Well I started smoking at the age of 13. When my father found out, he (a smoker himself) became the enabler as he would buy my smokes for me. Before then I knew of a gas station or two in the small town I lived in where I could buy smokes at. Eventually my fathers health (due to smoking) started to decline. I quit smoking at 20. My father eventually passed away when I was 26 from emphysema and heart problems. My father was close to death when my little brother hung himself. He could not bear to lose him. We lost our mother, who was also a smoker in 1991 to a aneurism, so he was all that we had left. I wound up picking up smoking again at 28 due to stress at my job. By the time I was 30 I was wheezing and had a really hoarse voice. Eventually in January 2011, after seeing some friends with eCigs and hearing good things about them I bought my first kit. It was a 808 kit from PureSmoker. After about 2 weeks the wheezing went away and my throat was a lot clearer. For a while I went back and forth with the eCigs because of the batteries did not have a long life span and only 2 batteries meant I would drain them both before one could fully charge. Eventually I got a larger life span battery and it was better, until it broke. During all this time I was able to research and decided to go with a 510 kit as they seemed more popular and I could drip the liquids versus hassle with cartridges that would be dead on arrival or other issues. While this was good, I was still kind of bouncing back and forth for a small moment between cigs. Eventually I got my first mod and that changed things for me. Batteries lasted longer. I no longer needed to worry about battery life as I can buy as many batteries as I want and keep them charged at a fraction of the eGo style batteries. I just celebrated my first full year of no cigs last month. I have also managed to drop 60 pounds (and counting) of weight as I do not struggle to breath while I work out. The only thing I wish for is that these things were popular 13 years ago. I might have been able to get my father to switch to them and he may still be around to this day.