I started smoking when I was 11. I smoked a pack, or more, a day for 33 years. Early last March, I was having an operation on my hip that would keep me bed bound for some time, so decided to buy an e-cigarette to help with the nicotine cravings. It has been four and a half months, and I haven’t had a cigarette since. I have been better able to exercise to recover from my surgery than I would have been as a smoker, and I feel so much better for it. I had tried every other method of quitting possible. I was sure I was just ‘one of those people’ who couldn’t quit. I first tried the gum, then the patches, inhalator, Alan Carr, hypnotism– you name it I’ve tried it, some methods several times. I have no desire to smoke regular cigarettes, feel no temptation (as I did with other methods) to smoke when I’m in a public place and others are smoking. No amount of deprivation is too much, I can fly long-haul flights with no problem, attend parties, long drives, etc., without the old frustration that, in past attempts to quit, led me to the nearest gas station to buy a pack or to the nearest outside space to beg another smoker. I want to make clear the difference between this period of nonsmoking and the myriad others: any other time I’ve quit, I’ve done nothing more than deprive myself cigarettes until I finally cracked. At no time in the past have I stopped and ‘felt like a non-smoker’. The biggest difference between any other method and ecigarettes is that feeling. I don’t feel like I need to tell myself ‘just keep it up, one day the craving will pass’. There is no craving to fight. Temptation is gone. For someone who has never smoked, or never fought any addiction, this may be hard to understand. I don’t know how better to describe it than, imagine yourself poolside on a scorching day, but you’re not allowed in. Others are cooling off, having a fabulous time in the water, but all you can do is watch. Now imagine that day never ends. Night never comes; it never cools down. But you still can’t go in, so you decide to just dunk one toe. It feels great, but you really want to cool off. Someone splashes you, just a little bit. Relief. Days go by, your will power strong, but everyone else gets constant relief from the suffocating heat but you. Cigarettes are as necessary as food to those unfortunate enough to have the hard-core addiction. Not smoking is akin to not eating at a Michelin-star buffet. Saying, ‘No thanks, but I can’t eat right now. Or ever again. But thanks anyway.’ I no longer suffer this, and I’m so very thankful.