Whelp, I started smoking at 18. With 18 months off for good behavior while pregnant and nursing, and a few times I actually switched to nicotine gum for 3--6 months) I probably smoked between 1--3 packs a day (but definitely 3 near the end) for a couple years more than two decades.
My last 18 months smoking were pretty much non-stop pneumonia, being checked for laryngeal cancer and etc. and being non stop on steroids and awful antibiotics and etc. It wasn't great, let me put it that way. I finally got knocked into a state of reasonableness, but it's not exactly-- well, I can't go back in time and re-improve my lung function and etc. I wish I could, but I cannot. Etc. I am also not out of the woods as far as possible dx to come, and I will say there are/were vapers on here, at ECF, who had stopped smoking, and were steadily vaping and had/have health consequences they are dealing with and/or have died from. So, I am by no means sanguine about having beaten tobacco YET, although it is nice to not get the dreaded COPD diagnosis, or have those symptoms or take those meds anymore, etc. But, other stuff could still happen, and it does. Every day it does.
If you have the opportunity to quit-- quit. I wanted to quit smoking a month after I started, and I was surprised to find out HOW deep and how COMPLETELY smoking had sunk its hooks into me. I wouldn't call smoking passive suicide, to be honest. I am not passive, and there have actually been times when I was GENUINELY suicidal, and it's not like I smoked more, or anything, I was just TRULY addicted. I tried just about every smoking cessation there is (except Chantix, because that's sort of, at least with my diagnosis, an active suicidal act.).
I was completely and utterly addicted. I loved cigarettes, and I hated them. I warred with them, and I romanced them. I smoked habitually, I smoked with gusto, when I took one of those "what kind of smoker are you tests" I scored HIGH in absolutely EVERY sphere.
Addiction is not suicidal. It is a hopeless state of mind and body in which the substance you most hate seems to have the biggest hold over you. It cannot be reversed. The progression will usually worsen, not improve. I wished OH how I wished I could go back to being a never smoker. When I quit, I was miserable.. When I smoked, I was miserable. Every single day, for many decades ,I wished I was not a smoker, but I was powerless to stop.
I don't think that smoking is suicide, I think smoking is coupling yourself to the fact that there will be a thing that you "need" every day of your life, and that thing will grow INCREASINLY problematic in all spheres as you continue.
I do not want to die. The last 10 years of my smoking were in some ways the more happiest decade of my life. I merely was unable to quit.
You are vaping now. You have choices. But do not THINK that you know the future-- that there is some magic age at which you can STOP without consequence, some magic number of cigarettes you can consume, without consequences. It is simply not true as a) with each cigarette you will become more coupled to smoking, not less. So what may be possible now may not BE possible later. I've seen folks with COPD on here TRY their hardest to vape, and fail, and disappear. It also happens every day.
There will come a point (no one knows when) where the addiction has its hooks rather deep. There will come a point (no one knows when) where you will get a health consequence from smoking. NO ONE knows when.
If you are concerned, don't post about it trying to "gauge" who smoked how much and when. It doesn't matter because it is YOUR individual body, and who KNOWS how it will react (mentally or physically) you for SURE don't and the actions of other smokers make NOT ONE WHIT of impact to YOU. Doing a survey to check "how much smoking is safe" is just relentlessly an act of ADDICTION. Addiction is not reasonable, addiction doesn't care about the numbers, and your smoking addiction most certainly does not care about YOU. It does not need you, you need it. There are diseases that seem particularly intent on killing off the host, and offering a lot of misery along the way. Smoking is one of the worst, because quite often by the time you reach maximum "need" to quit, some symptoms are irreversible, and some addictions will be no longer quelled by vaping.
I do, by the way, mean to alarm you. The fact that you are even taking this ride (how much, how long) ALARMS me. It tells me that your are in the bargaining stage of addiction and I would not recommend staying there. Ever. You can bargain all you want, and cigarettes may still win. It's not a foe you can bargain with.
I am also NOT going to insult you by telling you HOW to quit . Certainly not until you are actually READY to quit. I don't know when that will be, but I am here to tell you.
There are full time vapers who have died from the consequences of their smoking. You don't have to be one but that is up to you.
However, don't think that vaping some and smoking less is an overall useful strategy. I did that for a while and my health gains were super minimal. While it's good you are smoking less, you are not going to reach true harm reduction while still smoking cigarettes. The risks are not mitigated, based on all the research I have read. Dual use is helpful while you are working on quitting. Habitual dual use offers little to no overall health gains. Consider yourself a smoker, until you actually stop because that is what you are.
I'm also not of the opinion that it is as simple as "how much" per day, week, etc. either. For me, it was my cigarettes catching up to me health wise and I did not get well until I quit entirely.
Just my experience for what it is worth. I wish for you the same thing I wish for my younger self, encountering vaping early enough to halt my addiction, and choosing to end my addiction to tobacco.
Best of luck,
Anna
