I thought it might be helpful to those who are just starting down the road of vaping or those wondering if this is for them. I know when I started down this road, the tales, advice and encouragement of the veterans was critical to my success. It is true of all addictions. Thats why those who are able to kick alcohol, drugs, smokes, you name it, do so with the help of others, often those who have taken the journey before them.
If you are reading this you want to quit smoking and probably think you are hooked on nicotine. Thats true at a physiological level. If you are a smoker, you are hooked on cigarettes and that is a different thing. It is easy to kick nicotine. Kicking cigarettes is another matter. Those little white sticks bring a lot more to the party than a temporary high.
Three months ago I decided to give this new thing a shot. I started smoking in my twenties (Im 45 now). At first it was just something I did with friends who smoked, usually at the bar. Over time it became a regular habit. By the time I was thirty I was smoking a half pack a day and much more when I had a beer in my hand.
I tried to quit many times. Cold turkey made me a miserable. The patch never worked as Id smoke with the thing on, thus getting even more nicotine. I tried the gum and that made me sick. I even tried hypnosis. That was just weird nonsense, as far as Im concerned. The first thing I did upon leaving the office was light up.
I heard about vaping from TV. I saw a guy on Stossel talking about it. I did a Google search and found this site. I read through posts and decided it was worth a shot. I ordered a 510 on May 6th of this year. I had my doubts and all the jargon was confusing, but I figured I could sort it all out as I went along. I got lucky in that the 510 is the easiest e-cig to use for a newbie. It is also the most similar to a cigarette.
On May 12th I got my new gear. I read through the instructions and gave it a few tries. It was different, but pretty cool. To me, it was better than a cigarette. But, I had smokes left and I decided to start clean the next day. I finished my pack of Merits that night and let the e-cig charge up for the next day.
The first day was easy. The e-cig was a cool new toy and more than satisfied my nicotine urges. What I did not get at first is how it satisfied the other aspects of smoking. That ten minutes of quiet contemplation while smoking. The metronome-like regularity of getting up to smoke. The breaks from concentrating on a task. All the stuff that makes smoking so wonderful was right there, without the cigarettes.
Im not going to give a blow by blow, but the transition was seamless. I have not had a cigarette since that day. There was a few urges in the first week, but nothing like past experiences. It was different. I pulled into the 7-11 a few times on the way home, as I often did to buy smokes, only to realize I did not want a smoke as I had my 510. Id walk over to the drawer in the kitchen where I kept my smokes only to realize I had my 510 in my hand.
By the second week, I was feeling better physically. I slept better and slept less. I had more energy. Thats the expected result from getting off the massive amount of CO and chemicals that are in a cigarette. But I also felt better between the ears. This was working and I was feeling good about myself. In fact, I was feeling proud about not smoking.
Having failed so many times before, I was worried about slipping back to smokes. Every time I had an inkling of wanting some nicotine, I pulled out the 510 and vaped my brains out. Thats something I learned from the veterans here. Go ahead and vape you brains out. You cannot vape enough to equal the harm of a cigarette. vaping is not good for you, but it way less harmful than a cigarette.
Any doubts about that should be dispelled by what Im going to tell you now. I started exercising during week two. I had so much energy, I needed a way to burn it off. I started taking walks. Those walks became short runs and long walks. Then I started doing other exercises. Nothing too serious, just enough to burn off some energy.
As a smoker I could barely walk across the street without getting winded. In one month I was running a mile a day after work. I was taking the stairs at work. Yeah, my lungs rebelled, but I could do it without having a coronary. I coughed up a lot of weird stuff at first, but that went away slowly. In a weird way, the hacking up those chunks of evil was motivating. The bad stuff from all those years of smoking was fleeing my body.
Im not going to bore you with a blow by blow account of the last three months. I have lost twenty pounds. I run every morning. I work out five times a week. I vape when I want to vape. Sometimes I vape my brains out. Sometimes I dont vape at all. In fact, I now go long periods without vaping. As I write this, Im hitting the 510 for the first time in a week.
Thats the thing to keep in mind if you are worried about trading one bad habit for another. Vaping is a different animal than smoking. It is better in that it is far less harmful, but it is also better in that it does a much better job addressing the nicotine you want. As a consequence, it becomes a different habit entirely from smoking one you can much more easily regulate than smoking.
My experience may not be the same as everyone else here. A lot of the folks here liked smoking and started vaping to get the same thing from smoking without the cost, physically, mentally and socially. I wanted to kick the habit. At some level I wanted to kick all the other stuff associated with the habit, beyond the physical addiction. We all have that little guy/gal in our head telling us the truth.
If your little guy/gal has always been telling you to leave the smoking life and all the stuff that comes with it, e-cigs will open that door for you. If you just want to smoke in peace without the hassle from others, e-cigs will do that for you. If you just want to reduce your risk of a horrible death from smoking, e-cigs will do that for you.
