So desperate - secret analog smoker - double life

[Axident]

I can relate to being a secret smoker and the immense stress it puts on a person. I have hid my smoking a few times on my wife and after about 3 weeks I just can't take the guilt anymore and end up confessing. Each time she has been very understanding. I think the reason she has always so understanding is because when I finally do confess to what I have been doing I am usually an emotional wreck and she is able to see how stressed the whole ordeal has been for me. While I don't recommend faking your emotions I do think it is important that your significant other gets a small glimpse into the turmoil that your nicotine addiction has caused. Once the initial talk is over with and you come up with a plan that has been mutually agreed upon between you and your partner the feeling of relief is immense!

Currently I am a few days away from making the switch from regular cigarettes (analogs) to vaping and I am excited. It was tough to convince my non-smoking wife that this was a better alternative to smoking but she is still supporting me. I have been very communicative with her about the switch and what it is going to cost vs traditional smoking, she likes the cost reduction and the fact that I will not smell like an ashtray anymore. I have done my best to provide her with as much information on vaping as I could to help her get an understanding of the benefits of vaping vs. smoking. This has made her much more accepting of the switch.

The fact that you have been honest with your partner and have come up with a plan to assist you in the difficult process of quitting smoking should be seen as a good thing. Quitting smoking is so much easier when you have the support of your family, friends, and loved ones. Letting them know that you need their help is not a sign of weakness on your part but a sign of strength, that you are able to admit you have run into a problem you are struggling to solve on your own and would like some support and encouragement from the ones you love. If you give them the relative information surrounding vaping I can't see how they would not support your decision to stop poisoning your lungs with cigarettes and the 50 carcinogens your filling your system with.

Best of luck to you in this endeavour and should you run into questions that you don't have any answers for either google search it or put up a thread here on ECF.

 

[Vapoor eyes er]

Regardless of whether you tell your hubby your plans or not we've found it's very important to have a support group. ALWAYS consider us at ECF as your friends and support group. Good days or bad days you can always come back here to celebrate, vent, ask questions or just plain chat.
Good Luck.

Hi everyone,

I am embarrassed to admit that I am a secret analog smoker - my husband thinks I quit smoking a year ago. In the mean time, I have been able to get away with smoking (with a lot of effort and stress which is not worth it at all. ) Let me tell you about my daily routine. After so much time hiding such a big secret (and feeling like an awful person), I really need to get things of my chest:

I am a 29 year old stay-home-housewife. My husband leaves for work at 7:45am. I wait a little bit (in case he forgets something at home and comes back) and then drive to my secret spot (which is a nearby location behind a mall where i can sit down and smoke without anybody seeing me - since I'm hiding it from everyone). Now I do this whether it's winter and freezing cold outside with windchill or summer and so hot to bear, or pouring rain. After a few cigarettes, I drive back home. In a couple hours, I have the craving again and drive to my secret spot again. On average, I end up doing this about 3 or 4 times a day for about half hour to an hour each time. It is the most inconvenient thing in the world and I end up being so unproductive. Several times, my husband decided to come home for lunch and me not being there, I had to lie about where I was. Now the reason I don't smoke in our backyard or anywhere near our house is because our neighbors have a full view of our yard, so there is no privacy, no place to hide. Anyways, around 3:30pm is when I have to get in the shower and stop smoking so that I can minimize the smell my husband can pick up on when he gets home around 5:30pm. There are a lot of days when I have to meet my mother in law for lunch or have to meet other people for one reason or another, and on those days, I have to take a shower twice. There was one day when I had to take a shower three times due to the hectic daily schedule. I have specific "smoking clothes" which I wear when I'm smoking and hide and wash so that I don't accidentally wear them around my husband and risk him smell it on me. Things you can't think of go wrong when you are a secret smoker. One day my husband was playing with our iPad and started sniffing the iPad and said it smells like smoke! When I smelled it, the soft cover was surely smelling like smoke. I guess when I was smoking, having the iPad around, the smell really soaked into the soft spongy feeling cover. I tried to get out of that one saying I don't smell anything, it smells plasticy.

