I mentioned a few posts back in my blog that I am vaping now. I am, as they say, one of those vaper people.
I am okay with being identified this way.
I smoked cigarettes for over fifteen years. I am sure, over that time, that they contributed to a decline in overall general health for me. I was a pack a day smoker, or more, for all of that time -- sometimes, in college, it was two packs a day.
As an early birthday present in December, the wife said she would be more than happy to help me quit by switching over to vaping/vape devices. She told me to pick out a kit, pick out any accessories I would need, and she would get it for me -- order it online right then and there -- as she wanted me to get something I wanted and to be happy.
Mind you, I'd tried vaping before, about three years prior -- I'd had an electronic cigarette, one of the little tobacco-flavored ones, which was fine -- but it was not a cigarette. I used it off and on, and then used some of the disposable ones (which would run out of charge/flavor juice inside too quickly and go dead), before getting a little eGo battery starter kit with some high-nicotine (18mg) "Turkish Tobacco" juice. I liked it, but it made me cough and hurt my throat. I went down to 9mg nicotine a short while later, got a fruity-flavored juice in a new tank, and it did the same thing -- plus the tank leaked everywhere no matter what I did. I gave up on it and went back to cigarettes full-time as it had made me somewhat frustrated.
In the interim between that time and four months ago when I dove back in, the vaping market -- no, the vaping culture -- exploded. Different companies began producing different juices, setups (known as "mods") and tanks -- all of which was foreign to me. I saw friends and co-workers carrying around large mechanical mods made of stainless steel and/or copper, mods that looked like lightsabers or sonic screwdrivers. I saw them taking deep breaths from their devices and watched them exhale full-on clouds from their lungs, enough to fill rooms and fog up car interiors or windows. I was fascinated, if only in a morbid-curiosity sort of way -- if these people could get off the cigarettes with these electronic things, why couldn't I?
So I consulted with these friends and coworkers for advice -- what's the best juice? what's the best "bang for the buck" when it comes to mods? how much nicotine should I use? what is your favorite tank and/or setup, and why? I pooled as much information together as I could about all sorts of things I had previously no clue about. I asked for suggestions, for websites to purchase materials from, for reviews, for every bit of input I could get.
Finally, after a few weeks, I just let the wife pick out a mod kit for me after giving her some basic requirements of what I thought I would need. She picked an Eleaf 60w iStick, a good basic device that wasn't too weak and wasn't too powerful, and was a good base starter kit. She also made sure I had two rechargeable batteries (the mod only needed one, so I'd have a spare), a wall charger for said batteries, and a battery case. Once it all arrived, I went to one of the local vape shops here in town and purchased a bottle of The Milkman, a favorite flavor of one of my coworkers, and went to town on it. Proverbially, of course.
I liked it. I liked it a lot. But, at the time, it was simply a novelty more than anything else -- a "hey guys, look at me, being one of the cool kids now" and, I definitely want to stress, it was not a cigarette. It helped, and helped a lot, but it was definitely not a cigarette.
Still, I was able to cut back on my smoking by a decent amount. I vaped through the first bottle of The Milkman pretty quickly, and immediately ordered two more bottles from VaporDNA, who shipped them out quickly and painlessly. I acquired a few more bottles of different flavors from my friends, and found Vape Wild, the site I now use for all of my juice purchases, to sell great juices in large quantities for unbelievable prices. I began ordering sample packs and larger bottles of single flavors almost in bulk, spending $35-50 every two weeks or so on all of the juices I wanted to taste and to try.
And then, shortly after Christmas, the worst thing ever happened to a new vaper: my mod stopped working. I switched out tanks to my backup tank, still nothing. I switched coils in both tanks, fiddled with the connectors, even used stabilizer O-rings to make sure everything was connected properly -- still nothing. The mod would fire intermittently and give me a breath of vapor, and then it would either fry the coil or would stop working completely, giving me "atomizer short" errors.
I was beyond frustrated. I felt like I had wasted so much time, effort, and money on not only the mod itself, but all of the juices, tanks, and accessories I had purchased. It was also the beginning of January, and it was cold outside -- and while I could vape in the house, I could not smoke in the house. While I was already smoking a lot less than before, I was still smoking -- trying to wean myself off with the vape more than anything else.
After a day or so of frustration, I took stock of everything I had. I'd spent about $200 on juices and another $50 on tanks (not to mention extra coils for the tanks as well) and I wasn't about to give up now. I'd just gotten an increase on my credit card limit for one of my best cards, and now was as good a time as any to use it. With the mindset of if this gets me off the cigarettes, it will save me money as well as probably my life in the long run, I bit the bullet and logged on to purchase not one, but two more new mods -- I wasn't going to go without having a "backup" again. Those mods were the Smok Micro One 80w and the Eleaf iStick 40w, the latter being the smaller and slightly less powerful version of the mod that had died on me. Both had internal batteries that charged via USB as well, so I didn't have to worry about carrying spare batteries or making sure I had one charged and ready to go at all times.
Fast forward to today, and I use both mods on a daily basis -- sometimes it's hard to choose which one I want to take to work with me, or which one I want to carry when I go out to run errands and/or do shopping or dinner with the parents.
