So this is my first vaping forum I've ever joined I'd just like to share my story and hopefully help someone out there who is considering vaping make up their mind to stop considering and finally get up and DO IT. I apologize for the length of my story but a lot happened since the time I've thought about quitting smoking until the time it actually worked so sit back and enjoy and here is my story:
I was a long time smoker. I'm not even 35 yet and I was a daily smoker for about half of my life. I'm from the Appalachian Mountain area, so smoking and drinking are kind of just things that you do when you are young to rebel and be "cool" to fit in. I had been having breathing issues which kept getting worse and worse until one day I ran into an old friend from the small town I grew up in at the beginning of this year (2015). He told me how he switched to vaping and now he can breathe much easier and he started telling me all of the benefits of vaping and how it tasted so good he couldn't go back, I just thought he was kidding himself and I thought after all the times I'd tried to quit it couldn't be that easy! Gum, snus (which isn't really quitting anyway), patches that gave me terrible nightmares every night, I'd tried it all once or twice but then I started noticing people carrying around vapes more and more so I thought maybe it was something I should give a try but I didn't have the extra cash at the time to invest in it.
The old friend of mine was really cool at first, he had a few Unovapor cheap-o stick batteries laying around and he gave them to me. I went to the local vape shop (my little town has had two spring up within the past year) and found a cheap-o little plastic tank for it because I was really scared of sinking a bunch of cash into the whole thing and what if I didn't like it? I do give that old friend credit for showing me the way and encouraging me to try it although the story doesn't have a happy ending but I'll get to that in a bit...The first time I walked into the local vape shop they asked me what kind of flavor I wanted, I looked at the wall full of choices and was very overwhelmed. I said I have no idea I smoke menthol cigs and if I could get something similar to that maybe I could trick my brain into replacing cigs with juice? They gave me a Black Menthol (Bull Dog) mix and out the door I went. I filled up my little plastic tank at home and gave it a rip....I hated the stuff! It was sickening and tasted NOTHING like my Marlboro Menthols that I'd smoked for years and years, so I'd hit it once in a while but for the most part I was still smoking.
The breakthrough came when I was sitting in a meeting for work and I noticed before we got started that more than half of the other guys in the room had vaporizers sticking out of their pockets and I asked a guy named Joe how he liked it. Joe is a very intelligent, insightful guy and me and him just always seem to be on the same page mentally, and he told me he loves it and hasn't smoked in over a year and how great he felt, I wanted to feel like Joe too he looked a lot better the past year that he's quit he just looks healthier. I told him I'd given it a shot and the menthol stuff was just nasty, he said that all the local vape shops are steering people to tobacco flavors when they first make the switch. Their intentions are good but they are going about things the wrong way....Joe knew I had a little boy at home and I didn't smoke in the house before. Here are his words of wisdom to me and I'll never forget it:
"Think about it, when you switch over to vaping you don't want the same exact thing that you were smoking because what message is that sending to your body when you are inside your home vaping when you used to have to smoke outside? Your body doesn't know the difference between cigs and ejuice and if they taste exactly the same then the only thing your body is thinking is that its now okay to smoke in the house! Do NOT try to quit with a menthol or tobacco flavor because everyone I've seen try to switch ended up just smoking more cigarettes after they gave up on the vapes. Try a fruit flavor, something sweet and your body will know it isn't the same thing, and go from there to see what you like try a little bit of everything until you find your perfect flavor and vape it all day."
This was the most helpful thing anyone has told me in years. I don't know why but even to this day when I'm in the vape shop and a young person comes in and says they want to switch from cigarettes the staff always asks what kind of smokes they prefer and tell them what is the closest flavor to that brand of cigarette! I went and found an 18mg berry/watermelon ejuice mix and picked up the cheapest model Aspire metal and glass "nicotine tank" that they had for $10 plus a pack of coils and went home. This time I'd noticed that the vape tasted MUCH better, it was sweet and tasted like candy. I was still smoking cigs at that point, but I'd puff on my vape more I noticed. I went out and picked up a Spinner 2 battery to replace the unovapor cheap-o's and the big breakthrough came after I met up with my longtime best friend on April Fool's eve and we stayed at my place and drank beer and played playstation 4 all night.
