When can you legitimately call yourself a NON-smoker???

[zahzoo]

The moment I put out my last cigarette almost 21 months ago I became a non-smoker.

Based on current, trending popular classifications I am a tobacco product user now since I vape nicotine derived from tobacco.

I don't care much for the classification nor agree that my health risks are even in the same ball park compared to a smoker. But I guess technically that's what it's classified as... oh and the nosy .... classifiers can kiss my grits!!

 

[pianoguy]

I didn't completely believe I was a non-smoker until 3 months after I'd made the switch, and tried a real cigarette. Two puffs - It was completely disgusting, and I knew I was free - there was no going back.

 

[edyle]

Is it as soon as you make the decision to quit and you put the cigarettes down or do you need to wait and have been quit a certain amount of time first?

For me, I took a couple months before I began calling myself a non-smoker, even though I wasn't smoking. Why? I'm not sure. Fear of failing maybe...
Thoughts?

Yeah I'd say; 3 weeks without a cig and especially without the temptation for one, you get confident;
but after 3 months, when you even got backups and options that there's just no chance you'd have to resort to a cig, then you've crossed a milestone where you can really say you're a non smoker.

 

[AndriaD]

you are a non-smoker after you have quit and had your last cigarette ... a minor relapse does not qualify you as a smoker again.

relapse daily or weekly ... you are still a smoker.

I really wish I could feel that way about my own relapse, but I made the choice, smoked for a month, while trying all the while to vape more and more, to get the taste for it back again, and it worked, I began enjoying it again, then enjoying it more than smoking, and finally returned to smoke-free vaping -- but for that month, I was a dual-user, which means I was a smoker as much as I was a vaper. I certainly didn't choose appendicitis, the universe just threw that at me to see what I'd do, I guess. I just count it as a huge blessing that I was 110 days smoke-free when I had to undergo 45 mins of gen'l anesthesia, and got to go home the same day. And that I returned to being a non-smoker.

Andria

 

[WharfRat1976]

In retrospect, I'm just a lover and a sinner

 

[Robino1]

I finally considered myself a non smoker when I went past my previous longest quit (9 months). When I hit that year mark, I felt it was a definite thing. Now over two years later, smoking is not in my thought process even being in places that still allow smoking, I am not tempted.

 

[Maytwin]

Is it as soon as you make the decision to quit and you put the cigarettes down or do you need to wait and have been quit a certain amount of time first?

For me, I took a couple months before I began calling myself a non-smoker, even though I wasn't smoking. Why? I'm not sure. Fear of failing maybe...
Thoughts?

This is exactly me !! I'd only ever once tried to quit many years ago and it lasted probably less than a week and I hate failing ! For the first couple of months after quitting last December and vaping instead I thought of myself as someone who was giving up smoking but once I'd got over the cravings I finally thought of myself as a former smoker/non-smoker

 

[R. Scott Kennan]

Maybe today. I've been happily vaping since I realized what I was missing, and got some WTA. Even so, I've been thinking of myself as a smoker.

I have an empty ashtray on my desk. I've emptied it, but not cleaned the ash residue off of it. I just got a whiff of it, and it smells terrible. It never smelled pleasant, but this smells like death.

I think I'm really done.

 

[Baldr]

If you are talking for insurance reasons that is up to them most consider nic use as a smoker.

That may be true. But if I'm filling out paperwork, and they ask me if I smoke, I'm going to say no, because I don't smoke, and I haven't for three years. If they ask me if I use nicotine, I'll say yes, because I'm vaping 6mg juice.

 

[Silence]

If you are talking for insurance reasons that is up to them most consider nic use as a smoker.

I'm talking about morally not legally... When did/can you consider yourself a non-smoker?

 

[TyPie]

I smoked a ham the other day. Does that make me a smoker?

Seriously now, I haven't inhaled any kind of smoke for around 20 months now (maybe I got a little whiff of some campfire smoke unintentionally), which makes me a definite non-smoker. It took me several months to begin calling myself that----it took a couple of months just to be sure, and for it all to finally sink in.

 

[agri pharma]

I will always be a smoker in my soul. But I will browbeat analog smokers until they vape!