There is a constant fear of being discovered as well as feeling like an awful and undeserving person, fear of lung cancer and dying young, and more recently the possibility of losing my teeth.....which is the main reason I'm on the forum. I have decided to stop this madness and quit smoking. I can't take it anymore. It turns out that my gums are in really bad shape, with lots of bone loss (which is irreversible) and I'm already losing one tooth in the front for sure and possibly others.

This was a wakeup call for me and Im determined to quit. However, I do want to use ecigs to help me do that. Now I read some posts and try to get as much info as possible about ecigs but I don't understand the terminology and the process and I'm really overwhelmed now. I would really be grateful if someone knowledgable about ecigs can give me advice. Which one should I buy? I am a little hesitant to buy anything that requires me to order online constantly because I'm afraid my husband will be home when they deliver it, etc. So if it's something I can buy in a local store, that would be even better.

To get through a few days, I'm going to walgreens to get disposable blu ecigs because if I don't, I know I will cave and buy a pack. But in the long term, I would like a a reliable ecig that will give me great throat hit and good nicotine levels and feel as close to the real thing as possible relatively speaking when compared to the other ecigs on the market. Could someone give me some guidance here? I would really appreciate it. I just want a normal life, I don't want to live like this anymore. Thank you

 

[dhdonline1]

I can totally relate to your situation. I was a "secret smoker" for close to 14 years. Very few people know that I smoked. I felt the same - guilty and terrible and tried many times to quit but always went back. Any family function or outing became agonizing due to cravings. It made it even harder to quit because I didn't have a support group to help! As others have said, consider ECF as your friends and support group! You still remain anonymous, but we CAN help!

We can offer advise about your situation, but the only person who knows every detail is you. We can offer you our opinions, but only you can make the right decision. In my situation, I decided to tell my fiancé about vaping. I thought she would be angry and disappointed with me. She wasn't at all. She was HAPPY! The reason was because I chose the healthier alternative! It did make it easier with her because her brother and sons vape so she wasn't totally in the dark about what its all about! In the end she was happy and supportive. Now, she wants me to get her a kit!

I would suggest having a talk with your hubby. It may not be easy, but neither is having a secret addiction. You can't get over it alone! You need to get it out in the open. The reason I say this, because unless you have a local vape shop, you will have to go with a crappy e-cig and from experience, they won't help you get away from cigarettes. You need something better to get you off long term! There are a lot of inexpensive kits out there. I had good luck with an ego kit, but there have been lots of good suggestions here. read up and decide what you think will work for you! It may take some trial and error.

You have made the first step on a new life. That is the most important thing to remember! Trust me, life is a whole lot more enjoyable if you don't have this secret any more!! Make the jump! You have a lot of new friends here to help!!

 

[lostsoulcig]

I just wanted to thank everyone here for their support and advice - I can't believe the kindness of all of you to take the time and respond to my desperate situation. I realize that the consensus is that I should tell my husband and come clean. I am seriously considering this now. I just wanted to give you a little more background information as to why I am hiding my smoking from my husband. He is very intolerable to smoking because he lost his both grandfathers and grandma to lung cancer due to smoking in the last ten years. That's why he takes a very adamant and strong stance against smoking. We have been married for a year now. When we first met, he knew that I was smoking and as the relationship developed, he tried to convince me to quit smoking and when we were very serious about our future together, he indicated that he would not want to be married to a smoker who endangers her life and her family's life due to this habit. I agree with him and I wanted to stop too, so I went cold turkey and told him I had quit. However, I couldn't do it without any help and went back to smoking shortly after, and you know the rest of my story. His grandma passed away two months ago due to lung cancer after a very painful battle, and I'm not sure if I have to heart to tell him I've been smoking for a year without his knowledge. I understand how some people will label me as a coward and threat to the integrity of a marriage due to my secret smoking and not being able to tell my husband, but I am just telling you everything I'm going through and everything I'm feeling honestly. Thank you all for your support.

