My first vaping experience:
It's been a while, but what I remember the most was that I watched a ton of youtube video's -- mostly because I'm a visual learner so all the talk in the world wasn't going to help me figure out what I was supposed to do. Then when I finally got my kit in the mail I set up the videos that seemed like they'd help me the most and read the instructions and all that and then charged up a battery, set up my PV and took my first drag (nice and slow, like they said).
At first it didn't really seem like much was happening, it basically felt like I was having a cigarette (INSIDE THE APARTMENT!!) and vapor was coming out of my mouth and stuff but it didn't really taste the same as cigarettes -- sort of the same way that coffee doesn't really smell the same as it tastes. I kept weighing it out in my mind; does my camel give me more throat hit than this? no. Does my camel give me more head buzz than this? rarely. Does my camel give me more flavor than this? no, just different. I smoked a cigarette just for comparison... nope, not better, just different.
So I vaped it all day and then at night, right before I went to bed, I smoked a cigarette. I didn't really feel like I could sleep without it. When I got up the next morning I had a cigarette with my coffee and then went back to vaping all day and perusing the ECF some more. But at night I had another cigarette right before bed; no more 'vapor' than I'd been getting all day with my PV, no head rush, no more flavor than my PV, I couldn't figure it out. In the morning I woke up and had coffee and decided to have it with my PV to start and I could always have a cigarette if it didn't do the trick.
The coffee and vape was o.k., so I decided that I could have a cigarette later if it started to bother me. I went the whole day without it bothering me..I mean I thought about smoking, but it wasn't like all the times I tried to quit before, it wasn't obsessive thoughts, it was just thoughts. I'd start thinking about smoking so I'd suck on my PV for a while thinking about it and pretty soon I'd be thinking about something totally different and forget that I was supposed to be deciding if I should go have that cigarette or not.
By that night I'd realized that the reason I was so confused about it was that it was ACTUALLY WORKING!!! I decided that I really could have gone without those cigarettes on the first two days if I'd wanted to, but I really just didn't trust that it would actually work. And this was at a time in my life when I'd basically given up on the idea that I'd ever, ever quit. Even my kids had stopped bugging me about it - everybody knew I was never going to quit. (last time I quit I dreamed about smoking every single night for the whole 6 months, every night I dreamed that someone was giving me a cigarette or else I had one but didn't have a lighter or something. Every night without fail.)
I don't even dream about cigarettes any more - I haven't dreamed about them once. For a while I was sort of afraid of them. I thought that if there ever came a day when I HAD to smoke one for some reason (dead batteries, no juice, whatever) that I'd never be able to go back. But about a month ago I went on a long camping trip with my family and my best friend and by the end of it all my batteries had died and I had to go to the store and get a pack of camels.
I smoked those camels for the last two days of the trip. I'm not going to say they were horrible and tasted like burning shoe rubber or anything, they were the same as I remember them. But the truth is I could really take 'em or leave 'em. They gave me a head ache, and they weren't any better than what I'd been vaping for the last 6 months. I even started thinking about how they come in such a limited array of flavors I can't imagine why they ever got so popular!
So now I can finally walk away from my relationship with cigarettes and say that old classic line, "it's not you, it's me." I just don't really care for them anymore.
It's been a while, but what I remember the most was that I watched a ton of youtube video's -- mostly because I'm a visual learner so all the talk in the world wasn't going to help me figure out what I was supposed to do. Then when I finally got my kit in the mail I set up the videos that seemed like they'd help me the most and read the instructions and all that and then charged up a battery, set up my PV and took my first drag (nice and slow, like they said).
At first it didn't really seem like much was happening, it basically felt like I was having a cigarette (INSIDE THE APARTMENT!!) and vapor was coming out of my mouth and stuff but it didn't really taste the same as cigarettes -- sort of the same way that coffee doesn't really smell the same as it tastes. I kept weighing it out in my mind; does my camel give me more throat hit than this? no. Does my camel give me more head buzz than this? rarely. Does my camel give me more flavor than this? no, just different. I smoked a cigarette just for comparison... nope, not better, just different.
So I vaped it all day and then at night, right before I went to bed, I smoked a cigarette. I didn't really feel like I could sleep without it. When I got up the next morning I had a cigarette with my coffee and then went back to vaping all day and perusing the ECF some more. But at night I had another cigarette right before bed; no more 'vapor' than I'd been getting all day with my PV, no head rush, no more flavor than my PV, I couldn't figure it out. In the morning I woke up and had coffee and decided to have it with my PV to start and I could always have a cigarette if it didn't do the trick.
The coffee and vape was o.k., so I decided that I could have a cigarette later if it started to bother me. I went the whole day without it bothering me..I mean I thought about smoking, but it wasn't like all the times I tried to quit before, it wasn't obsessive thoughts, it was just thoughts. I'd start thinking about smoking so I'd suck on my PV for a while thinking about it and pretty soon I'd be thinking about something totally different and forget that I was supposed to be deciding if I should go have that cigarette or not.
By that night I'd realized that the reason I was so confused about it was that it was ACTUALLY WORKING!!! I decided that I really could have gone without those cigarettes on the first two days if I'd wanted to, but I really just didn't trust that it would actually work. And this was at a time in my life when I'd basically given up on the idea that I'd ever, ever quit. Even my kids had stopped bugging me about it - everybody knew I was never going to quit. (last time I quit I dreamed about smoking every single night for the whole 6 months, every night I dreamed that someone was giving me a cigarette or else I had one but didn't have a lighter or something. Every night without fail.)
I don't even dream about cigarettes any more - I haven't dreamed about them once. For a while I was sort of afraid of them. I thought that if there ever came a day when I HAD to smoke one for some reason (dead batteries, no juice, whatever) that I'd never be able to go back. But about a month ago I went on a long camping trip with my family and my best friend and by the end of it all my batteries had died and I had to go to the store and get a pack of camels.
I smoked those camels for the last two days of the trip. I'm not going to say they were horrible and tasted like burning shoe rubber or anything, they were the same as I remember them. But the truth is I could really take 'em or leave 'em. They gave me a head ache, and they weren't any better than what I'd been vaping for the last 6 months. I even started thinking about how they come in such a limited array of flavors I can't imagine why they ever got so popular!
So now I can finally walk away from my relationship with cigarettes and say that old classic line, "it's not you, it's me." I just don't really care for them anymore.