 

[MamaRymes]

I have a hard time answering this, personally. I quit for more than a year three times and 3 times I threw away those quit years because I was fighting with someone I love. I'm 5 months into vaping, and feel like as long as I can vape I have no desire to smoke a cigarette again, but prior experience makes me hesitant to self-identify as a non-smoker.

 

[BlueCanary]

Well, according to my insurance company, I have to wait 9 years to be classified as a non-smoker to see a change in my premium.

But as far as I'm concerned, I am a non-smoker. Which is pretty nifty, since I was a smoker for longer than the nice boys who work at my favorite vape shop have been alive. Today, a dude followed me down the sidewalk at the post office trying to bum a smoke, and I turned without even really thinking and said "Sorry, man, I don't smoke." It was a weird, awesome feeling.

Today I was sitting in line for an estate sale at 4:30 am, and instead of walking out of line and standing aaaaaallllll the way out at the edge of the yard for a smoke, I was comfy in my camp chair vaping away (after asking the people around me if they minded and being told "nah, it's fine, it smells like cookies") and a lady that I know from estate sales pulled hers out too and we laughed because she is usually my "smoking" buddy while we're waiting and she was like "Isn't this cool? We're both VAPERS."

 

[K_Tech]

The moment when I put out my last cigarette, I was a non-smoker.

 

[rusty zipper]

you are a non-smoker after you have quit and had your last cigarette ... a minor relapse does not qualify you as a smoker again.

relapse daily or weekly ... you are still a smoker.

I had a cig the other day. Actually, not a whole cig, a few puffs. So how did it taste? It tasted good. Good enough to want to go back to them? No. Good enough to rekindle the love I once had for my cylindrical nicotine love goddess? Nope. That ciggie didn't do anything for me. A took a few hits off it and that was that. I've been vaping for almost 6 months, and I was curious about the cigs, about how they would taste and how it would make me feel. The good news? There was nothing there. I like vaping more than I liked smoking, but I don't feel addicted to vaping. I drip maybe 8ml a day of 3mg/ml juice. Not much nicotine there. I was thinking about this and tonight I may mix some 2mg/ml, just because. Besides, the other day I left home with only a single half-depleted battery. I could only drip through morning break, then I could drip no more. I didn't feel any longing. I was fine. I kicked myself in the ..... for leaving the house without a few batteries, and that was all I felt.

Cigs do nothing for me. My wife leaves her smokes around the house and smokes near me. None of this generates any desire for cigs, that's why I consider myself a non smoker.

Hooray for me!

Cheers,
Rusty

 

[ethereality]

In my head, I considered myself a non-smoker like 15 minutes after I threw away a half-pack of cigarettes to take up vaping full-time. For simplicity's sake, I still consider myself a "smoker" when asked, mainly because it's been a month straight of this conversation:

"I quit smoking... but, I still use my e-cigarette.", "Why?", "For the nicotine.", "So you still smoke?", "It's not considered smoking anymore...", "But, if e-cigs weren't a thing, you'd probably still smoke....", "....Yeah, probably."

 

[Rickajho]

The

For a host of health/medical reasons you will be an ex-smoker - not a non smoker - for a very long time. That history of smoking for years or decades and the impact it had on your body doesn't disappear overnight. If you ask your MD - rather than the skewed factoids at the ACS quit smoking site - you will probably find out that the implications of smoking stick with you a lot longer than you may realize. For the sake of your own medical history and care please don't call yourself a non smoker - if you had a three decade history of doing it only up to a few months ago. Your history of smoking is still medically relevant for a long, long time after you quit. Medical records carry three categories: Non smoker, smoker, and ex-smoker (with quit date) for good reasons.

A lot of people have reported in here they don't get their medical record changed to ex-smoker status until after they have been quit for a full year, most likely due to the high failure rates of conventional methods. That's the policy at the hospital I go to as well.

 

[supertrunker]

When your battery fails, coil blows, and you don't immediately need a police escort to get to the nearest place that sells cigarettes. Just shrug, drive home, fix it.

Then you're an ex-smoker.

That happens at the very start of a work day - you're a saint.
It's when you take huge lungful of air, and you can taste and smell again. And you curse yourself for ever having been so stupid to begin with.

T

 

[Debbbprra]

I smoked for more than half my life. I haven't been a non-smoker since I was eleven. Now, I'm an ex-smoker.