 

[martsumoto]

Without a doubt come clean first with your husband, that would be the hardest part but once done you will feel liberated.
Smoking its a hard habit and it was too much for you and stressful with or without it. Your husband will understand and support you in your quest for ecigs.

Maybe you can ommit some details you know and that wouldnt be actually a whole lie but you could tell him you have been under a lot of stress lately and you had a few cigarrettes, that you feel ashame and you don't want that in your live so you want to try ecigarretes and you need is support.

I used to smoke for 17 years now I only vape and I'm happy so are the people around me.

with ecigs your health will improve, you wont be in the double life nightmare anymore and you will get your nicotine.
Nicotine is a natural alkaloid found even in tomatoes so its not actually that bad.

good luck

 

[martinc]

Oh,I bet your husband knows already.

Get good vaping gear and prper nic juice.

But what is yur goal,stop smoking by vaping then stop vaping?

 

[CommaHolly]

I just wanted to thank everyone here for their support and advice - I can't believe the kindness of all of you to take the time and respond to my desperate situation. I realize that the consensus is that I should tell my husband and come clean. I am seriously considering this now. I just wanted to give you a little more background information as to why I am hiding my smoking from my husband. He is very intolerable to smoking because he lost his both grandfathers and grandma to lung cancer due to smoking in the last ten years. That's why he takes a very adamant and strong stance against smoking. We have been married for a year now. When we first met, he knew that I was smoking and as the relationship developed, he tried to convince me to quit smoking and when we were very serious about our future together, he indicated that he would not want to be married to a smoker who endangers her life and her family's life due to this habit. I agree with him and I wanted to stop too, so I went cold turkey and told him I had quit. However, I couldn't do it without any help and went back to smoking shortly after, and you know the rest of my story. His grandma passed away two months ago due to lung cancer after a very painful battle, and I'm not sure if I have to heart to tell him I've been smoking for a year without his knowledge. I understand how some people will label me as a coward and threat to the integrity of a marriage due to my secret smoking and not being able to tell my husband, but I am just telling you everything I'm going through and everything I'm feeling honestly. Thank you all for your support.

Hugs,,,,,I don't think you're a coward. I think you love your husband and don't want to hurt him at the same time you're trying to deal with an insidious addiction all on your own without any support. THAT'S what I think. But I really think you need to tell him,,,,,,,and of course, the first question he's going to ask is "how long has this been going on?"

Maybe you need to talk to a professional about how to tell him. I know it will be difficult,,,,,,,but he's going to find out sooner or later if he doesn't already. Do YOU want to be in control of how and when he finds out,,,,,,,,or do you want him to find out from someone else???

 

[Vapoor eyes er]

Seeing as this is an addiction a short story. Alcoholism is rampant within my and my wife's families. When my wife, coming from an alcoholic family, realized she had married a booze hound she was devastated as she knew the issues, the pain and suffering. I came clean and decided to live sober. That was 25 yrs ago and I haven't looked back. The bottom line is I, along with some amazing support and help from friends and family, stopped the cycle. I believe your husband will be VERY supportive of your plans and probably understand why you hid this from him. As others have said, and I agree, he probably knows that you are smoking so it's probably going to be a relief for him as much as it will be for you.
Last time I looked the success rate of traditional smoking cessation methods was 17% while vaping is 73% and 80%.
Good Luck and know we are all rooting for you.