I woke up in the morning after a night of heavy drinking and smoking, only to find I was out of cigarettes. I picked up the vape and told my friend about it while he was waking up and getting ready to go home after crashing on my couch for the night because I won't drive drunk anymore when we drink we stay put so he couldn't get home until I took him in the morning. I was vaping the whole ride to drop him off at home, and after he got out of my car on April Fool's Day I went in the store and got my usual Marlboro Menthols. I hopped back in my car and lit one up, it tasted TERRIBLE and i threw it right out the window...I thought the cigarettes were old and stale, but I light up another just to see and sure enough it wasn't stale...after I'd been finally vaping more and it tasted so good, the tobacco tasted like GARBAGE compared to the vape so I threw the second cigarette out the window and when I got home I threw the pack straight in the garbage and I haven't touched one since!
Things were slowly coming together but I still had a few bumps on the road headed my way. Here I ended up liking vaping so much that I bought an Aspire Nautilus and an Aspire Atlantis 2. When you vape 18mg on an Atlantis 2, sometimes no kidding you exhale and almost feel as if the earth is moving and pulling you down inside of it! I was waking up every day and running to the restroom to relieve myself because I was getting too much nicotine in my system that it was making me physically get sick in the morning! I've never had anything like this happen to me, and the only big changes in my life at the time was that I'd quit smoking and started vaping. I talked to a few people and they suggested I crank down the nicotine level dramatically and try it. I tried the same juice that I'd quit smoking on (Mt. Baker Vapor Gwar Spew) at 6mg nicotine and the problem was gone! So sure, it took some trial and error and things don't always go perfect for everyone you just have to get out there and try it. Your life is worth trying to find the perfect fit for yourself so that you can quit tobacco all together.
So during this time the guy who originally got me to try vaping tried to accuse me of stealing a few $8 parts for his vaporizers, and while I've been a lot of things in my life, a thief is NOT one and after I told him I didn't steal it he called me a liar which thieves and liars are my two least favorite things in the world and for an old friend to call me both just blew my mind, but he's got mental issues so I wanted to beat him up for dragging my name through the mud but I just cut all ties with him. A week later he emailed me an apology and said he found the missing things under the couch but I can't be around people like that so I still won't reply. I just figured I would take my Vision Spinner 2 battery and next person who asked me about vaping I would give it to them, which I did and I hope the guy got some use out of it. I haven't seen him in a while so I'm not sure if he's smoking or vaping. I went on to buy a bunch of stuff, once you quit smoking you have money to play with so I got an iTaste 30w vv/vw mod and for my three month no smoking present to myself was a Sigelei 100w vv/vw mod which I love because I got two 2800 MAH batteries and it lasts me a days between charges!
I'd come into some money a few months ago and when I got the Sigelei this guy I'd just met was sitting there at another meeting for work and he said what is that a 30w just like mine? And I said no, its the 100w. He called me out in the middle of the room and tried to make me look like a fool, he said why would you spend that much money on a 100w mod? You DON'T need 100w to vape...EVER. He had a big smile on his face like he just burst my bubble and he liked bursting bubbles, but I said okay smart guy how many batteries does your 30w Sigelei take? He said one but it's an 18650 2000 mah battery and I've only got to charge it at night. I said that's nice, well this one takes two 18650 batteries and I picked up 2800mah batteries and I get two days at least out of my charges so while you're fumbling around with your battery late at night I've already woke up, took a puff, and rolled back over to sleep. Everyone laughed and called the guy an idiot for trying to be so smug with me. He was constantly trying to tell me how to spend my own money and then he started trying to borrow money off of me all the time, if I would refuse he would say "well you bought yourself two pairs of $120 Oakley's and you can't even lend me a few dollars?!" like it was my job to make sure that he had money at all times or something, he was just a very rude very ignorant person towards others and I can't be around people like that very much or I'd get violent. Long story short with that guy, they found out he'd lied about never being arrested he was working with us while he was on probation for stealing an old lady's purse! They found out and canned his .... so fast it made his head spin. He's still trying to interfere with my life to this day I blocked contact with him over the phone, email, and he was even harassing me on eBay to borrow money it was ridiculous!
I'd BETTER NOT even get any emails from him asking to borrow money on this website or I'd be FURIOUS lol!
But I just wanted to share my personal adventure and talk about what got me from thinking about it to doing it and maybe someone else who is thinking about it will find something I've dealt with myself useful and consider what I've been through. I sure wish everyone in my life would quit smoking but most people have the misconception that vaping is "expensive". Smoking cost me a whole lot more per week, but when you add in juice, coils, a decent mod, batteries, I can see where they are coming from. I tell them you don't need all of that to get started though, I didn't. I got started on hand me down batteries and a $8 plastic nicotine tank.
