Three generations of Ex Smokers Here :)

Hello, My name is Deb and I am 52 years old. I started smoking at age 17, my little sister got me hooked on it in my junior year of high school. She died in a car accident less than a year later and I always thought that I would never stop smoking because it was like a connection to her. It was the one thing we could come together on you know? Even if we had just finished tearing each others hair out in the back yard, if one said “smoke?” the other said “yea, ok”. Being only 17 months apart in age, we fought ALOT people, lol. Anyhow, as the years went on and cigarettes got more and more pricey, I would think every once in a while that I would have to quit one day. And while I would have courage in the moment about that, actually doing it took a bit more. As a matter of fact it took more than I had because it just did not happen. I did try things over the years to stop: the patch (it did not stick to my skin), hypnosis (I got a big laugh in the back of the room with my mom while we watched other people pretend to be under). I tried “cold turkey” so many times but by day three people were BEGGING me to just smoke again. I guess I was a bigger bitch than I thought. Now, all fun and joking aside, I really did try those things. I also tried the gum and a prescription that gave me wild colorful dreams (anyone who also tried it knows of which one I speak of, I am not getting a lawsuit filed against me by any pharmaceutical). All the gum did was make me sick and the other did not help at all. And so it went and before I knew it I was 50 years old. My god, 50 and my health has been bad for 6 years and I was smoking 3 packs a day. I could not afford the name brands anymore, I was smoking an off brand of little cigars that tasted like the name brand I used to be able to afford. Now I had tried a E cigarette when they first came out (Liberty) and it was CRAPPOLA. I thought I would never try it again. So, like I say I am now 50 and my son comes in to visit while he is on leave from the military (he has been in since 2002) and he is using an E Cig (Blu). I try it and I love the taste, but 10 bucks for a disposable that says it lasts the same as a pack is all well and good but for a 3 pack a day smoker 30 bucks a day is not gonna cut it. So, I go online to Blu’s website and I want to find the same flavor that the disposables have and I see that they get their juice from Johnson Creek. That is the beginning, I go to that site and I look around. Before I left the site I had ordered a starter kit. The first hit off of that and I was DONE . DONE WITH SMOKING, I NEVER SMOKED ANOTHER CIGARETTE AGAIN! I never would have believed that was even remotely possible, not with the number of years I had smoked and not with the amount I smoked daily. I was gobsmacked totally. I got rid of my ashtrays and gave my cartons of cigs to the lady down the hall where I live and I felt no fear in that. Before if anyone had even looked like they were thinking about taking my smokes I would have laid waste to them right then and there lol. But I was done with smoking and little by little I was able to go up the stairs without being out of breath and my home and my clothes smelled so much better. I was so happy to finally be out from under the tobacco industry’s thumbscrews and done with them getting all of my money. Now, I admit that in the freezer I had a pack of cherry flavored little cigars. And that at about 4 months of vaping I decided to try to to see if I still liked them. I lit one and about three seconds after that I hacked and hacked and thought it tasted AWFUL. I put it under running water to drown it and threw the pack in the garbage. You can imagine what I thought when I read that people were calling vaping a “gateway” to real cigarettes for teenagers. What a crock. Teenagers will always find a way to get cigarettes, I mean we did right? But any teenager that uses a E Cigarette with smoke juice is already so far above where we were back then and I would rather they do that. I mean smoke juice has all of it’s ingredients that can be counted on one hand. Compare that to real cigarette’s thousands of chemicals and there is no choice really. Plus I have not had any Nicotine in my smoke juice, I took the amount of Nicotine down every time I re-ordered my smoke juice the first year, and so did my mother. I mean, if my aim was to quit smoking that meant no more nicotine to me. People who want to keep Nicotine in their juice is welcome to it. It is my choice not to. I do not vape as much as I did in the first year. With smoking, I hardly ever went more than a couple minutes without a smoke in my hand. If I was in a restaurant or a theater I would have to sneak out to the parking lot to smoke up. Even concerts I would sneak out, and those things are so expensive although I will say it worked to my favor at a Eric Clapton concert. I was sneaking out to smoke and on the way I peeked behind the black curtain they had up to keep people from watching the stage from the back. I peeked and ran right into a security guy. He looked at me and asked me if I wanted to go in and watch. Hell ya I wanted to and was able to see the rest of the concert from the side of the stage. One of the few things smoking ever did anything good for me right? My friend watched the rest of the concert by himself, he thought I had probably been turned away from getting back in after sneaking out to smoke. He had told me he would not come out after me until after the concert was over, was he ever upset when I ran up to him after it was over and showed him the autographs LOL. Now, my mother had smoked since the age of 14. She was 70 when I was able to stop smoking by vaping and she had been diagnosed with COPD about 10 years before. I never said anything to her, I let my own ability to stop smoking speak for me and it took about 7 months. Then she asked me to get her a starter kit. She was also able to stop smoking and she smoked almost 2 packs a day every day. We both have been able to stay off of smoking and that was something that neither one of us would have done, vaping has saved us both. And my son is also smoke free due to vaping. Three generation of one family, done with smoking. If you had asked me if I would be able to stop smoking three years ago I would have told you I had already tried so many times and so many different ways but I failed every time. Not anymore… 🙂 I am now 52 years old and still going. I love vaping and have moved to using Vision 2 1600 mah and SmokTech RBC tanks. I still get my juice from Johnson Creek (Tennessee Cured and Domestic) but I also use other places too that are up front about their ingredients and that allow a lab to test every couple of months. When I first started vaping I went nuts and ordered all kinds of flavors but now I have my five favorites that I stick with. I will NEVER GO BACK TO SMOKING. Never and if Ohio decides to overtax vaping supplies I will simply buy elsewhere. If every state decides to do it and they go overboard, I expect things to go underground. That is where things started from after all, and it would not be a leap to do it again. I hope they get that…