I just wanted to thank everyone here for their support and advice - I can't believe the kindness of all of you to take the time and respond to my desperate situation. I realize that the consensus is that I should tell my husband and come clean. I am seriously considering this now. I just wanted to give you a little more background information as to why I am hiding my smoking from my husband. He is very intolerable to smoking because he lost his both grandfathers and grandma to lung cancer due to smoking in the last ten years. That's why he takes a very adamant and strong stance against smoking. We have been married for a year now. When we first met, he knew that I was smoking and as the relationship developed, he tried to convince me to quit smoking and when we were very serious about our future together, he indicated that he would not want to be married to a smoker who endangers her life and her family's life due to this habit. I agree with him and I wanted to stop too, so I went cold turkey and told him I had quit. However, I couldn't do it without any help and went back to smoking shortly after, and you know the rest of my story. His grandma passed away two months ago due to lung cancer after a very painful battle, and I'm not sure if I have to heart to tell him I've been smoking for a year without his knowledge. I understand how some people will label me as a coward and threat to the integrity of a marriage due to my secret smoking and not being able to tell my husband, but I am just telling you everything I'm going through and everything I'm feeling honestly. Thank you all for your support.

 

[dhdonline1]

I just wanted to thank everyone here for their support and advice - I can't believe the kindness of all of you to take the time and respond to my desperate situation. I realize that the consensus is that I should tell my husband and come clean. I am seriously considering this now. I just wanted to give you a little more background information as to why I am hiding my smoking from my husband. He is very intolerable to smoking because he lost his both grandfathers and grandma to lung cancer due to smoking in the last ten years. That's why he takes a very adamant and strong stance against smoking. We have been married for a year now. When we first met, he knew that I was smoking and as the relationship developed, he tried to convince me to quit smoking and when we were very serious about our future together, he indicated that he would not want to be married to a smoker who endangers her life and her family's life due to this habit. I agree with him and I wanted to stop too, so I went cold turkey and told him I had quit. However, I couldn't do it without any help and went back to smoking shortly after, and you know the rest of my story. His grandma passed away two months ago due to lung cancer after a very painful battle, and I'm not sure if I have to heart to tell him I've been smoking for a year without his knowledge. I understand how some people will label me as a coward and threat to the integrity of a marriage due to my secret smoking and not being able to tell my husband, but I am just telling you everything I'm going through and everything I'm feeling honestly. Thank you all for your support.

Same situation with me. Chances are once you explain to your hubby that there isn't the same risk with vaping as tobacco, and its NOT smoking he may be more understanding. Is there still some risk with vaping? It is very possible as ANYTHING you put in your body has a risk - fast food, preservatives.... I even read somewhere that if you use one of those "reusable" coffee filters it has a cancer risk because it doesn't trap a component in the coffee that can be a carcinogen! The fact is though, even without the long term data, logic dictates it HAS to be safer than smoking imo! The best choice is to not smoke OR vape. With that logic though, you could also say its safer to not eat - or drink water because they could be contaminated. Another fact, for me anyway, is I am a nicotine addict. I enjoy vaping. That I am NOT ashamed of!!

Best of luck to you!! As somebody else said, maybe you need professional assistance to "come out" with your hubby? It was a very difficult thing for me to do, but life is much better for me now because I did!

 

[NancyR]

Lostsoulcig,

Please don't think me or anyone else here was trying to be hard on you for hiding it from him, but this is an addiction, just like any other drug out there. You do need support and yes we are support for each other here, but it's not the same as having a good support system at home.

You already know that something has to change or you wouldn't feel like you do right now, and while I can't speak for others, I am sure a lot of us know that stress is one of the triggers that made us smoke more to start with. Even when the stress was due to smoking.

In your case I do agree with the people that have suggested the volt, the minis like that would have been a waist for me, but well everyone's case is different.

 

[Spazmelda]

I think a volt is a very good suggestion for you, with a pcc, definitely, especially of you plan on continuing to hide.

If you do decide to tell your husband, and you do decide to switch to vaping, I'd include a discussion of your plan for the e-cigs. Being adamantly opposed to smoking he may not immediately jump on board the e-cig wagon. Be prepared with knowledge, maybe print some stuff off from CASAA about relative safety. Check out some tobacco harm reduction blogs to be armed with evidence. Be prepared discuss your plan (I think you mentioned above that you planned to eventually quit vaping as well as smoking), so tell your husband how you plan on doing that (stepping down, weaning off nicotine).

