I still can't believe it almost 5 years later. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.
I did want to quit, very badly, and had very thoroughly psyched myself up, but I was SO weary of endless, humiliating, depressing effort/failure cycles that I secretly felt as much dread as excitement waiting for the first little kit.
It actually took me about 30 minutes to quit smoking. Seriously. After all those years of miserable struggle.
That for me it involved no real effort, no cravings, no weird symptoms, nothing but this ridiculously interesting and fun TOY (we're talking over 40 years of chain smoking) was just... well, insane. And miraculous.
Under all of my anger about this vicious FDA circus I'm just so intensely sad.
My beautiful Mom could probably have lived another 20 years if she'd had them.
The hundreds of lung cancer and COPD victims that I served working hospice might have been spared that hell, every one of them a long-time smoker. (And they kept chain-smoking right to the end, most of them. Blaming themselves for killing themselves, all kinds of ashamed, and smoking.)
Think of that - a beloved mother gone too early, 11 years working hospice, decades with every cessation trick and product out there, nothing would budge it; 30 minutes with an e-cig and done. Never looked back.
And all of the hundreds and hundreds of stories told in here, year after year - so many really moving successes, happy people. I still love reading them. Also my daughter, my son-in-law, clients, friends - they don't count because their experience is anecdotal?
Then start tallying properly! What a load of BS.
If they'd just see how horribly stupid and vicious it is to do anything but celebrate, promote and perfect this brilliant and benevolent bit of human ingenuity...
Stupid on the one hand, vicious on the other.
I really want to win this thing.
Mutter mutter.
It took me closer to 30 days than 30 minutes, but for much the same reasons you mentioned; I was so tired of failing and kicking myself, that I didn't pressure myself about it, or kick myself for the few I was still smoking, I just let vaping gradually overtake smoking until it was just stupid to smoke one a day anymore, keeping that addiction alive, when finally I had the means to end it for good. When that finally happened, I was done, and haven't looked back; I kept a "no need to panic" stash here for 56 days, the last 12 in my last open pack, but except for just a couple times in the first couple weeks, I really didn't even think about them; even those few times I did, I just shook my head with a grimace of disgust, realizing I was doing much too well without them, to want to ever smoke another.
And I echo your sentiments, but about my father; he smoked Luckies since he was about 12 yrs old, and in 2006 he died of lung cancer, very lingeringly and painfully, and ever since I watched that, I would watch myself smoking, thinking how stupid it was, knowing I was headed for the same end, but powerless to do a thing about it -- until e-cigs. And they have the everloving nerve to say they don't work for quitting? They work better than watching someone you love die of cancer! I know those early electric cigarettes were apparently very inadequate, which is why they never "flew," but I can't help but think, what if... my dad might still be here.
With my mom it was COPD, and she struggled miserably for years before she was finally able to quit, using a full-on combo of patch, gum, and lozenges, and the only reason she kept on with it was because she just could not breathe, she could not complete a sentence without a 10 minute coughing fit, and she could see that it was coming to the point of "smoke or keep breathing". Now I'm sure she's green with jealousy, hence all the "but you don't mean to do that forever, do you?" comments, but I know she's glad that I've apparently derailed the smoking-related illness train, before it really picks up a lot of steam -- I developed adult-onset asthma at the age of 24, but it has stayed remarkably stable over the years -- though I knew that couldn't last, as long as I continued smoking; I was headed straight for COPD myself.
I completely share your outrage at these clueless politicos, and the evil, small-minded, fascist ANTZ who'd far rather we all just died than used a relatively-harmless substitute.
Andria
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Yes, growing old does kinda suck.. but it really does beat the alternative!!!
