I am a 41 year-old male from Tennessee. I have been smoking since the age of 17, starting with Marlboro Lights and switching to Marlboro Reds in my early 20s. For many years, as many youth believe, I thought myself to be invincible. I smoked with abandon, and with no history of cancer in my traditionally long-lived family, I never made any serious effort to quit until my late 20s. At that point, I met a girl I planned to marry. We moved in together and, for the first time, I made a serious attempt at quitting smoking. Although I was able to cut back for a bit, for whatever reason (lack of willpower, lack of heart…whatever), I was unable to actually give up the habit. We soon broke up (for unrelated reasons), and I resumed smoking as much if not more than before. The most difficult times for me to be without a cigarette were first thing in the mornings & after a meal, as I have noticed is the case for lots of other smokers. So, I always made sure I had cigarettes on hand just as much as food & water. Flash-forward about 10 years and, in my late 30s I finally meet the girl I am lucky enough to marry. She has 2 small children and smoking around them was something I was not willing to do, so I began to cut back drastically, only smoking outside & in my car. This halved my intake easily, but the real turning point came when my mother, a lifelong smoker, was diagnosed with non small-cell lung cancer at the young age of 63. The reality of this hit me like a ton of bricks, and she told me that one of her last wishes was for me to stop smoking. So…I did. In February of 2012, just before my 40th birthday, I bought my first e-cigarette. I had no idea how I would respond to it, but after using it for one single day I threw out my last pack of cigarettes and never looked back. Although I continued to experiment with different types of e-cigs to find the system that worked best for me, from that day forward I never touched an actual cigarette again. For whatever reason, be it willpower, the reality of my mothers illness, or the ease of e-cigs, I never had a single issue quitting. I still enjoy my e-cigarette today, over 18 months later, although I have drastically reduced my nicotine intake and use it much less than I used to. I can honestly say that, without electronic cigarettes, I may have never been able to quit. As far as I’m concerned, they saved my life. Looking back on it, I do not know how anyone was able to even be near me for the decades I spent as a smoker. When I walk past a smoker today, the smell assaults my nose and makes me shocked that any non-smoker could ever stand to be close to a smoker. I am more grateful than words can saw for my loving, understanding wife…how she fell in love with me while smelling like an ashtray, I’ll never know. Sadly, my mother succumbed to her cancer just over a year ago. She had been a smoker for over 40 years. I watched as the cancer ravaged her body and her mind, tearing her away from us bit by bit, reducing her to a shell of her former self. It is something that no one should ever have to see. I can take some small measure of peace for the fact that, in her final days, she got to see me quit the habit that she never could, the habit that eventually took her life far, far too soon. My name is Michael…and I quit.