My collection grew, as well -- as much as it was a means to an end, it became a full-on hobby, a minor obsession. Right now I have three full time mods I switch between (the third being a red Kangertech KBOX 120, which I'm using right now), a backup 40w iStick that is still sealed in its box, a Kangertech KBOX Mini 60w Platinum which I also keep as a second backup, and today I ordered a Smok Stick One Plus kit simply because it bills itself as a "smart" mechanical mod. Right now I have close to ten different tanks -- several multiples, some small, some large, and two more still coming to me in the mail even now -- all with enough extra coils to last me for months on end. And, not to be outdone, I have probably fifty bottles of juice hanging on the wall in the living room in a spice rack specifically purchased and mounted to keep the juice in.
The wife, of course, finds all of this quaint and exceedingly amusing. She'll watch me order a bunch of juice only to see me give half of it away to friends over the course of the weeks/months following (I've now found my 5-7 go-to flavors, and buy it in bulk -- but I do go for the "special" or "limited edition" juices from time to time, depending on what they are).
For the record, my go-to juices are Circus Bear (strawberry/banana custard), Wrecking Ball (banana cream), Fruit Hoops (like a similarly-named cereal), Strawberries & Cream (no flavor explanation necessary here), Murica (bomb pop), Bombshell Batter (blueberry/lemon pound cake), Butterbeer (butterscotch cream soda) and Smurf Cake (blueberry cake-pie).
There are others, of course, but those are my staples. I like the coffee and nutty/toffee juices too, as well as a few menthol flavors, but not all the time and only in small amounts.
The wife will listen to me talk about different juices or mods or tanks or what-have-you for hours on end at times, all with a wry smile on her face -- she doesn't care that she doesn't know about everything I'm talking about (though I'm sure she's learned a lot), but she is happy to see me have a passion of sorts that I am vocal about, and is very proud of me that I've almost quit smoking. I've even helped several people at work get on the vaping train, including one Director and his wife, to help them get away from smoking. It's like I'm a pusher -- only the first taste is free, etc. In the short few months I've been really "into it," I've become a bit of an expert -- I've even joined a few groups on Facebook which I am fairly active in, all to help people out and give them advice. I've studied, I've done research, and it has, indeed, become a passion of mine.
That being said, however, is not the point of this post.
The point of this post is that I have not, unfortunately, been able to completely quit smoking.
As I mentioned above, vaping is many things, and it is very fun, therapeutic, and something I very much enjoy -- enjoy more than many other things in my life, in fact -- but it is not a cigarette.
For those of you who are current or former smokers, you know what I'm talking about. Whether you smoked five cigarettes a day or fifty, it is not a habit that can easily be broken no matter what you try to do to replace it or wean off of it. It is a dirty habit, a shameful one, and an (increasingly so) expensive one. I take no pride in the fact that I smoke, especially not when I'm still smoking after many months of being one of the biggest vaping advocates I know. I feel like a traitor, or at the very least, a hypocrite.
But it is hard. It is very hard to just quit, to switch from one habit to another, all with the goal of being done with everything completely at some point. Because, honestly, that is the goal here -- for all of the time and money I've put into the vaping thing, the overall goal is to be able to quit that as well after some time. I don't want to turn one habit into another, at least not forever.
That being said, I have gone from being a pack a day smoker down to four packs a week, then to two. Presently, I have five singular cigarettes left, and I want them to be the last cigarettes I ever purchase.
It's time; I want to be done with them. The goal was originally to be done with smoking completely by the beginning of summer, when it would be nice enough to sit out on the porch every morning before work and not freeze, drink a cup of coffee and hold my mod and not need a cigarette instead. But that goal got pushed up as I began to smoke less and less, and as I purchased more vapor accessories, flavors of juices, mods, and tanks. I've gone whole hog on the vaping thing at this point, and it's really something I enjoy -- I no longer have a true physical or psychological need for the cigarettes, it's just a habit. And it's a habit that finally, I can say I want to be completely rid of. The latest catalyst is the two aforementioned tanks that are on their way to me now via international mail -- they're tanks I've been looking forward to owning and using for months (the Smok TFV4), which I already know I'll love as I have the miniature version already.
Many friends have told me that the only way to stop smoking is to stop allowing myself to smoke -- I vape now, so just quit buying them. Quit buying the cigarettes, remove yourself from situations where you'd want to smoke, and make the resolve to be done.
That's really all it is at this point -- being steely in my resolve. I can't tell you how many times I've fantasized about waking up in the morning and not needing a cigarette, or have wanted go out somewhere and not have to check all of my pockets for my pack and my lighter beforehand. Smoking in my house in Kansas turned the walls of that place from white to brown; I can't imagine how much better my lungs will feel once they don't have to deal with that anymore.
Is it going to be hard, is it going to be rough going for those first few days or weeks? You bet. The juice I vape is 3mg nicotine; it's very low. Higher nicotine levels than that burn my throat or make me cough like crazy (especially in all of these new, high-tech sub-ohm vaping devices), but that's good -- it means that I've already done more than half the work for myself. Vaping that low means I've already cut myself off from a lot of nicotine.
I've gotten good support from my friends, the wife (of course) and the wife's family; my own parents seem sort of ambivalent or aloof about my goals here, though that's probably due to them not knowing a whole lot about anything I'm talking about when I mention vaping to them (they've mostly ignored it). As contact with my parents has become more and more sporadic since I got married, oh well. There's not a whole lot of talking or chatting between us anymore as I am usually so swamped with work and there's always something else to do around the house.
So that's where my life is at right now. Hopefully, in my next post I will be able to tell you how many days/weeks I've gone cigarette-free.
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