I smoked a pack a day for well over 30 years, quit a couple times, and always started back up for various reasons. Truth be told, I just liked smoking. One day, a colleague walked in to the office and started puffing on this black stick with a blue light on the end and ??smoke?? comes out… ??WTF?? (I said, ever so politely… 🙂 ) And so started my switch to eCigs… I ordered a starter kit and haven??t looked back. Literally. August 13th 2009 my starter kit arrived, and I haven??t had a cigarette since. No cravings, no missing anything, nothing. Note ?? I may be odd in this respect, others ??wean?? themselves off or continue to use real tobacco, or never switch completely. But for me, it just happened. Don??t know why, it wasn’t a thought out process… Back in 2009 (and maybe still now) this market is like the Wild West ?? lots of variations and conflicting information, everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie and make some money off of it… Lots of legal ramblings are underway to bar or outlaw vaping, mostly based in ignorance of what it is and how it works. Because of this, I (Okay, being odd again) learned enough about how these work to make my own. In case for some reason they become illegal or outlawed or customs blocks shipments or whatever ?? as long as I can order nicotine (which is legal) I will be fine. I make my own parts from scratch and am what would be considered self-sufficient. Benefits to the eCig? I can vape inside.. At home watching TV, in the car, at work, anywhere! 🙂 Even movie theaters, airplanes and restaurants?? not that I would ever think of doing that… 🙂 I consider myself a ??considerate? vaper ?? I don??t pull it out and start vaping in the middle of a restaurant or anywhere that smoking isn’t allowed for real reasons, say a hospital or airplane. Drawbacks? There is a considerable amount of fiddling with my equipment; it could be just me and the type of person I am, or it could be actually required to continue successful usage. Although at this point, with my current setup, I seem to be doing pretty well with nothing breaking. Although, if it does, as I mentioned earlier, I can fix it.