I come from a family of heavy smokers so, it wasn’t a surprise when I started smoking. I was 12. By the time I was 14 I was smoking a pack a day. My mother was diagnosed with heart disease at the age of 45 and COPD at 70 (she is now 83 and vapes). My father died of a massive heart attack at the age of 59. My sister died of lung cancer at 59. I am now 56 and, given my family history, I’m afraid I won’t make it to the age of 59. I have tried all NRT’s available to me, none have worked. Chantix, in particular, made me terribly ill so after 5 weeks on the medication, I returned to smoking. I felt guilty about that but guilt was preferable to being unable to function on Chantix. Somewhere in my attempts to quit I tried a cig-a-like. It was not effective either, there just wasn’t enough power in the unit to satisfy me. And it tasted terrible. Three years ago my brother had a heart attack at the age of 51 and had a stent put in. His doctor urged him to quit smoking. He bought an electronic cigarette (actually a mod with a tank) and hasn’t picked up a cigarette since. I saw him blowing clouds of vapor and I wanted to try it. My husband and I bought mods and some fruity e-liquid (with nicotine) to put into our tanks and we quit smoking on the spot. It was easy with our mods and flavored nicotine liquid. That was well over a year ago and we couldn’t be happier. I can smell and taste again. Yes, I’ve gained a bit of weight, however, I can lose the weight but I can’t get rid of lung cancer.