Hi, I’m Anthony from Northampton, England.
This is my story
I first started smoking at the age of 15. I’m now 51 so do the maths and that’s 36 years of smoking. I can’t remember how many I used to smoke, but up until about 8 weeks ago I was on 25 – 30 rollups a day. I had tried to quit, admittedly only a few times over the years. In last couple of years I have tried a little harder. Did the cold turkey first, that lasted until lunch. Tried the patches, smoked just as much with them. Tried the gum, found that stuff nasty. Then gave up trying.
My journey to actually becoming an ex-smoker, began on my tea break at work about three months ago. One of my work colleagues (how was a smoker) was sitting in the smoking area sucking on this thing. I’ve seen those e-cigs that look cigarettes and it was not one of those. It looked like my multi bit screw driver in my tool box. So me being nosy asked what it was. It’s my personal vaporizer, I use it instead smoking, I quit. Was the reply. What quit completely, you where smoking the other day. Yes but it took me two days, was the reply.
How does that work then. He then roughly explained that the nicotine is in the liquid, you press the button to vaporize it, and inhale the vaper. Give us a go then, you’ll choke on it he said, and with a huge lung full yes I did. After a minute or two when the choking had subsided, I realised I like that, and had another go. For warned is for armed, so didn’t inhale as much, so only a small cough. I do like that where do I get one.
Skip a week waiting for the postman to deliver PV.
It’s here now lets see. Day one, this is a was of time still want a smoke. No I need more will power. No I need more will power and a plan. So I drew up my plan. Now I have set times during the day when I can smoke (tea breaks), so replace a tea break smoke with a vape only. This is working, so proceeded to swap the rest of the tea break smokes for vaping. After about a week of this I was stuck. I was down from 20+ a day to 5. Two in the morning to get going, and two or three in the evening.
This went on for about another week, and all the while the cigarettes seemed to taste weird. That’s because your taste buds are changing, from not smoking as much, I was told, by an ex smoker. My final step to being an ex smoker was hard. I woke up exactly one month ago from writing this lot, that I was out of tobacco. At this point I made the decision not to got to the shop for more, unless I really had to. This was the hardest bit for me. I did find that I could use different strengths of nicotine and differnet flavours just by carrying two tops for my PV. 24mg/ml for when the craving as high, and a much lower level 12mg/ml for general use so to speak. Now one month on I find I no longer need the higher level because I don’t get much of a craving any more. All of my many flavours of liquid are now 12mg/ml or less.
At this moment in time I don’t think I’m ready to give up the nicotine entirely but I am planning to try and cut down the levels slowly. With a long term view to stop vaping as well.
Well that’s the short version of my road to being an ex smoker I’ve just got to hope no-one messes it up for me. As I do not want to go back. There is a lot I have learnt on my journey, about all the different personal vaporizers available, and how maintain them. (sorry I’m not into those ones that look like cigarettes). How to mix your own liquid and alter the nic. level if it’s to weak or strong.
