I’m 37, I’m a nurse and I’m a 21 year, 2 and a half pack a day smoker; Or, atleast I was. I started smoking, like many smokers did, on a dare. My buddy had stolen some smokes from his Dad and like the dumb kids we are, we went out to the woods and smoked all of them. We stunk to high heaven, but we were camping that night so I remember blaming the smoke smell on the campfire. Then we found a place in town that would sell smokes to underage kids and we would start buying our smokes with our pocket money (this was back when a pack of Monarchs was 1.50!) Fast forward a few years to my mid twenties: I’m still a smoker, not even remotely apologetic about it (I was young and invincible!!) and quitting is the last thing on my mind. In fact, because at this time I was a minumum wage gas jockey, there were many times where my chief financial decision was, food or smokes? It’s embarassing to admit just how often I went without eating. My first real attempt at quitting came when I turned 25. I joined the military to attempt to gain a real career and some real experience. I also needed the discipline that the Army offered. Thinking back, I remember my greatest fear about going to boot camp wasn’t the Drill Sargents or the pushups… it was the fact that I would not be allowed to smoke my marlboro reds anymore. I was quitting, but I wasn’t happy about it. Strangely enough, Boot camp did for me what Electronic Cigarettes would in the future… it made quitting smoking pretty easy. I remember flying into Columbus, Georgia and waiting outside the airport for our ride into Fort Benning and my new life. There were three of us from the St. Louis area that had all flown down together and all of us smoked. And we smoked a lot that night… finally, the driver got there and told us, the bus was leaving in five minutes and to enjoy our last smoke for awhile. I smoked half of one and got in and didn’t really think about smokes again until my first weekend off during AIT (6 months later). A group of us, who had been through basic together and whom were now going through EMT/ Combat Medic school together were finally being told we could have some free time, off post, with no Drill Sgt’s yelling. Of course, we all got very very drunk… and… well… I bought a pack of smokes. Just one, I figured, no big deal. Just one, became, just two. Then, just a pack a week… until finally, after I graduated Medic school and started Nursing School (which was more like college than the army… IE: I could smoke) and I was back to two packs a day again. They were cheaper than I had ever seen them, since I bought them on post and paid no taxes. I was hooked worse than ever as well, because now my job was actually stressful. I had lives in my hand and one mistake could spell doom for not just my career, but another person’s very life. Smoking was a heck of a way to cope. I’m married and three children. My boys are 10 and 7 and my daughter is 6. My wife and I met in the Army and have been married for going on 12 years. After I got out of the military in 2004, I found out that I had asthma. Which was odd, since, I never had any respiratory problems before. For a while, I played mind games with myself and blamed my asthma on allergies and moving from one city to the next while in the military… Different allergies in different places; But, let’s be honest: My lungs were starting to feel the pressure of smoking for 12+ years. I also noticed that the prices started to rise… from 2 bucks a pack, to 2.50, to 3… In 2007,my wife, who was also a smoker, decided that maybe it was time to think about quitting again. My doctor prescribed us Chantix. It was relatively new back then, but we had friends who had tried it and swore that it worked, and going cold turkey was not an option for either of us. Our insurance covered the Chantix except for a small co-pay and it was neat to hear that the way it worked was you continued to smoke for a week after taking the pill. We were motivated; we had a plan and a quit date. We even had a business card that we were supposed to hand out to our non-smoking friends to get them to help us when we were feeling weak. It was all very 12 step programy and it actually worked…. kinda. The first day on Chantix was one of the worse days of my life. What Chantix does, in a nutshell, is shut off your nicotine receptors in your body. In effect, it makes you quit by shutting down the mechanisms in your body that respond positively to nicotine. It’s kinda of like being hungry and being told you can eat as much as you want… but you’ll STILL be hungry after you’ve eaten. You still get all the bad from the cigarettes, I mean… you’re still inhaling poisonous gas and its still going to hurt your lungs, your heart, etc… but all of the good from smoking (Increased concentration, Calming effects, etc) are completely taken from you. I smoked 80 cigarettes that first day of Chantix and I grew increasingly agitated by the cigarette. I went to bed that night exhausted, yet still raging inside. This was worse than cold turkey. This was more akin to torture. The carrot wasn’t just on in a stick in front of me… it was literally in my mouth, but for some reason I couldn’t taste it. And I hated every second of it. I stayed quit that time for about 4 months… and like when I had quit before in the military, I started back slowly… More so this time as my wife was still quit. In fact, this became a bone of contention between us. She was quit… she hadn’t fallen off the wagon but I did. I would only smoke in the car… and only one or two.. But I wouldn’t smoke at home. I would only smoke at work and then I’d use lots of soap and spray deodorant to get the smell off, because by this point, I was hooked again, and my wife was scared that SHE was going to start back up again, mainly because she could SMELL the smoke even hours after I’d have one. Then I found the crown 7. Here was the new thing! A e-cig that had nicotine but only released water vapor. It was better for you and it didn’t stink and you couldn’t burn your house down if you fell asleep with it in your mouth! It was also expensive. It was like 75 for the kit which came with a battery and a charger and a set of five cartridges. Extra cartridges were 10 bucks for five, but each was equivalent to 2 packs of smokes. I bought one. I used it for two weeks. I still smoked, but I DID cut down, and I really liked the idea, but the execution just wasn’t doing it for me. It didn’t have that feeling. I always used to describe it my wife as A feeling that the smoke has weight. I later learned the correct term… throat hit. Either way… it didn’t work and eventually, in january of 2008, my wife started back to smoking. I bought an Njoy cigarette in 2009… I had heard that E-cigs were getting better, but I still wasn’t sure. Frankly, the Njoy was a waste of 50 bucks and still used Cartridges, which were A) a waste of money and B) In now way equivalent to even one pack of cigarettes, let alone two! Finally, in 2010, I found the ego-b. It had cartridges that leaked like nothing else, but I could use my own juice in them… and the throat hit was amazing! I was still smoking occasionally at work and in the car (because I found that my 650mah Ego-B didn’t really last very long). Then I learned about cartomizers and 1000 mah usb passthroughs and clearos and on and on and on….. I still smoked but only 1 or 2 a day and mainly, ironically, because my wife still did. She didn’t like e-cigs (In her defense, she only tried my juices, and I was still learning.) In Janurary of this year I finally convinced my wife to buy an ecig of her own. (Actually, I bought em… One blue and one multicolored… both 900mah. They came with a charger and two kanger t3’s.)I got her some cinnamon (which was a juice I had never tried) and she fell in love! We’ve both been off cigarettes since then (As I write this it’s june 20th). I’ve not had a second of panic that I didn’t have a pack in my car. In fact, the only time I think about smokes anymore is when my coworkers come in from the cold outdoors (while I’m vaping away at my desk, of course) and I remark that they SMELL! My biggest acheivement this far was actually a few weeks ago, when stupidly, I forgot my juice at home. I had filled up in the morning but didn’t bring it with me… around noon I realized I was in trouble… until a coworker who vapes 0mg/ml juice said she’s let me have a few mls. I vape 16mg/ml and I vaped her 0mg for over 7 hours. And I didn’t notice the difference! I still have my inhalers for my asthma, but I haven’t used them for a few years. I exercise regularly now, which was definatley something I couldn’t conceive of doing as a smoker. We’re currently training to take part in tough mudder in september. I FEEL like I’m ten years younger! I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever stop vaping… but at this point I can tell you that I’ll never go back to smoking!! Thanks for reading!!! -Tom Helsel St Louis, MO