I smoked for 35 years and loved it most of the time. I didn’t mean to quit smoking. I’ll get that lady who showed me her e-cigarette. When I was a kid, everyone smoked in the 60’s and 70’s. Everyone smoked just about everywhere. As a child I just hated smoking; the smell and the smoke were horrible. As the teen years came along it seemed natural that I should take up smoking too. I really loved smoking. People smoked at school, at work, while eating, shopping … so why not? At first I was smoking a pack or two a day and the last several years I was smoking three to five packs a day. Shopping malls were the first to ban smoking in my area, but working in construction these bans didn’t impact me too much. When I became pregnant I wanted to quit smoking, but couldn’t. An old doctor advised me to keep smoking since I was losing too much weight from being sick to my stomach so much. I’ve tried so many times to quit smoking, with so many devices and techniques, that I gave up trying to quit. My family doctor really wanted me to quit. She would prescribe me asthma medications when I tried to quit because of the awful lung spasms, but I still couldn’t quit. I began to hate the yellow fingers & fingernails, getting colds all the time that were getting longer and more serious, having a persistent smokers hack, employers who wouldn’t hire a smoker, the knowledge that now I had a monkey on my back & had been enslaved by something that I still enjoyed. It really pissed me off that the manufacturers kept dumping more chemicals into my cigarettes to where they didn’t taste right anymore, but I still couldn’t quit. Some how I still enjoyed smoking. I’d heard a little about electronic cigarettes, but didn’t like the idea of fake anything. I do really like electronics though. About three years ago this lady offered to let me try her stick battery with a cartomizer on it. Not wanting to offend her and a little curious, I went ahead and tried it. I loved the flavor and the fact that it nearly felt like a cigarette. It was easy to operate too, just like a cigarette. It was amazing. I went on the internet to research exactly what e-cigarettes were. Gaining one addiction to get rid of another was not acceptable to me and smoking was still preferable. The data I found, primarily from other countries, helped me to decide that any addiction risk was minimal at best. I went to my local mall instead of where that lady told me to go on the internet. They were nice enough to sell me a starter kit with two batteries, a usb charger and four five packs of non-refillable cartos for over $300. That didn’t last too long; first a battery died and then I began to run out of cartos & thought smoking was cheaper. Back to the internet for more research. There I found the e-cigarette-forum with many people who were great enough to share what they knew. Getting to meet some of them at local meets was the best experience. I wasn’t the lone vapor. Getting to see devices and try different e-liquids helped me find more satisfying options. At that time I was helping out a friend in her office and it was a hassle to run downstairs every hour so it seemed that an e-cig might be worth a try. I had NO intention of quitting smoking, but just needed something that might fill the gap. She agreed that vaping didn’t seem to pose any risk to others so allowed me to vape in the office. My family agreed that I could vape inside the house, even move off the back porch where the smoking area was and gave their blessing to vape in the car. I wondered how long I could go without a cigarette. I began vaping for longer periods at the office and at home. The migraines scared me at first and thought it was the ecigs, but realized that I had to smoke to get rid of them. I coughed a lot the first couple of months and knew that my lungs were getting rid of the garbage. There were only two memorable lung spasms during the first months. That wasn’t that bad. Next thing I knew I had quit smoking because it tasted like crap. I no longer craved a cigarette. Starting out with a stick style KR808d with cartomizers worked for the first several months. At my first e-cig convention I won my first mod. Vaping on that was a wonderful experience. Then I discovered variable wattage devices with tanks. I don’t always make my own coils & wicks, preferring glass tanks now. I had started vaping coffee flavors and now mostly vape fruit flavors. Being able to try so many flavors has been a way to keep my brain busy at first and now it’s half the enjoyment I get from vaping. I had started off vaping 36 mg, 24 mg and 18 mg, finally settling on 18 mg most of the time. I’ve vaped zero for a month, but returned to 12 mg nicotine because it is much more satisfying. I plan on reducing down to zero again by stepping down. I’ve cut out caffine, processed food, stopped eating GMO foods, began eating organic and now am gluten free also. I feel so much better that I could go on all day about it. I can smell and taste again, don’t smell like an ashtray, don’t panic at the thought of a long car trip or flight and not always having to locate the smoking area. I recently had surgery, told them how much I used to smoke so they did many extra chest xrays to make sure it was ok to have the surgery. They didn’t believe that I used to smoke that much. I didn’t tell them that I vaped. They could see the nicotine in my system, but couldn’t find any evidence that I smoked. The surgery & healing went very well. My doctor is thrilled that I’ve quit smoking. Having had concurrent sinus infections, on the verge of high blood pressure and COPD when smoking there are no more chronic conditions, no medications to prescribe, no health issues other than still needing to lose weight. My eye doctor has noticed that the blood vessels in the back of my eyes are quite bad. He said they can tell I used to be a heavy smoker. He assured me that the nicotine in e-liquids in no way affects it, only smoking. I can go everywhere with my family and spend time with them, not having to waste time looking for a smoking area. Flying is good again, not in a cold sweat not being able to smoke since I can go all day without vaping. Having to go to smoking areas works well because there I can pass out a lot of ecig business cards to smokers who want to vape. I’ve made many new friends from vaping, enjoy the variety of devices and juices. Vaping has become a wonderful hobby & is still cheaper than smoking. If there is one negative it has to be the scarcity of quality devices and e-liquids. While obtaining quality e-liquids is less of a problem it can be difficult at times to obtain products from boutique vendors. New devices are being developed at such a rapid rate that it can be confusing for new people to find reputable vendors. It’s been such a fantastic trip. Glad to say this story isn’t unique. If I ever catch up with that lady who showed me her e-cigarette I’ll give her what she’s got coming alright – a large hug and my undying gratitude.