I started smoking around age 16; I am 41 now. When I quit smoking three years ago, I had been smoking for 22 years. That’s nearly a quarter of a century. In fact, that’s very close to a full third of my projected lifespan. For the first year, when I would run around telling people how I was ƒ??not addicted,ƒ? I would smoke a pack in a few days. By a couple of years later, I was smoking a pack a day. Within a couple more years, I was up to three and a half packs per day. At my peak, in my early twenties, I could easily be into my fifth pack of cigarettes by the time I went to bed. For the last several years of my smoking life, with great effort, I got myself down to about two packs a day. For the longest amount of time however ƒ?? well over a decade ƒ?? I averaged two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half packs a day. I have on several occasions attempted to quit smoking cold turkey. This was always most convenient when I was sick with a flu. It never worked for more than perhaps a day at most. About seven or eight years ago, and over the course of the next few years, I tried lozenges (yuck!), gum (difficult to find cinnamon flavor), Chantix, nicotine patches, and so-called ƒ??zero-nicotineƒ? cigarettes. Mostly, it was a combination of at least two, sometimes three, of these methods. The most I was ever able to completely live without smoking was a couple of days. I was a nervous wreck. Finally, I decided to take a chance on a new idea. A personal nicotine vaporizer, also known begrudgingly as ƒ??e-cigarettesƒ?. I can’t even remember where I got the idea or what I knew about them then. I did a ton of research into price-versus-effectiveness, and settled on a brand (Joye) and a vendor (Cignot) which seemed like a satisfactory and trustworthy combination and took the plunge with about $100 ƒ?? roughly the cost of a week’s supply of Camel Filters. I got two medium-sized bottles of e-juice, a USB passthrough device, a car charger, a PCC (Personal Charging Case), and a box of two Joye 510 personal vaporizers, plus cartridges. The moment I took it out of the box and assembled my vaporizer, I quit smoking tobacco. I am not kidding. Well, I tried it first. It felt like smoking. It really did. But it wasn’t. It was just delivering nicotine via atomized infused liquid. But the sensation ƒ?? from the inescapable muscle-memory of hand-to-mouth which all smokers adhere to even after quitting, to the feeling in the back of my throat and in my lungs ƒ?? was close enough to inhaling tobacco smoke (minus the coughing and burning and infamous ƒ??eye-hitsƒ? of the secondary smoke wafting about) that I did not have to light another cigarette ever again. I started at around 26mg nicotine; within a few months I got down to 18mg. Generally, I puff all day, when I am thinking about it. Often, I don’t even think about it; sometimes for an hour or more, such is the loosened grip of my addiction. In one day, I quit smoking cigarettes completely. In three years, I have not had to smoke. I have smoked maybe five times since then, but only to see if I could discern a difference. I could. Compared to vaporized nicotine, burning tobacco was horrible. I could not believe I smoked up to five packs a day for over twenty years. So, maybe five times I tried to see what I had been doing. Five times I only got halfway into a cigarette before I was done. The last one was probably two years ago now. The biggest changes since I stopped smoking in favor of the low-risk alternative of vaporization has been the lack of waking up with what I call ƒ??lead-lungs,ƒ? which for years daily caused me to self-medicate with that horrible subtly-pain-relieving smoking tobacco. Every morning I used to wake up and the first couple of cigarettes would eliminate the pain I felt breathing. Now I have zero pain in my chest. I can smell things ƒ?? including cigarette smoke, when it’s around (wow ƒ?? sorry, non-smokers!). I also no longer burn holes in clothing or cars, or singe my hair, or accidentally set small fires by carelessly letting my cigarette burn unwatched in an ashtray. The stigma is gone. I’m no longer a social outcast because of my stupid ƒ??coolƒ? addiction. In essence, I’m free, or nearly there. I do still use my vaporizer frequently, but it’s causing me no perceivable negative health effects at all. If anything, I can run short distances again. As an asthmatic smoker, that used to be impossible. Exercise is something which is no longer practically impossible for me. It has changed my life in so many positive ways. And, as long as this method is legal and safe, I will never have to go back to the slow suicide of smoking, ever again.