Another thing you might try is snus. Google it for more information, and you will read about it on harm reduction blogs. It would definitely be easier to hide, as it doesn't stink anything up and comes in a small discrete canister. I supplement vaping with snus occasionally when it's inconvenient to vape (long car trips, or being around kids all day).

 

[FRGMNT]

Get a Ego Twist and a Stardust to go with it. I myself stick with atomizers only since I always need the best possible vapor and taste to really enjoy the e cig. I find everything else too lacking. 24mg of Boba's Bounty e-juice will probably be good, but there's so many flavors out there to choose from so decide on your own preferences.

I may not have smoked for as long as you have, but before I quit, I was smoking around a pack a day (College student). Nowadays when things get really stressful for me, I just call up a bunch of my close friends and just hookah with them. May not be as healthy as an ecig, but it helps to keep me completely off the analogs. If you can manage to completely stay off the stinkies and just vape an ecig for a week or two straight, you'd be surprised how gross an analog will taste.

I find a big part in quitting is just a mental thing. I talked to my friends about it, and a lot of seem to agree that we smoked cigarettes because we were just plain bored. Loitering outside and doing nothing just feels weird, so we smoke. Waiting around by a bus station, I just get too bored. For me, I just fill my boredom up with hobbies now (video games, sports, and music). I've been using the provari mostly, and I've even managed to convince several of my friends to switch over.

Good luck with your situation. Just gotta stick strong with your decision and keep on telling yourself that you can do whatever goals that you set.

 

[lostsoulcig]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to give you a quick update: I went to walgreens and got a disposable Blu e-cig yesterday and it is so wonderful! It is exactly what I'm looking for in terms of the throat hit and the amount of vapor. I have officially not smoked analogs for 3.5 days now! When I feel like I might give in, I just reach for my disposable Blu and it really works in curbing that addiction! Here is my dilemma though now: I read on here that the disposable Blu's are indeed great but when people buy the starter Blu kit, it is a far cry from the performance of the disposable - if you have tried the Blu starter kit, could you share your experience please? The disposable Blu is working so well for me but it is $9.99 for one at Walgreens and I'm worried I cannot manage my addiction on them. It says one of them is equal to about a pack and a half of regular cigarettes and I wonder if that's been the case in your experience. If that's really the case, it may be worth it since I was paying about the same amount for two packs of camels. Is there any other ecigs I can look into that is the same caliber as the disposable Blu? If you were a disposable Blu user, what have you switched to afterwards that satisfied you? Thank you for all your help and support and sorry about the million questions. Thanks!

 

[NancyR]

I haven't used the disposable blu, but the volt from smokeless image is the best small one out, if the taste of the blu is what you want Johnson's Creek makes their juice

 

[markfm]

Things like the Volt that people have been suggesting are likely going to be appropriate, if you want a cigarette size/shape. The performance is supposed to be quite respectable, and getting prefilled cartomizers, or empty ones that you fill yourself (MUCH cheaper), is easy to do. The Volt has a much better reputation than the Blu on this forum, based on the comments I've read over several years.

Basically you can only shovel so much eliquid into a cartomizer (the combined atomizer/cartridge that looks like a cig filter). Claims of a standard sized carto being like a pack-and-a-half of cigs are looked on as nonsense by many experienced vapers, at least if you want to get about the same total nicotine absorbed.

If it does what you want, at a price you are willing to pay, that is really all that matters at the end of the day.

Good luck!

 

[Dominicanto]

Others have given some great advice on what type of ecig to get so I'll let you peruse and make a decision on that.

