Smoking Souvenir

[PapaSloth]

I still have the same half pack of Camel 99 lights I had when I bought my first Evod 42 days ago. I've been lucky and have had very few cravings for cigarettes since I started vaping, but throwing that half pack away just seems wrong to me somehow. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's just because I paid for them and I don't want to "waste" them by throwing them away. Maybe it's because some part of me needs the safety net of having them around if something goes wrong. Maybe it's because for 32 years, every time I ran out of cigarettes, I had to go out into blizzards, heavy rain, and darkest night to find a pack somewhere, so I've brainwashed myself into always having them around. Maybe they're just souvenirs

Who here still has their "last pack" of cigarettes? If you don't, then did you finish them or throw them away? How long did it take before you threw them away?

 

[dbrandt01]

Not cigarettes, but dip. I have a full can and a half a can which is dry now, but still keep them around. Not sure why honestly, I just threw them into the drawer and forgot about them til now.

 

[Mogar]

I was a "flavor smoker" meaning I smoke cloves. The black ones with the gold filters. I used to (a few years back) smoke stogies. I had one that I kept the tube it came in because it was glass with a cork in the end of it. I took my last clove and a strike anywhere match and put them in the glass tube, put the cork in it and sealed the end with hardened wax (old hobby of mine). I now have this on the top of my bookshelf so it can be seen.
I think I saw an old movie where they did something similar, something with Danny DeVito in it.

 

[M3CH M0D M4DN355]

You should blast them with a 12 gauge or something as a sort of ceremonial send off
I just scrunched my last pack up and binned them, haven't looked back! I do still have my zippo lighters and a Jack Daniels ashtray.

 

[Robino1]

I had 7 packs left in a carton of cigarettes. They sat around in the fridge for months. October 2012 to January 2013. We moved from Philly to Florida and I made the decision that they were not traveling with me. I admit to a moment of panic when Hubby and I did a ceremonial disposing of them into the garbage. It was just a fleeting, very fleeting moment.

This October....OMG next month!....will be two years smoke free. I haven't been able to even claim a year before discovering vaping and ECF. The longest quit (and cheated during that time) was 9 months of pure hell. Thinking about cigs daily in that whole 9 months. I can honestly say that if I do ever think about a cig, it is just as fleeting as my panic over disposing of that carton.

 

[AndriaD]

I still have the same half pack of Camel 99 lights I had when I bought my first Evod 42 days ago. I've been lucky and have had very few cravings for cigarettes since I started vaping, but throwing that half pack away just seems wrong to me somehow. I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's just because I paid for them and I don't want to "waste" them by throwing them away. Maybe it's because some part of me needs the safety net of having them around if something goes wrong. Maybe it's because for 32 years, every time I ran out of cigarettes, I had to go out into blizzards, heavy rain, and darkest night to find a pack somewhere, so I've brainwashed myself into always having them around. Maybe they're just souvenirs

Who here still has their "last pack" of cigarettes? If you don't, then did you finish them or throw them away? How long did it take before you threw them away?

My last open pack, with 12 in it, was placed into a ziplock and put in the freezer... right behind my nicotine stash, actually.

I did this for several reasons. The main reason I kept them at all is due to a quirk in my own psychology: if I am completely without cigarettes, I will panic, and get mad, because then it feels like I am FORCED to not smoke. I don't react well to coercion, so I would probably then buy some cigarettes, and maybe even smoke them; as long as I actually HAVE some cigarettes, then NOT smoking is my own free choice, not a matter of being forced.

I put them into the freezer for 2 reasons: it makes them slightly less accessible; bottom shelf, behind the boxful of nicotine, so I don't even see them unless I'm adding to that stash -- and I smile everytime I do see them, because I'm NOT smoking them. But, I know that keeping them in a ziplock in the freezer keeps them more-or-less fresh, so they remain smokable, if I ever decide I really need to smoke -- again, my own free choice; they're perfectly viable cigarettes which I CHOOSE to not smoke. As long as I have a choice, I'm perfectly fine with choosing not to smoke; I have a substitute which I actually like a great deal better than I ever liked cigarettes.

It works for me.

Andria

 

[Iffy]

Three and a half years ago, I was 'bout to open another pack of 305 menthols when my postman stuffed my mail box with my first vaping order. That same unopened 305 pack still sits by my 'puter, as a trophy!

 

[Davey59]

I have a pack in the freezer and a half pack in the glove box.

