I started smoking when I was 18 and am now in my mid fifties. I stopped smoking once, when I was pregnant but actually an not sure what was more important for me to get to the 9th month – having my daughter or being able to smoke again. You see, it was just the nicotine, although people yell loudly about how addictive it is, what was my biggest addition was, as I can to learn, the whole oral obsession to a cigarette. I really looked forward to opening a new pack, handling the cigarette, lighting it and then the actions while smoking. While I had favorite places (those they tell you to stay away from when quitting) where I liked to smoke I liked to smoke anywhere because of the mechanical act of smoking itself. And I wanted to stop. Of course I never smoked in the house, in the car or near my daughter but that was not enough to get me to stop. I would rather sit on the back porch huddled in a snowsuit with a space heater at midnight in a northwestern winter to smoke rather then give it up and get in a nice warm bed. Oh, I tried to stop and other than being pregnant nothing worked and you can’t stay pregnant forever. I tried it all. Cold Turkey, cutting down, antidepressants, nicotine gum, nicotine patches, hypnosis, chantix, seemed like everything but anesthesia detox (which they don’t do for a smoking addition so don’t get excited), nothing worked. At the most maybe they worked for a day (except for Chantix which said I could smoke for a week.. ha ha I just kept right on and it did not have any impact on my smoking)or possibly 2. I think hypnosis got me through 2 days but I think that was because it cost so much I could not afford a pack of cigarettes for 2 days. I know people shake their heads at this and think either I am a very weak individual, totally in denial or very ignorant of the facts about smoking. None of that is true. I knew that all and then some and still could not stop because part of me liked smoking so much the part of me that knew the bad side just flat lost the war. I think a person who is able to successfully stop smoking is one that is only addicted to nicotine, and not the mechanical aspect of smoking. Nicotine is hard to kick but once the drug is out of the system the jagging for nicotine stops. I have gotten over the absence of nicotine many times but the mechanical aspects had me itching to inhale smoke, see it being exhaled, (so flipping a pencil between my fingers or turning tn a pencil beaver wa not helping) – I was looking around for that constantly. Then I discovered e-cigarettes. My first exposure was not very satisfying but I think that was due to the product itself, but a little insight crept in there. It did keep me away from the cigarettes some because it was an alternative where I could do everything with it that I could a cigarette without inhaling the poisons in them and exhaling them into the world to bother everyone else. Like I said it was not a great experience but for a while it did cut me down from 2 packs a day to 1. Didn’t save me any money as the e-cig I was using cost the same as a pack of cigarette but really how many of us quit because its costs too much. If we don’t have the money for them that might be a forced quit but I don’t know many smokers that get excited when a non smoker points out what they could be getting if they did not waste money on cigarettes. It does not fly far because for many, smoking is not just a habit but a hobby. Then the e-cigarettes I was getting (these were disposable over the counter convenience store ones) went up in price and once they cost more than a pack of cigarettes I started thinking of what I could save by not using the e-cigarette and went back to the standard tobacco cigarette. About this time in my life my mother had come to live with us and yes, she too, is a smoker. She is also on a limited retirement budget and really could not afford to keep herself in cigarettes and was being slowly forced to quit because she could not pay for them. In her attempt to not be forced to quit she started dragging me to smoke shops, head shops and tobacco stores looking for an elusive brand of cigars that she had once smoked that looked like cigarettes in brown paper, came in a cigarette pack and had a cigarette filter on it but could not be taxed like a cigarette and cost her about a third of what a standard pack would… she was back to smoking as normal and could afford it. I have to tell about om because of where it lead; so here I was stopping at the soke store everyday to get her 2 packs of cigars posing as cigarettes (or cigarettes posing as cigars – not sure about that yet) and given that they also sold my brand a few cents cheaper then the gas station and had enough promotions from the tobacco companies that it was pretty frequent that I would get them on sale (something that a gas station rarely sees). You can imagine how quickly I got to be a well known customer to the owner – heck he had to keep cartons in stock to keep up with me. One day, out of the blue he started teasing me about smoking too much. Spending too much on cigarettes, not that he cared about that as I was spending it in his store, but he really, really did not like me smoking as much as I did. I finally told him that I knew I smoked to much, I knew it all but I really liked smoking (basically hoping he would just stop, sell me the cigarettes, make his profit and go on). Instead, when he heard that, he insisted on showing me something. When I saw him heading to the e-cigarette counter I was pretty much been there, done that, won’t do it for me. He finally opened up a starter kit -a very cheap one.. so cheap it came in a bubble pack, got a bottle of sample e-juice he had, set it up and told me if I did not like it he would not make me buy it. Hey, fair deal. So I did. Let’s just say I was blown away. Blown away in the billow of vapor I got. There is what a cigarette had that