without a cigarette in hand as you can imagine. I smoked Virginia Slims for many years and switched to Basic when they came out because they were cheaper. I then turned to RYO pipe tobacco for the last 10 years to save even more.

I tried to quit many times going cold turkey (1 week), using Wellbutrin (2 weeks), hypnotism (1 month) and even acupuncture (smoked as soon as I got home). I learned about ecigs on Google and tried a cigalike way back in the day before egos came out, again after they came out, and still never made it longer than a week. I finally gave up trying and just assumed I'd die from lung cancer before my time.

Assuming that and thinking about the reality of it are two very different things, so when I had been wheezing for a year, coughing up a lung and having chest pains, I decided to go back and check out ECF again. I couldn't believe how things had changed and how many more options were available. I moved up to a Sigelei Zmax and ProTanks and still continued to be a dual user until I found a thread made up of other dual users trying to quit.

With their help, suggestions and support I was finally able to transition to vaping only after a few months. I'm proud to say I've been smoke-free for over a year. I now have six APVs and rebuild my own coils on RBAs and RDAs. My family is thrilled and still somewhat shocked that I haven't returned to smoking. I'm now confident that I never will, and I feel so much better health-wise.

 

[rzil]

It's amazing to read so many stories about people switching after 20-40 years of smoking , anybody knows how come some researchers claim that ecigs don't help to quit smoking?

I've been smoke free for almost 7 months , my second longest time without smoking was about 24-48 hours so who are they to say they don't help ? all of us are a living proof that they do

 

[Thayamax]

One study that I read about consisted of smokers who had no intention of quitting going in. Some did quit, but most did not. That makes no sense to me. How about a study with a group of smoker who do want to quit? That might result in a much different number. After all, what smoker continues to use nicotine patches when they have no intention of quitting?

 

[TamiP]

35 years, 2 pad Old Gold Lights or Marlborro Lights 100s

 

[Froth]

Pack a day for about 11 years, probably a little longer than that. 95% of the time it was Parliament Full-Flavor but for about the last year I pretty much exclusively smoked Lucky Strike Non-Filters(thanks for that, Mad Men...). One day I popped into a friends house who also smoked to hang out and to my surprise he was using a vape, something I had never even seen before! Long story short I tried it out and he told me where to pick one up, two days later I had my own Kanger Uni-Tank and an Ego Stick battery and that was the last time I smoked! The transition was seamless, I started with 18mg nicotine and I've been able to taper down to 3mg nicotine over the past 3-4 months. Six months without a cigarette, I really never thought I would get to this point!

 

[pmPalidin]

I spent 50 years smoking: Marlboro Reds & lights, Camel with and without filters, likewise Pall Malls and Commanders. Quantity was 1-2 pad varying with stress and circumstances. Although I tried to quit in many ways at many times, I was a total failure--but then I found ecigs and ECF. Matter of fact, I quit by accident. The Vape just took over and now I know why we call them stinkies and ECF helped me learn and encouraged me.
Congrats on your 6 months without them. Keep the faith.
Welcome.

 

[rbrylawski]

I never really thought about how long I smoked, and it kind of bothers me to realize it now. I started when I was 16 years old, during a time when it wasn't considered all that bad. That means, gasp, I smoked for 41 years. I never smoked more than a pack a day, so I guess that's good. I smoked until two years ago, with one 2 year cold turkey break, which was hell and only lasted until I bummed a smoke from the very first person I saw smoking when in 2008 the economy crumbled and I along with everyone in my office was laid off. It was a tough time. And it took about two days for me to be right back to a pack a day. Despising myself all the way. Smelling foul, coughing first thing when I got up, but sill having to light up before even having my first trip to the bathroom. Add having to smoke one just before heading to bed. I smoked Marlboro, then went Light when they first came out. Funny how we thought they were better for us.

Then one day I walked into the mall and there was this kiosk, with a nice young man behind the counter puffing on what looked like a cigarette, but there was no smell and he noticed I was staring at him. He offered to let me try one and I walked away from his counter, $170 poorer, but with my first stab at e-cigarette's (White Cloud). I tried real hard to stay on them, but found them completely lacking and I smoked analogs every chance I could, while pretending to only vape. One learns quickly how to wash hands and face, use cologne and breath fresheners when trying to hide the stench of that last cigarette.

Two years ago, I saw my first Vapor store and went in. I started with an ego-T and have since upped the expenditures to cover loads of mods and tanks, but the one thing I haven't had is a cigarette. Not one. And I don't miss them. I no longer smell bad. My teeth aren't stained. I don't cough. I have more energy and I'm really proud to be a non-smoker.

I'm currently using my brand new Provari and Kangertech Mega with 18mg juice.

Vape on.......

 

[billsfande]

I smoked a pack and a half of Marlboro reds for 21 years. I have been vaping now for over 5 months.

Started with a kanger evod that my local cigarette store started carrying. I tried the Blu product with no success. I used the evod at nights and on weekends for 2 weeks before going to vaping only.

I now use a Provari with a Kayfun lite+ as my favorite set up.