I wanted to share that I led that double life for the better part of 10 years. Not exactly like you (I had time away at work to hide it), but yeah, I know the routine - never smoked in the house or at night so that my wife couldn't smell it. Stopped smoking at work no later than 4 if I was expected home by 6 with the hope that the smell would dissipate. Telling my wife that I hang around "smokers" from time to time when she did smell something, etc.

So one day (not long ago) I came clean and told her everything - that I lied, that I wanted to quit, that I was tired of livin this way, that it would be hard to quit because I am sick, I have an addiction. But, more importantly, that I would need her help to do this and that I was serious about it. She looked shocked when I told her - not the fact that I smoked (please - our spouses aren't stupid and first thing you should recognize is that they full well know what you do), but that I would be so forthright about it and he sensed the sincerity and urgency in my voice. So she asked me what my plan was and I told her that I'd speak to my doctor about it, but that I was considering e-cigs as a stop gap measure. Her response - anything that would get me off a cig is a good thing and she's been my partner in crime ever since. From that day on, I haven't smoked a cig and I knew that if I felt like it, I could now tell her and work through it. As for buying ecigs online? I hear you, even with her support for them i still felt dirty (ah, that misplaced guilt thing) so I'd have them shipped to work or would buy from the gas station (back when I was starting with Blus). She saw my ego-t box the other day and said "when did you get this, I never received it" and I told her I had it sent to work. She told me that was silly and why was i trying to hide it if it was obviously helping me? She was right, but just as it takes a while to quit, it takes a while to let go of the guilt. Long story short, the only one holding you back from the next step in living a new, better life, is more likely you - your family will/should appreciate your honesty and do everything to support you.

All the best and good luck!!!

 

[Ellie_onVG]

Lostsoulcig, So easy to understand why you are hiding your smoking and why your husband doesn't want you to. I feel for both of you.

If you're still reading ... I'd suggest you do not tell him YET. Get an ecig and get comfortable with it. When you realize that you can use it instead of analogs-- that it satisfies your nic urges, then tell him. I think you'll feel too much of a failure telling him while you're still smoking .. in fact, you'll want to smoke a whole pack right after you're done confessing and facing his disappointment.

I'd get a good neutral e-juice (so you don't get grossed out by certain flavors), some good clean atomizers (cisco, maybe) and some high MAH EGO batteries -- and start dripping. This will keep your gadget count low and easier to hide. Once you've switched to vaping successfully, you'll have an easier time telling him because you'll feel good about it and yourself. It may only take you a month or even less to get to that point. I quit a 2+ pack habit .. never thought I could do it ... love vaping and will never go back to smoking. ((((HUGS))))) and good luck.

 

[dhdonline1]

I found for myself the "cig-a-like" units left me wanting too much. Lots of throat hit, but poor vapor production and battery life. Having said that, if they are working for you that's all that matters! Like others have said, the volt has a good reputation here, but I've never used one.

 

[lilac7779]

Bless your heart. Nobody is gonna be harder on you than you are being on yourself. I don't know your hub, but I'm guessing he might handle this better than you think. Just a guess...you are the one who really knows him.

I used to hide and smoke and it gets really old, doesn't it?

Ditch the guilt. We are all human and everyone makes mistakes. We all made one when we first lit up.

I can tell you one thing...vaping is a lot easier than trying to hide the smokes. Best of luck to you.

BTW, I use Volt hardware exclusively. They have clearos and fat batteries if you want something bigger than the cig sized.

 

[lostsoulcig]

Thank you all for advice, I really appreciate the unlimited support here and how people have received me with open arms without judgement. As I sit here not having smoked an analog for 3.5 days, I feel very hopeful and I'm determined to not go back. Ellie_onVG, you totally understand my situation and my desire to transition to ecigs on my own privately, before I can come out clean. The disposable Blu has been a life saver and I'm definitely going to look into Volt as many of you have suggested. It's been 24 hours since I got the disposable Blu and I think it's kind of filled its lifetime already. I guess I'll be making another trip to walgreens for another Blu soon while I read and figure out what to get for the longer term. Thanks again!