For those that don't know, I've been vaping since December 2012. When I first started I wanted a cig a like. I bought a blu starter kit and quickly outgrew it. From there I wasn't interested in a mod. I thought they were just too weird looking. So I purchased myself an ego setup. I used the ego setup for a couple months, and my attitude about mods changed as I did more research and watched probably hours and hours worth of YouTube video. So I upgraded to a Provari early this month.
I love vaping when I'm sitting around by myself. Even at work I've become comfortable vaping. All of my co workers know what I'm doing, and there are even 3 other people there that vape themselves. I was the first one by the way. But I'm still very uncomfortable vaping in public among strangers. I try to avoid it, which has caused me to be hesitant to participate in social situations. This is not healthy behavior.
My family knows that I'm vaping, and they are all supportive and happy that I'm no longer smoking cigarettes, but I still get the weirdo attitude from them. I was over at my parents house today for Easter and I was using my provari, and naturally a conversation was started because of it. My sister still smokes and she mentioned that she would never get into e-cigs because she thinks that a few years down the road we'll find out that they cause some disease that will start killing everybody. I responded by asking her what exactly does she think that the cigarettes are doing to her? Her response was "Well, at least I know what it's doing to me."
Whatever, my sister is kind of an idiot sometimes. My dad chimed in and mentioned that he thought it was worlds better than smoking cigarettes. But then he said something that just took all the wind out of my sails. He was like, "So you're gonna stop doing that pretty soon too, right?" I responded by saying "Why? It's not bad for me" And then he says. "Oh I see. Trading one vise for another"
I ended the conversation. I know all of us on ECF understand vaping. But the truth of the matter is, everybody outside of our circle has no idea. They see it, they think it's unusual. Period. A lot of the non vapors around us support the fact that we are no longer smoking cigarettes, but I think it's safe to say that almost all of them think that vaping should be a temporary thing. Like a stepping stone to quitting nicotine completely.
I know a lot of us have absolutely no intentions of quitting nicotine. And I completely understand that. I've been addicted to nicotine since I was 18 years old, and I know what withdrawal feels like. But after vaping for awhile now, I have noticed that my addiction to cigarettes is completely gone. The ritual of smoking cigarettes was a bigger part of my addiction than I ever thought it was. I have not practiced these rituals in quite some time. I have developed new rituals when it comes to vaping. But I can honestly say that I'm not addicted to them. I'm addicted to nicotine. I could do without the vaping.
So that being said, I think I'm going to start reducing my nic level. And I plan to do it rather drastically. This is a hard decision for me to make. I've only been vaping for 4 months. I think I've spent something like $900 on vaping. Up until recently I was completely committed to it. I thought I would do it indefinitely. But as I go on, I think I'd rather just ween myself off the nic and stop vaping.
It's not just the attitudes of other people that are driving me to make this decision. That is a big part of it. But I'm really sick and tired of fiddling with my equipment all the time. It seems like I can barely ever get anything to work right. I'll spend half an hour trying to properly prime and punch a carto, only to have it end up flooded or tasting burn't. I just spent $10 on two xheater heads for my vivi nova tank and I get nothing but constant burn't hits. I bought a 5 pack of boge cartos, and only one of them worked. The rest of them were garbage. I have found that only about 3 out of 10 smoktech cartos work the way they are supposed to.
It seems like whenever I try to set something up, it doesn't work. So then I spend more time setting it up again, and then it works for a half a day, and then it turns to ..... I'm tired of screwing around with stuff. Two weeks ago I got a duel coil carto working really well in a tank, and it's still working good. Only problem is now it's leaking out of the 510 connection. It's making a mess everywhere, but I refuse to throw it away because it's still firing good. If I throw it away or try to replace it, I have no guarantee that I can get something else working. I hate this crap. I want to be done with it. I spend too much time fiddling with vaping stuff while I could be doing something productive.
Right now I'm vaping around 2ml a day at 18mg of nicotine. As soon as I run out of 18mg juice, I plan to drop my nic level in 5mg increments. I'll vape a 30ml bottle of each increment until I am down to zero. It may seem a little steep. But at this point I'm so sick of the fiddle factor and the stigma from vaping that I'm ready to be done with it. I'll deal with withdrawal as it comes. One thing is for sure. I will not go back to cigarettes. That part of my life is done.