Its just like everything else in life you have to put something into it if you want to get something out of it sometimes. Thank you.
I was a long time smoker. I'm not even 35 yet and I was a daily smoker for about half of my life. I'm from the Appalachian Mountain area, so smoking and drinking are kind of just things that you do when you are young to rebel and be "cool" to fit in. I had been having breathing issues which kept getting worse and worse until one day I ran into an old friend from the small town I grew up in at the beginning of this year (2015). He told me how he switched to vaping and now he can breathe much easier and he started telling me all of the benefits of vaping and how it tasted so good he couldn't go back, I just thought he was kidding himself and I thought after all the times I'd tried to quit it couldn't be that easy! Gum, snus (which isn't really quitting anyway), patches that gave me terrible nightmares every night, I'd tried it all once or twice but then I started noticing people carrying around vapes more and more so I thought maybe it was something I should give a try but I didn't have the extra cash at the time to invest in it.
The old friend of mine was really cool at first, he had a few Unovapor cheap-o stick batteries laying around and he gave them to me. I went to the local vape shop (my little town has had two spring up within the past year) and found a cheap-o little plastic tank for it because I was really scared of sinking a bunch of cash into the whole thing and what if I didn't like it? I do give that old friend credit for showing me the way and encouraging me to try it although the story doesn't have a happy ending but I'll get to that in a bit...The first time I walked into the local vape shop they asked me what kind of flavor I wanted, I looked at the wall full of choices and was very overwhelmed. I said I have no idea I smoke menthol cigs and if I could get something similar to that maybe I could trick my brain into replacing cigs with juice? They gave me a Black Menthol (Bull Dog) mix and out the door I went. I filled up my little plastic tank at home and gave it a rip....I hated the stuff! It was sickening and tasted NOTHING like my Marlboro Menthols that I'd smoked for years and years, so I'd hit it once in a while but for the most part I was still smoking.
The breakthrough came when I was sitting in a meeting for work and I noticed before we got started that more than half of the other guys in the room had vaporizers sticking out of their pockets and I asked a guy named Joe how he liked it. Joe is a very intelligent, insightful guy and me and him just always seem to be on the same page mentally, and he told me he loves it and hasn't smoked in over a year and how great he felt, I wanted to feel like Joe too he looked a lot better the past year that he's quit he just looks healthier. I told him I'd given it a shot and the menthol stuff was just nasty, he said that all the local vape shops are steering people to tobacco flavors when they first make the switch. Their intentions are good but they are going about things the wrong way....Joe knew I had a little boy at home and I didn't smoke in the house before. Here are his words of wisdom to me and I'll never forget it:
"Think about it, when you switch over to vaping you don't want the same exact thing that you were smoking because what message is that sending to your body when you are inside your home vaping when you used to have to smoke outside? Your body doesn't know the difference between cigs and ejuice and if they taste exactly the same then the only thing your body is thinking is that its now okay to smoke in the house! Do NOT try to quit with a menthol or tobacco flavor because everyone I've seen try to switch ended up just smoking more cigarettes after they gave up on the vapes. Try a fruit flavor, something sweet and your body will know it isn't the same thing, and go from there to see what you like try a little bit of everything until you find your perfect flavor and vape it all day."
This was the most helpful thing anyone has told me in years. I don't know why but even to this day when I'm in the vape shop and a young person comes in and says they want to switch from cigarettes the staff always asks what kind of smokes they prefer and tell them what is the closest flavor to that brand of cigarette! I went and found an 18mg berry/watermelon ejuice mix and picked up the cheapest model Aspire metal and glass "nicotine tank" that they had for $10 plus a pack of coils and went home. This time I'd noticed that the vape tasted MUCH better, it was sweet and tasted like candy. I was still smoking cigs at that point, but I'd puff on my vape more I noticed. I went out and picked up a Spinner 2 battery to replace the unovapor cheap-o's and the big breakthrough came after I met up with my longtime best friend on April Fool's eve and we stayed at my place and drank beer and played playstation 4 all night.