Who knows, I might want one sometime. I may not smoke now but I am not going to pressure myself telling myself I won't. IF I feel like doing it I dammed well will. I haven't and have little desire too but I would just not be me if I don't do whatever I want.

 

[PapaSloth]

I was a "flavor smoker" meaning I smoke cloves. The black ones with the gold filters. I used to (a few years back) smoke stogies. I had one that I kept the tube it came in because it was glass with a cork in the end of it. I took my last clove and a strike anywhere match and put them in the glass tube, put the cork in it and sealed the end with hardened wax (old hobby of mine). I now have this on the top of my bookshelf so it can be seen.
I think I saw an old movie where they did something similar, something with Danny DeVito in it.

That's a great idea! I might add a label that says, "In case of emergency, break glass."

 

[FlamingoTutu]

Sloth, 42 days ago? Holy poo you are a fast study!

I found a couple of packs after I quit. Tried one, two actually, and couldn't believe how bad they were. I destroyed them all and then read on her that a better way to dispose of them would have been to give them to the homeless. Many of them suffer from psychological disorders and cigarettes help them cope. Wish I'd thought of that before I drowned those two packs.

Andria, I can completely relate to that. Somehow with vaping it's been different though. I'm scared I'd try one just out of curiosity. I know I'd hate it.

Had an empty pack box. Not sure where it got off to.

 

[mattiem]

I bought my usual 2 cartons of the least expensive little brown menthol cigs the same day and place where I bought my first little starter kit. Hubby smoked the smokes It will soon be 3 years ago.

 

[pokemom]

I threw out that 1/2 pack of cigarettes when it spilled inside my purse and they all broke apart, leaving tobacco everywhere! I had it for over 15 months. I still have the cigarette case that I held them in, and it remains in my purse.

Not sure why, but I do.

 

[inswva]

I kept my last 1/2 pack of Reds around for about two weeks. Not sure why, but it was somehow comforting just knowing I had them. After two weeks of vaping I realized I wasn't going back and tossed them in the trash without a second thought.

 

[PapaSloth]

Sloth, 42 days ago? Holy poo you are a fast study!

I may be a little obsessive. I just find all of this fascinating.

I found a couple of packs after I quit. Tried one, two actually, and couldn't believe how bad they were. I destroyed them all and then read on her that a better way to dispose of them would have been to give them to the homeless. Many of them suffer from psychological disorders and cigarettes help them cope. Wish I'd thought of that before I drowned those two packs.

This is another great idea! When I'm finally ready to let go, I should just start carrying that old pack around with me. It seemed like people would always walk up to me once or twice a day asking if they could bum a smoke. Of course, I was smoking at the time myself, so they probably knew I had cigarettes.

 

[PapaSloth]

I threw out that 1/2 pack of cigarettes when it spilled inside my purse and they all broke apart, leaving tobacco everywhere! I had it for over 15 months. I still have the cigarette case that I held them in, and it remains in my purse.

Not sure why, but I do.

I laughed out loud when I got to the "over 15 months" part. I can completely see that happening.

 

[Bernard Marx]

Half a pack sitting in my sock drawer for 270 or so days. Sometimes when I wake up in the night I visualize them just sitting there. It makes me feel secure.

 

[Recycled Roadkill]

The day I quit smoking I had 1 pack with 16 cigarettes in it on my workshop desk in front of me and it sat there for a few months until my wife grabbed it and finished it off. It seems she's a duel user and will never fully quit.

 

[Robino1]

The day I quit smoking I had 1 pack with 16 cigarettes in it on my workshop desk in front of me and it sat there for a few months until my wife grabbed it and finished it off. It seems she's a duel user and will never fully quit.

Dual use is still better than full smoker.

 

[Goodyaz]

I have had a half pack of camels sitting on my back porch in the humidity for about 2 months since my SO left town for a bit.
After over 2 years of off and on vaping and fully now I go outside and walk around my pool like I did in my smoking days when I am on the phone. Though I am not smoking at all.

 

[Traijan]

We finished off our last two packs of Camel Light 99's. Once they were finished I turned to my wife and said "that's it, it's all vaping from here on" to which she agreed and that's what we've been doing for the past few months now.

I don't know that I'd want to have the object of my desire laying around the house tempting me. I think it would be much like an alcoholic keeping a bottle of Gin in his cupboard, always there, always tempting him.