Thank you all my vaping brothers and sisters who posted here before I came along. Welcome to all my new brothers and sisters who have joined the club. Best of luck to the Chinese guy who sold me cartons of smokes for all those years.
If you are reading this you want to quit smoking and probably think you are hooked on nicotine. Thats true at a physiological level. If you are a smoker, you are hooked on cigarettes and that is a different thing. It is easy to kick nicotine. Kicking cigarettes is another matter. Those little white sticks bring a lot more to the party than a temporary high.
Three months ago I decided to give this new thing a shot. I started smoking in my twenties (Im 45 now). At first it was just something I did with friends who smoked, usually at the bar. Over time it became a regular habit. By the time I was thirty I was smoking a half pack a day and much more when I had a beer in my hand.
I tried to quit many times. Cold turkey made me a miserable. The patch never worked as Id smoke with the thing on, thus getting even more nicotine. I tried the gum and that made me sick. I even tried hypnosis. That was just weird nonsense, as far as Im concerned. The first thing I did upon leaving the office was light up.
I heard about vaping from TV. I saw a guy on Stossel talking about it. I did a Google search and found this site. I read through posts and decided it was worth a shot. I ordered a 510 on May 6th of this year. I had my doubts and all the jargon was confusing, but I figured I could sort it all out as I went along. I got lucky in that the 510 is the easiest e-cig to use for a newbie. It is also the most similar to a cigarette.
On May 12th I got my new gear. I read through the instructions and gave it a few tries. It was different, but pretty cool. To me, it was better than a cigarette. But, I had smokes left and I decided to start clean the next day. I finished my pack of Merits that night and let the e-cig charge up for the next day.
The first day was easy. The e-cig was a cool new toy and more than satisfied my nicotine urges. What I did not get at first is how it satisfied the other aspects of smoking. That ten minutes of quiet contemplation while smoking. The metronome-like regularity of getting up to smoke. The breaks from concentrating on a task. All the stuff that makes smoking so wonderful was right there, without the cigarettes.
Im not going to give a blow by blow, but the transition was seamless. I have not had a cigarette since that day. There was a few urges in the first week, but nothing like past experiences. It was different. I pulled into the 7-11 a few times on the way home, as I often did to buy smokes, only to realize I did not want a smoke as I had my 510. Id walk over to the drawer in the kitchen where I kept my smokes only to realize I had my 510 in my hand.
By the second week, I was feeling better physically. I slept better and slept less. I had more energy. Thats the expected result from getting off the massive amount of CO and chemicals that are in a cigarette. But I also felt better between the ears. This was working and I was feeling good about myself. In fact, I was feeling proud about not smoking.
Having failed so many times before, I was worried about slipping back to smokes. Every time I had an inkling of wanting some nicotine, I pulled out the 510 and vaped my brains out. Thats something I learned from the veterans here. Go ahead and vape you brains out. You cannot vape enough to equal the harm of a cigarette. vaping is not good for you, but it way less harmful than a cigarette.
Any doubts about that should be dispelled by what Im going to tell you now. I started exercising during week two. I had so much energy, I needed a way to burn it off. I started taking walks. Those walks became short runs and long walks. Then I started doing other exercises. Nothing too serious, just enough to burn off some energy.
As a smoker I could barely walk across the street without getting winded. In one month I was running a mile a day after work. I was taking the stairs at work. Yeah, my lungs rebelled, but I could do it without having a coronary. I coughed up a lot of weird stuff at first, but that went away slowly. In a weird way, the hacking up those chunks of evil was motivating. The bad stuff from all those years of smoking was fleeing my body.
Im not going to bore you with a blow by blow account of the last three months. I have lost twenty pounds. I run every morning. I work out five times a week. I vape when I want to vape. Sometimes I vape my brains out. Sometimes I dont vape at all. In fact, I now go long periods without vaping. As I write this, Im hitting the 510 for the first time in a week.
Thats the thing to keep in mind if you are worried about trading one bad habit for another. Vaping is a different animal than smoking. It is better in that it is far less harmful, but it is also better in that it does a much better job addressing the nicotine you want. As a consequence, it becomes a different habit entirely from smoking one you can much more easily regulate than smoking.
My experience may not be the same as everyone else here. A lot of the folks here liked smoking and started vaping to get the same thing from smoking without the cost, physically, mentally and socially. I wanted to kick the habit. At some level I wanted to kick all the other stuff associated with the habit, beyond the physical addiction. We all have that little guy/gal in our head telling us the truth.
If your little guy/gal has always been telling you to leave the smoking life and all the stuff that comes with it, e-cigs will open that door for you. If you just want to smoke in peace without the hassle from others, e-cigs will do that for you. If you just want to reduce your risk of a horrible death from smoking, e-cigs will do that for you.
Thank you all my vaping brothers and sisters who posted here before I came along. Welcome to all my new brothers and sisters who have joined the club. Best of luck to the Chinese guy who sold me cartons of smokes for all those years.