I woke up in the morning after a night of heavy drinking and smoking, only to find I was out of cigarettes. I picked up the vape and told my friend about it while he was waking up and getting ready to go home after crashing on my couch for the night because I won't drive drunk anymore when we drink we stay put so he couldn't get home until I took him in the morning. I was vaping the whole ride to drop him off at home, and after he got out of my car on April Fool's Day I went in the store and got my usual Marlboro Menthols. I hopped back in my car and lit one up, it tasted TERRIBLE and i threw it right out the window...I thought the cigarettes were old and stale, but I light up another just to see and sure enough it wasn't stale...after I'd been finally vaping more and it tasted so good, the tobacco tasted like GARBAGE compared to the vape so I threw the second cigarette out the window and when I got home I threw the pack straight in the garbage and I haven't touched one since!
Things were slowly coming together but I still had a few bumps on the road headed my way. Here I ended up liking vaping so much that I bought an Aspire Nautilus and an Aspire Atlantis 2. When you vape 18mg on an Atlantis 2, sometimes no kidding you exhale and almost feel as if the earth is moving and pulling you down inside of it! I was waking up every day and running to the restroom to relieve myself because I was getting too much nicotine in my system that it was making me physically get sick in the morning! I've never had anything like this happen to me, and the only big changes in my life at the time was that I'd quit smoking and started vaping. I talked to a few people and they suggested I crank down the nicotine level dramatically and try it. I tried the same juice that I'd quit smoking on (Mt. Baker Vapor Gwar Spew) at 6mg nicotine and the problem was gone! So sure, it took some trial and error and things don't always go perfect for everyone you just have to get out there and try it. Your life is worth trying to find the perfect fit for yourself so that you can quit tobacco all together.
So during this time the guy who originally got me to try vaping tried to accuse me of stealing a few $8 parts for his vaporizers, and while I've been a lot of things in my life, a thief is NOT one and after I told him I didn't steal it he called me a liar which thieves and liars are my two least favorite things in the world and for an old friend to call me both just blew my mind, but he's got mental issues so I wanted to beat him up for dragging my name through the mud but I just cut all ties with him. A week later he emailed me an apology and said he found the missing things under the couch but I can't be around people like that so I still won't reply. I just figured I would take my Vision Spinner 2 battery and next person who asked me about vaping I would give it to them, which I did and I hope the guy got some use out of it. I haven't seen him in a while so I'm not sure if he's smoking or vaping. I went on to buy a bunch of stuff, once you quit smoking you have money to play with so I got an iTaste 30w vv/vw mod and for my three month no smoking present to myself was a Sigelei 100w vv/vw mod which I love because I got two 2800 MAH batteries and it lasts me a days between charges!
I'd come into some money a few months ago and when I got the Sigelei this guy I'd just met was sitting there at another meeting for work and he said what is that a 30w just like mine? And I said no, its the 100w. He called me out in the middle of the room and tried to make me look like a fool, he said why would you spend that much money on a 100w mod? You DON'T need 100w to vape...EVER. He had a big smile on his face like he just burst my bubble and he liked bursting bubbles, but I said okay smart guy how many batteries does your 30w Sigelei take? He said one but it's an 18650 2000 mah battery and I've only got to charge it at night. I said that's nice, well this one takes two 18650 batteries and I picked up 2800mah batteries and I get two days at least out of my charges so while you're fumbling around with your battery late at night I've already woke up, took a puff, and rolled back over to sleep. Everyone laughed and called the guy an idiot for trying to be so smug with me. He was constantly trying to tell me how to spend my own money and then he started trying to borrow money off of me all the time, if I would refuse he would say "well you bought yourself two pairs of $120 Oakley's and you can't even lend me a few dollars?!" like it was my job to make sure that he had money at all times or something, he was just a very rude very ignorant person towards others and I can't be around people like that very much or I'd get violent. Long story short with that guy, they found out he'd lied about never being arrested he was working with us while he was on probation for stealing an old lady's purse! They found out and canned his .... so fast it made his head spin. He's still trying to interfere with my life to this day I blocked contact with him over the phone, email, and he was even harassing me on eBay to borrow money it was ridiculous!
I'd BETTER NOT even get any emails from him asking to borrow money on this website or I'd be FURIOUS lol!
But I just wanted to share my personal adventure and talk about what got me from thinking about it to doing it and maybe someone else who is thinking about it will find something I've dealt with myself useful and consider what I've been through. I sure wish everyone in my life would quit smoking but most people have the misconception that vaping is "expensive". Smoking cost me a whole lot more per week, but when you add in juice, coils, a decent mod, batteries, I can see where they are coming from. I tell them you don't need all of that to get started though, I didn't. I got started on hand me down batteries and a $8 plastic nicotine tank.
Its just like everything else in life you have to put something into it if you want to get something out of it sometimes. Thank you.
