I have been a smoker since the age of 16 off and on, by 20 I was full time pack-a-day smoker. Several times thru my 30’s and 40’s I tried to quit, cold turkey, with patches, with gum, and even with Chantix, but every time it ended. I could make it a couple of weeks, maybe even three weeks…Many times it ended because I just became too intolerable to be around, too snappy, rude, anxious. The one time I made it past a month (with Chantix and patches) I was still having problems with controlling my attitude. I just couldn’t get past it. Nicotine was rooted in me and wasn’t giving up. At this point in my life, I had pretty much given up on ever quitting. The last few years, especially with some added stress due to an illegal lawsuit against my property (finally OVER as of yesterday thank GOD we got our attorney fees back!!!) I went to two packs a day. Even though my wife was able to quit a few years ago, I still could not manage it without becoming impossible to be around. So, I promised I might try again someday, but in the back of my mind I placed that someday so far into the future that it didn’t exist. This last year I didn’t even consider it an option. Too much stress. Smoking was here to stay. I sometimes use a company car for travel, and kept an ashtray so I could stop and smoke anywhere without having to throw anything out. In April I took a trip, and forgot to remove the ashtray when I returned the car. The boss used it that next day, and it rolled under the seat, the cap came off, and it spilled its contents into the vents under the seat. I might as well have smoked in the car for that one. So I had to do something different. The next trip I limited the smoking to places I could stop with an ashtray. Got up to return to home one morning, it was raining, 40 degrees outside, and the radar showed rain from where I was all the way home (an 8-hour drive). There was no way I was going to make it and not be totally miserable, because if I didn’t smoke, I would fall asleep driving, and I couldn’t see myself standing in the rain every 45 minutes freezing for my cigarette, so I thought I’d try a disposable e-cigarette to get me thru that trip. Had NO intention of quitting, only making it thru the trip. That e-cig was not the best tasting, but it was like smoking a cheaper brand of cigarette, BUT IT WAS ENOUGH like a cigarette to make it for almost 5 hours without stopping for my Marlboro. When I finally stopped at a rest stop, I grabbed my umbrella and my Marlboros for a ‘real’ cigarette. I stood in the freezing rain, and puffed my cigarette, and decided right there, that that e-cigarette may not be that bad, and it was definitely better than frezzing and getting wet, so I put out over half of it, got back in the car, and drove the rest of the way home without stopping again. The moment I got back into town, I stopped at a discount smoke shoppe where I had seen a better selection of e-cigarettes before, and picked up a few different disposables, one being a cappachino flavor. When I tried it, I liked it BETTER than my Marlboros. Threw the rest of my Marboros away right then and there. Cleaned up my car to return it and found another new pack, so I took it and was determined to smoke them and not waste another 6 dollars, and maybe smoked a third of about three of them over the next several hours before I tossed them the first thing that next morning. Bought a blu starter kit that day on the way home from work. Within a week I went from them to an EGO setup with coffee and vanilla nut flavors. Haven’t looked back since, and not a single analog! There were a few times the next few weeks at stressful points that I had the flashing thought I need a cigarette but it would go away as soon as I reached for my e-cigarette. Over the weeks that went away, and I found myself doing without even the e-cigarette for longer times than I could imagine doing without an analog without getting the anxiety. For the first time, and the LAST TIME, I found quitting easy! Didn’t even realize how easy until co-workers asked me how long I had been without, and I had to look at my schedule and expense reports to figure out what day I had quit! I didn’t get the attitude, no anxiety, felt totally NORMAL…except…I could breathe, and I smelled better, and my teeth got whiter. And the strut in my step was back. A month after ‘quitting’ I went to a customer location with this 32-flight staircase that has to be climbed, carrying a toolbag and laptop bag. There is a rest spot in the middle of the flight that I would ALWAYS have to stop and wait to get my breath and let my heart quit racing, and then I would have to repeat this at the top, and on hot days it was absolutely miserable. This day (and it was warm too), I marched up that entire flight,and kept on going!!! Wow even I couldn’t believe it. I strutted proud, and I felt GOOD. EVEN BETTER – at my next two doctor appointments my blood pressure was well within limits, and my cholesterol levels were within the limits for the first time in 10 years of testing, and my resting pulse rate was so low on the second visit (BP 110/60 and pulse rate 47bpm) the doctors took me off blood pressure medication entirely! I have since gotten my mother (67y/o with COPD) on the blu e-cigs. My younger brother, those were not enough to get him…but it made him cut back to about 4 a day…had to get him with the EGO and a good tobacco flavor, but that got him the rest of the way off the analogs. I’ve talked to friends on some other forums I frequent, and count at least 10 that took my testimonial to them, tried something, and found something that worked, some reporting back on their first month of success and how I was right it did work exactly the way I said it worked for me – once they tried them, they couldn’t see continuing to smoke, and had successfully quit with ease just like I did (one guy said, just like he said, they just work, and I’m done with the smokes). Even one skeptic that scolded me about my gimmack when he replied to my post the first month….when I reported in for my second month on the e-cigs, the ‘skeptic’ reported back with his first month and his new choice and his success, and thanked me for telling him my story, as it made him give it enough thought to try it. I figure just with me talking to my friends, family, and people I meet all over the country, that for sure, I can count (10 people times 20 years) = 200 years of life I have saved for just the ones I know for sure. No telling how many others, since I tell everyone, and I meet dozens of people a week (many friends for decades since I have been at my job that long)in different places all over the USA. It would be interesting to see how big a trail of former smokers-turned-ecig vapers I create just by hanging out in the smoking areas of everywhere I go, and telling my story. I have settled in with a selection of flavors I like and a couple of EGO batteries, and now if I was to be out of everything, I would be looking for something…electronic to vape…but definitely not tobacco to smoke, can’t see me buying another pack of tobacco, phooey, stinky, not giving up my newfound health. What is so good about this option, is that it is not a chore you are ‘doing’ to quit something you like…it’s like leaving a theme park with one stinky dull ride that makes you feel bad, for a NEW theme park that is bright and clean with dozens of rides that leave you fresh and ready to go. Maybe I will leave the new theme park someday. BUT I will Never Go Back to that old park again. NEVER….. Unless the FDA closes the door on the park. Not sure WHAT I would do then, if e-cigarettes went away, and I couldn’t get my vanilla nut and my mountain bean morning vape. I don’t want to smoke anymore…for once I can choose something better, and not just give up something to quit. That makes the difference between the choices the doctor has to offer, and this choice. This choice is one I make willingly and joyfully. Please FDA don’t take away my e-cigarettes, and don’t limit the choices – its the choices that made the difference between something that maybe could get me away to something that keeps me from ever considering another tobacco cigarrete again! Keep them away from the children, but by ALL MEANS, let adults choose what they want, and allow them these choices, and allow the flavors, and the different setups, and these new options will do more to get folks off tobacco than any nasty cracked-chest pictures on packs (saw them in Brazil) or nasty commercials of holes in throats on TV. Allow a POSITIVE influence to take them off the tobacco, and people will take them willingly and toss the analogs to the side.