First off, let me say that I am not affiliated with any e-cig company, vender, or manufacturer. And although I have done a lot of research and keep current on the latest vaping hardware and trends, I have not tried every product out there, obviously, and there are plenty of reviewers out there that you can find through You Tube and various vaping forums and info sites that will have different opinions than me, but that’s natural and part of what makes vaping so great. There is so much variety out there, that when it’s all said and done, everyone has their own personal preferences as to what is ƒ??The bestƒ? hardware or juice flavors. Everyone has their own personal journey into vaping. But one thing that I found to be very consistent, is how successful everyone has been. It’s been amazing how well vaping has worked for me, and I really feel I need to share this discovery and help break the chains of tobacco smoking. Chains that I never thought I was going to be able to break from. And Just like every smoker has their favorite brand of cigarettes, the same applies for e-cigs, but the choices are 10 fold in the world of vaping, so a little guidance can go a long way towards finding your way through the door and eventually onto your own path. Simply said, Vaping has been a God send for me and has had a dramatic effect on my life both physically and emotionally. It’s amazing the feeling of breaking the bonds of tobacco smoking without having to give up all the things I loved about smoking. However, with that said, when getting started into vaping, there is a lot more similarity on what works well and doesn’t work well for the newbie vaper. What I hope you come away from after reading this is a way to avoid some of the early pit falls you could run into as a new vaper and some info on what has worked for me and for almost all new vapers. The trick is to be armed with enough info to get you going and keep you from being discouraged in the early stages. I want to try and help new vapers get up and over that early learning curve through my personal perspective and research. There are plenty of forums and reviewers out there that have a lot more info than you’ll find here, but I leave that up to the reader to discover on their own. I will provide links that I found very helpful, but there is a ton of info out there that I encourage you to discover on your own and I would not event attempt to describe here. The vaping world is huge and I had no idea it even existed a couple years ago. How this is info has eluded me for so long, I’ll never know. And why there are city wide bans popping up on e-cigs I also will never understand. Well, yes I do understand. Only the arrogant politicians and ignorant bureaucrats are against e-cigs. But I assure you, my friend, the government could not care less about your health when it comes to smoking. It’s ƒ??the biggest no-brainier in the history of mankindƒ? to realize that vaping is safer than smoking. The politicians out there are motivated purely by wanting more control over our lives and ways to get more tax revenue flowing into their coffers. 4000 known cancer agents vs three chemicals all listed as ƒ??safeƒ? by the FDA? E-liquid is comprised of basically 3 ingredients, nicotine, water, and glycerin (the stuff found in cake frosting). There is no burning at all, the process is simple as can be. The E-liquid is heated by use of a coil to a temperature that converts the solution from a liquid to a vapor and then inhaled. Simple as that. But, that’s enough about that for now. I don’t want to get into the a big discussion about the health benefits. You can go research that on your own. It’s a hell of a lot safer than smoking, that’s all I know for sure and is basically all I was looking for. That being, a safer alternative not necessarily a way to kick nicotine. And there is no odor, my clothes and breath do not stink, I got my sense of smell back (I can spot a smoker from 100 yards now), no more $10/pack (I’m spending about a third of what did for tobacco) and I can vape in the house, and bother no one! No ash trays, no littering, no lighters!.. It’s a win-win-win proposition folks! Trust me, if the government sticks their nose into e-cigs, it won’t remain that way. But that’s a discussion for another article 🙂 ****** I am just an average guy in his late 40s, I have a wonderful wife and three amazing daughters, and was a 2 pack per day smoker of Marlboro Reds and later got into machine rolled cigars, like the Backwoods brand, for over 25 years. You know the story, I had attempted quitting multiple times. Sometimes lasting as long as a couple months but would always fall back. I tried the patches, the mints, the gum, the sprays, all the currently available over the counter aids, but ultimately, they never worked. For me, as I think it is for must hardcore smokers, is that getting rid of the nicotine craving was one thing, but the habit, the oral fixation (man I hate that term) was something that I could never completely rid myself of. The habit of smoking while driving, and with coffee in the morning, or after a big dinner, was so powerful, that I’d always fall back. To put it frankly, and honestly, I love smoking! There, I’ve said it. Most smokers hate to admit it, but it’s not just a nicotine addiction, it’s because it’s fun! It’s relaxing, it’s pleasurable, I love the aroma, the taste and yes, I am addicted to nicotine as well. It’s something I can break free of, but I don’t want to! And what’s so bad about nicotine anyway? I mean, nicotine isn’t good for you, per se, but for the most part it’s the other 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke that I didn’t want to be ingesting and is the cause of that nasty cancer thing. And I was not looking for a way to quit smoking as more of a way to more safely deliver nicotine that satisfied both my nicotine addiction as well as the habitual behavior addiction. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such as solution existed. Well, boys and girls, I am here to tell you it does. So one day, I stumbled upon e-cigs quite by accident when I heard someone mention them on a radio talk show but I still saw them as a probably another gimmick that sounded too good to be true and I was sure that after enough research I would see that to be the case. Boy was I ever wrong! The more I researched e-cigs through the internet and by watching 100s of video reviews, reading forums, and browsing vender sites, I couldn’t find a damn negative thing about it. I was looking for any bad reviews in anyway related to vaping, watched people try their first e-cig recorded live on you-tube, looked for medical journal entries, anything at all that said this e-cig stuff was bunk. Nothing.. oh sure there might have been a couple articles saying to be cautious and that there hasn’t been many multi year studies yet, but NOTHING saying vaping was ƒ??Badƒ? So.. what did I have to lost other than a few bucks investing in it, and there seemed like I had a heck of a lot to gain.