I love vaping when I'm sitting around by myself. Even at work I've become comfortable vaping. All of my co workers know what I'm doing, and there are even 3 other people there that vape themselves. I was the first one by the way. But I'm still very uncomfortable vaping in public among strangers. I try to avoid it, which has caused me to be hesitant to participate in social situations. This is not healthy behavior.
My family knows that I'm vaping, and they are all supportive and happy that I'm no longer smoking cigarettes, but I still get the weirdo attitude from them. I was over at my parents house today for Easter and I was using my provari, and naturally a conversation was started because of it. My sister still smokes and she mentioned that she would never get into e-cigs because she thinks that a few years down the road we'll find out that they cause some disease that will start killing everybody. I responded by asking her what exactly does she think that the cigarettes are doing to her? Her response was "Well, at least I know what it's doing to me."
Whatever, my sister is kind of an idiot sometimes. My dad chimed in and mentioned that he thought it was worlds better than smoking cigarettes. But then he said something that just took all the wind out of my sails. He was like, "So you're gonna stop doing that pretty soon too, right?" I responded by saying "Why? It's not bad for me" And then he says. "Oh I see. Trading one vise for another"
I ended the conversation. I know all of us on ECF understand vaping. But the truth of the matter is, everybody outside of our circle has no idea. They see it, they think it's unusual. Period. A lot of the non vapors around us support the fact that we are no longer smoking cigarettes, but I think it's safe to say that almost all of them think that vaping should be a temporary thing. Like a stepping stone to quitting nicotine completely.
I know a lot of us have absolutely no intentions of quitting nicotine. And I completely understand that. I've been addicted to nicotine since I was 18 years old, and I know what withdrawal feels like. But after vaping for awhile now, I have noticed that my addiction to cigarettes is completely gone. The ritual of smoking cigarettes was a bigger part of my addiction than I ever thought it was. I have not practiced these rituals in quite some time. I have developed new rituals when it comes to vaping. But I can honestly say that I'm not addicted to them. I'm addicted to nicotine. I could do without the vaping.
So that being said, I think I'm going to start reducing my nic level. And I plan to do it rather drastically. This is a hard decision for me to make. I've only been vaping for 4 months. I think I've spent something like $900 on vaping. Up until recently I was completely committed to it. I thought I would do it indefinitely. But as I go on, I think I'd rather just ween myself off the nic and stop vaping.
It's not just the attitudes of other people that are driving me to make this decision. That is a big part of it. But I'm really sick and tired of fiddling with my equipment all the time. It seems like I can barely ever get anything to work right. I'll spend half an hour trying to properly prime and punch a carto, only to have it end up flooded or tasting burn't. I just spent $10 on two xheater heads for my vivi nova tank and I get nothing but constant burn't hits. I bought a 5 pack of boge cartos, and only one of them worked. The rest of them were garbage. I have found that only about 3 out of 10 smoktech cartos work the way they are supposed to.
It seems like whenever I try to set something up, it doesn't work. So then I spend more time setting it up again, and then it works for a half a day, and then it turns to ..... I'm tired of screwing around with stuff. Two weeks ago I got a duel coil carto working really well in a tank, and it's still working good. Only problem is now it's leaking out of the 510 connection. It's making a mess everywhere, but I refuse to throw it away because it's still firing good. If I throw it away or try to replace it, I have no guarantee that I can get something else working. I hate this crap. I want to be done with it. I spend too much time fiddling with vaping stuff while I could be doing something productive.
Right now I'm vaping around 2ml a day at 18mg of nicotine. As soon as I run out of 18mg juice, I plan to drop my nic level in 5mg increments. I'll vape a 30ml bottle of each increment until I am down to zero. It may seem a little steep. But at this point I'm so sick of the fiddle factor and the stigma from vaping that I'm ready to be done with it. I'll deal with withdrawal as it comes. One thing is for sure. I will not go back to cigarettes. That part of my life is done.
