A Bit About Myself

[P2PLeon]

I was born on the 6th of October in Middlesbrough, UK.

I first had my taste for cigarettes when I first started to collect cigarette butts from my dad's ashtray, only a few, though. Then I started to mimic the smoking sensation that would ultimately have me find some cigarettes outside of my house on my neighbour's front porch. Still, before I found them, I snook into my parent's room and took one during the night on my mother's side drawers, then proceeded to go downstairs and light it with the fireplace.

That first drag was the worst thing to come since I was not a smoker but an avid Asthmatic, It burnt and I could feel the effects in my lungs, I don't remember coughing if at all, but I knew from then on smoking was not for me.

Then, a few months later, I found the packet of about 10 Regal outside.

I took them, and I had already found a lighter in my dad's room.

I smoked them within about 2-4 weeks as I was not accustomed to smoking. Then, fast forward a few months, and we were moving because of domestic violence between my dad and next door.

With the money I got from Dad, I bought my first packet and smoked inside my bedroom. Only to be found out by my mother since I had a lit cigarette under my mattress bed. She asked what was burning, and I had to come clean.

Then, since the age of about 15-16, I have been smoking; at this age, it was only 1 packet per week, so I was not fully addicted to them just yet.

Fast forward to today, and I smoke anything between 20-40 per day.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I started smoking in college, but I was only 16 because I skipped a year of high school by doing algebra and geometry in summer school sessions (I thought those were hard subjects but they really weren't).

Back a little further, when I was a kid my uncle gave me a cigarette. It made me silly and giggly, but I didn't have any more. My parents both smoked. Most of my aunts and uncles smoked.

Anyway, as a college freshman I went to Colombia for a semester of pre-Colombian archeology and anthropology. The family that hosted me kept offering me cigarettes. They all smoked like mad. Finally I took one, and got that happy giggly high from it, so I went and bought a pack. I became a smoker. I got up to a pack a day.

In the final years of his life my dad had emphysema and was chained to oxygen. My uncle also got emphysema, but was able to stop smoking and take a diet that focused on lung health. He continued growing his garden and having a good life. I do think his life span was shortened by the lingering emphysema, though he never had to be on oxygen.

So in the fall of 2012, there I was on a pack a day, when I got a visit from my best ever friends from Dallas (where I lived for ten years), a couple who were coming up to their first vapeversary. He stuck his vape in my mouth and said "here, try this". It was interesting how it inhaled like smoke, hit your throat like smoke, and you blew it out like cigarette smoke.

They wanted to buy me a starter kit, but I didn't want them to bear the cost of my potential failure to transition, so I declined the offer and bought my own. I wanted just what they were using at the time, a pair of Ego-T batts, the old Stardust clearomizers, re-charger, wall wart, and a bottle of eliquid.

So I embarked on about six weeks of dual use, both vaping and smoking. I somersaulted through dozens of flavors when vape sellers gave free samples with purchases. On cold evenings at that time of year I started to look forward to getting home, getting warm, and having a rich, intense vape. I realized I loved vaping far more than smoking, and I was ready to quit the stinkies.

I'll always remember it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2012 when I had my last cigarette with morning coffee. As much as I wanted to succeed, and was ready to quit cigarettes, it still was hard for the rest of that day. I wanted a cigarette. The devil on one shoulder was saying "go ahead, have a cig, nobody is stopping you". The angel on my other shoulder was saying "you're doing great, keep vaping, don't put this off another day". When I finally went to bed that night, I knew I was a nonsmoker forever. I had no cigarette cravings the next day, nor ever again.

Of course since then I've graduated to better equipment, now have one flavor as my all day vape, unflavored for when I'm around other people, but I am at peace. I've told my story often, but I still see the success of that quit day as a miracle, the technology of vaping as a miracle, and I still love it.