the other one I tried had not , I could really inhale vapor, and exhale it. Granted the other one I tried looked and felt (bit heavier) like a real cigarette and this one reminded me of a small flashlight you put on your keychain, but I was tasting flavor and having all this great vapor that felt like smoke. I bought it and some juice to go with it. Of course, the juice had nicotine in it and while nicotine is addictive I was already addicted to it – he has a lot fewer health risks then all the other gunk and crap that gets into you along with the tar from a regular cigarette. I was not 100% that this flashing like thing was going to associate well enough with a cigarette that I would be happy with the mechanics but I took it home anyway. Day 1 – smoked cigarettes while the battery for the e-cig had to do its initial charging of 4 hours. No big deal on this. Had the two packs I bought that day and was proceeding as normal. Funny thing was, though, after it charged up and I got the stuff assembled and the juice inside and started using it my open pack of cigarettes (normal a HUGE) temptation in my life went untouched. I should add here that thi8s e-cig battery was what they call a manual one – I had to push a button to activate it – the other I had tried activated the vaporizer when you inhaled. This did make a difference because it kept my hands (or hand) involved pushing the button when it came to my mouth. Oh Wait! New mechanical actions… could this replace the old one? Day 2 – yup I smoked some cigarette – the other half of the pack from the day before while my new toy was charging. i actually had it charging next to my computer and found myself getting frustrated it was not charging faster. Day 3 – I went back and bought a second little kit because I wanted to have a battery charged when the other one ran out. Its all been about e-cigs since then. I did purchase a good personal vaporizer that looked land felt like a real cigarette a few weeks later because at the time I wasn’t sure how I looked in public sucking on a flashlight and was not sure how the authorities would view it (or know it was not elicit substances even if our state has legalized it). I rarely use them now except in a brand new social situation until people learn that I ‘vape’ not smoke and then I am usually sucking on a flashlight so to speak! Remember back on day one when I mentioned being okay cause I have bought 2 packs of cigarettes anyway in case the e-cig was a waste of time, and then used half one day and the other half the next during battery charged times? Where, you should then ask is that second pack? Well, its right here in the drawer, never opened and just a reminder of how far my new ‘hobby’ with e-cigs has brought me. Sure, I am still imbibing nicotine (although I have lowered it down to way more the half what I was doing with smoking). I don’t have high blood pressure and while it may possibly put me at a higher risk for stroke I was headed that way with more then getting nicotine in my body with regular cigarettes. Medically, well my chest films have cleared and my breathing has so improved that so has my ability to exercise which had the benefit of lowering my AC1 down below nondiabetic levels and currently I am not using any medication and eating a normal non-diabetic diet (to be sure I still check my blood sugar but there is nos sight of the diabetes presently). Thats me of curse, I can’t and won’t promise outcomes like this for everyone but if you stop and think a bit it makes sense. My doctor told me that he wanted that cigarette out of my mouth. He did not really care too much about the nicotine (his idea was the patch – always the patch) and to get me off was always there with another way to get nicotine. If I fund an alternative that made me happy and got me away from thunderous amounts of tar and something like 60 known carcinogens he was basically a ‘happy camper’. His experience with me has actually lead him to suggest it to a few patients that really need off the smoking and just can’t put that cigarette done. Totally anecdotal I know but in every case he says the substitution has worked. It may not be the healthiest alternative to smoking because of the nicotine but considering nicotine patches and gum are considered healthy alternatives to smoking, for me I consider it is. The fact that here is something a almost 40 year smoker has used to get off cigarettes in less than 3 days. This is a miracle. This is something that if enough people get enough education about it and are supportive of vapers, and the basic e-cigs are readily available without maxing out taxes so only the wealthy can buy them, you could see smokers disappear. Some would quite entirely through other methods that work for some now, some would have e-cigs as another along with gums and patches and drugs, and the rest that, like me, can have a viable alternative where all they add to the environment is water vapor. The only problem I see with this ever being an answer and an acceptable alternative, a healthier alternative is the tobacco companies. No matter how much lib service in recent years they have paid to the whole ‘anti-smoking’ campaigns they spend 10 times the amount to keep selling their product. They really did nothing to stop me but everything – except keep a handle on the cost – to get me to quit. If you take a good look at what is behind some of the misinformation about e-cigs and the rampant push to tax them through the ceiling – scratch the bottom and you see the tobacco companies stamp on the bottom? So why would they bother? Because they see, where I do, that e-cigs could totally replace tobacco cigarettes. How to prevent that – its called talking to the pocketbook. If they can get e-cigs taxed and regulated past the pint where there are – tobacco cigarettes become the less expensive ‘money saving’ alternative. We don’t want to go there.