Well, the time has come for me to finally make a desperate tilt at quitting cigarettes.
My history with smoking kinda goes like this; I started smoking at 21 and smoked over a pack a day until I was 29. At 29 I quit smoking after perhaps a year of truly contemplating quitting for financial and health reason. I finally butted out my last cigarette in 2001 and stayed free of smoking for a good 8 years where during that time I did not have a single puff of a cigarette.
Something happened around 2009, the most trivial, seemingly inconsequential little fling with smoking happened which made me slide right back into smoking. I had a cigar at a wedding. From there I poked around a friend who was a smoker pinching a cigarette here and there and within 2 weeks I was back to a packet a day. It was that easy to slip right back into smoking after 8 years of not having a single puff.
Having experienced what it is like to be a non smoker (and I say non smoker because the cravings stopped after about a year and I didn't think of smoking at all during the next 7 years) I had a good frame of reference to put into perspective the changes my body was going through having returned to smoking. The congestion in the lungs, the shortened breaths, the stains, the bad smells, the gunky feeling on the teeth, the lessening regard by peers, the gas station runs when a packet runs out in the middle of the night, the expense, oh my the expense. $20 a packet here in Australia. Nothing cost me as much as smoking except for maybe the rent.
Even though I was well hooked to smoking again I couldn't tolerate the habit having lived smoke free for 8 years and that is where, in 2010, I discovered electronic cigarettes. Little 510 threaded devices could produce a vapor that was flavorsome and would supply nicotine. Wonderful I thought! I remember the very first time I tried an electronic cigarette. It was early in 2010 and I vaped a disposable cigar which had no nicotine in it. The vapor itself warmed me with the promise of an alternative that would get me off cigarettes.
However, in the last 5 years I have been vaping it hasn't been smooth sailing. I am not one of those people that picks up his first electronic cigarette and right there and then crushes a box of cigarettes, never to smoke again. I envy those people. What an extraordinary find vaping must be for those who can get their first order of e-cigarettes and liquids and give up smoking overnight?
I have fluctuated from being a fully fledged smoker putting down a packet a day while my vaping supplies gather dust and my liquids over-steep into brown muck, to not smoking at all for 6 months and enjoying the wonderful experience of vaping. The first 6 month period in which I did not touch a cigarette was the result of having discovered WTA, (Whole Tobacco Alkaloids) which effectively provide some of those fringe chemicals in the form of alkaloids that are missing from normal e-liquid.Most of the time, during the last 5 years I have smoked 5-10 cigarettes a day.
My smoking patterns would usually result from a life event that would delicately toss me off vaping and get me back into the habit of smoking, or vice versa. It could be a holiday I took in which I allowed myself the liberty to smoke, or perhaps a move of house where a housemate smoked, or just plain old stressful moments in life. At one point I had a girlfriend who abhorred smoking so I would vape when I spent weekends with her only to buy a fresh pack of cigarettes as soon as I went back home and hid the closet smoking from her for the entire duration of our relationship.
The thing is, I love vaping. I have so many liquids and so many devices I could set up a few brick and mortar stores. Yet, I continue to smoke. I tend to smoke 5-10 cigarettes a day. For the last year I've struggled to break this 5-10 cigarettes a day routine.
About 18 months ago I broke a full 6 month quit from smoking when I moved back into an environment where cigarettes were around. Ever since I have planned to quit and here I am 18 months later still smoking anything from 5 to 20 a day (usually 5 a day on work days and 20 a day on weekends). However, about 1 month ago I declared a date to quit which is tomorrow, yes *tomorrow*. This increased desire to quit with a greater determination comes from a few areas of incentive. Just recently I stocked up on quite a few liquids and I have been keeping up with the ever increasing technology of devices. With each new order of liquids or devices I would tell myself it is my reward for quitting smoking *next month*. I can barely comprehend my own foolish optimism. However, next month would come and I would still be smoking. As a result, I have not been able to enjoy all this vaping gear to the fullest. I finally want to be able to vape exclusively without the flavour being diminished because of smoking or because I have had my nicotine fill from cigarettes.
However, this is a trivial reason compared to the facts about cancer and death statistics I recently accidentally stumbled upon at that time I decided to stop smoking with a new found resolution. I discovered that smokers who never quit smoking have a 25-30 times greater chance of getting lung cancer than non smokers. a non-smoker has a less than 1 in 200 chance of getting lung cancer at some stage in their life, a smoker who never quits has a 16% chance (pretty much a Russian roulette chance). This was a startling statistic and I had no idea. Why I didn't know this after so many years of smoking astounded me but it gave me the resolve I needed.
I know if I can go 2-3 days without a cigarette it shouldn't be too difficult. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but when you finally bite the bullet and stop smoking, within a couple of days, or even immediately, vaping is so much more enjoyable and it fills that craving for a cigarette to an extent where we wonder why we didn't just stop smoking ages ago. My problem has been that I've been complacent thinking I can quit any time because I have e-cigs. That mentality has resulted in the opposite effect - it has delayed my cessation of tobacco under a false guise of ease of quitting.
What that means is that there has been no lead up mental preparation to a quit date. The thinking is something along the lines of 'well I am smoking now, sure, but I have my e-cigs so when the day comes I will just stop smoking and revert back to vaping full time'. The problem is when that day comes and the packet is still sitting in the top drawer, the fingers are drawn to the cigarettes like a magnet, not the personal vaporiser, especially first thing in the morning or after a big or with coffee (the three most important moments in a smokers life).
So this time, I am very serious about it but I enter this new phase sheepishly and with plenty of apprehension. I've had a pack of cigarettes sitting in the top drawer at all times for the last 18 months, and it seems daunting to not even have one sitting around just in case I get an acute craving.
One thing I have learnt about smoking and vaping for me is that the roadblock is not in stopping smoking but stopping buying packets. It is all psychological and habit based and not the chemical addiction that drives a compulsion to smoke for someone who has enough nicotine in liquid form to kill a small population, as I am sure many of us here on this thread have.
During the working day I don't smoke for 10 hours and don't even think about smoking. When I go out on Friday nights I take my e-cigarettes with me and not cigarettes because I don't want to smell like a foul stench when socialising. I also don't miss smoking during those times. The problem I have is that I can't stop buying packets. If I don't have a packet with me I don't miss cigarettes but if I have a packet I will reach for the packet before I reach for an e-cig.
I felt I needed to post this in this forum as an affirmation and I am of the opinion that sticking around here, reading and responding, might help me a little. Indeed, back when I quit for 8 years the first time, I sought the counsel of a quit smoking channel on the cobranet server of MIRC (before the internet proliferated) and it made all the difference.
I urge anyone here who still is struggling with cigarettes to try a bit harder and come to grips with the sobering reality that as smokers who never quit, we have a 30 times greater likelihood of getting lung cancer and that says nothing about the increased rates of death causing illnesses such as stroke, other cancers and heart attacks from smoking.
)
