Started the habit now 23 years ago. Grew up watching my mom hound my dad to quit, and of course the house never smelled very goodā¦ Anyway, I did it nonetheless. Got my first apartment and decided to see what freedom felt like. For some reason, smoking became a sort of symbol that I was a grown man. There were no more commercials on TV for it, but I remembered all the ācool peopleā smoked from when I was a kid. Most of my friends did already anyway.
I remembered when I first started, the head rush and tingly feeling was kind of intense, even fun. Having never been involved in any sort of drug or narcotic, this was a weird thing. Nothing like the buzz of booze. Friends laughed at me when I said there was no way that feeling would ever wear off. Of course it did though. By then it was no longer symbolic, but a bad habit.
During the time I smoked (as secretly as I could around family), I watched my dad succumb but was still undeterred. āI have a lot of years to go before anything negative happensā was repeated many times, for many years. And to this day I never did have any serious health issues due to smoking, although time will tell if I truly escaped successfully from big damage.
I knew I should quit, but lacked the motivation. Just never really felt like it. Even when I found vaping, I was not in search of a smoking cessation path. My wife and I were on an ultra rare weekend getaway (only one ever, actually) to Minneapolis. Accumulated enough miles and points for a flight and hotel so we went for it. We said we would go ahead and refrain from smoking due to the hassle of going outside every break and stuff, so we didnāt bring any.
At around the third beer, though, we both really wanted to smoke. That night we did not; it was late and I was too hosed up to go buy a pack. But the next day, we said we DID want to get some smokes. But again, hotel room rules meant weād have to trudge to the lobby every time. Buzzkiller.
So I remembered those commercials for Blu e-cigs. Always laughed at them, but thought maybe they could sub for us during the weekend. Found a local head shop that had e-cigs (did not know there was a movement called āvapingā at the time) and headed out. When we got there, we were greeted with not just those silly little Blu things, but shelves of exotic looking things, as well as seemingly endless rows of different flavored juices. Wow! Who knew? So, we walked out with his and hers Tesla Sidewinder IIās and A4 attys as kits. As for juice, naturally the first bottle was a cigarette flavor. Also picked up a Dragonfruit blend on a whim just because.
The cigarette one tasted like how a new pack of cigs smells. Having never tasted e-juice before, it was fine. We got small little clouds and it was funā¦ So fun in fact, that we never smoked again. And after we tried the Dragon Ball juice, we poured the analog flavored one down the drain.
Needless to say, Iāve learned much about this hobby since then, and have never had even the slightest urge to smoke again.
Thatās my long winded story. It could be worse; I really truncated it!
