Hello to everyone!
I am 53 years old and smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day for 32 years. I have tried to quit multiple times using different methods including cessation classes, gum, patches, cold turkey, smokeless products, prescriptions, even first generation e-cigarettes. I had some short-term success but nothing lasted.
Three and a half years ago, after bowling league, a young gentleman sat down beside me, and set modular tank and battery advanced personal vaporizer (an APV mod) down on the table between us. I recognized it as a newer version of the little cigarette sized/styled e-cigarette I had tried about 2 years prior. We began to talk.
I asked if that was indeed an APV and he answered that it was. I asked how it was working for him and he said he had be cigarette free for over a year. I replied that I was happy for him, but my own attempt at quitting using the little first generation e-cigs failed. He asked why and I explained that I could literally make myself nauseous with nicotine, using of various nicotine replacements, but nothing would satisfy the craving of "feeling" the smoke in my lungs.
He told me about the new equipment, like he was using, had the ability to create much more, and denser, vapor production. In addition, some designs had also added the ability to adjust power to the coils, allowing the user to tune the vapor output to what was needed at the moment.
He had some spare drip tips with him and he offered to let me try his to see how much of a difference there was between what he was using and what I had previously used. I eagerly jumped at the chance.
My previous vaping experience had been only marginally successful. The "vape pen" did indeed provide nicotine (I actually got dizzy a couple of times until I found the correct nicotine strength cartridge), and it would produce a visible cloud of vapor, but it was unable to give me the feeling in my lungs that I craved when not smoking.
When I tried the young man's that night in the bowling alley; I actually coughed like a first-time smoker! He grinned at me and made an adjustment on the machine and let me try again. It was much better but still a little coughing. Another adjustment. Now I could draw in the vapor without coughing and have the sensation in my lungs that no other replacement had been able to provide. I was excited!
I was concerned about the cost. My previous attempt at vaping cost me about $130 in hardware and the replacement cartridges were about half the cost of a pack of cigarettes for five cartridges. Cheaper than smoking but still a significant start-up cost. Now, two years later, here was a much more advanced device and I shuddered to think what the price tag was going to be. He told me he bought it at a local vape shop and paid about $80 for everything. I was stunned!
He explained that with the improved technology more adults were switching to them, more businesses were seeing that there was real market potential and therefore more competition, which helped to lower the price making it even more attractive to the consumer. We talked a while longer about use, and maintenance, and I finally left.
A week and a half later, on December 28, 2012, I walked into that same vapor shop and purchased my first APV. I bought it with the hope/expectation that it would at least reduce the amount of cigarettes I would smoke. If I was really fortunate I might be able to quit some day down the road.
This was not like previous attempts to quit where I was "determined" and tossed all my cigarettes and ashtrays. When I got home, I had 12 cigarettes left in the last pack of cigarettes I owned. I tossed them in my nightstand and placed the ashtrays on top of the fridge. Like I said; I was simply trying to cut back.
Jump ahead two years to January 1,2015. Vaping has been so effective for me that I moved the ashtrays out to the garage (saving them only for the occasional visitor that smokes) and I threw out that very same partial pack of cigarettes from my nightstand. It still had 8 VERY stale cigarettes in it.
Today I consider myself an ex-smoker. I believe that I will never go back to smoking. I no longer think about cigarettes. I can be around smokers and it does not tempt me or even smell good. About once a year I will take a drag from a friend's cigarette, just to see if I am missing anything, and it tastes horrible. It makes me feel horrible. I can't figure out how on earth I ever smoked in the first place.
I am 53 years old and smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day for 32 years. I have tried to quit multiple times using different methods including cessation classes, gum, patches, cold turkey, smokeless products, prescriptions, even first generation e-cigarettes. I had some short-term success but nothing lasted.
Three and a half years ago, after bowling league, a young gentleman sat down beside me, and set modular tank and battery advanced personal vaporizer (an APV mod) down on the table between us. I recognized it as a newer version of the little cigarette sized/styled e-cigarette I had tried about 2 years prior. We began to talk.
I asked if that was indeed an APV and he answered that it was. I asked how it was working for him and he said he had be cigarette free for over a year. I replied that I was happy for him, but my own attempt at quitting using the little first generation e-cigs failed. He asked why and I explained that I could literally make myself nauseous with nicotine, using of various nicotine replacements, but nothing would satisfy the craving of "feeling" the smoke in my lungs.
He told me about the new equipment, like he was using, had the ability to create much more, and denser, vapor production. In addition, some designs had also added the ability to adjust power to the coils, allowing the user to tune the vapor output to what was needed at the moment.
He had some spare drip tips with him and he offered to let me try his to see how much of a difference there was between what he was using and what I had previously used. I eagerly jumped at the chance.
My previous vaping experience had been only marginally successful. The "vape pen" did indeed provide nicotine (I actually got dizzy a couple of times until I found the correct nicotine strength cartridge), and it would produce a visible cloud of vapor, but it was unable to give me the feeling in my lungs that I craved when not smoking.
When I tried the young man's that night in the bowling alley; I actually coughed like a first-time smoker! He grinned at me and made an adjustment on the machine and let me try again. It was much better but still a little coughing. Another adjustment. Now I could draw in the vapor without coughing and have the sensation in my lungs that no other replacement had been able to provide. I was excited!
I was concerned about the cost. My previous attempt at vaping cost me about $130 in hardware and the replacement cartridges were about half the cost of a pack of cigarettes for five cartridges. Cheaper than smoking but still a significant start-up cost. Now, two years later, here was a much more advanced device and I shuddered to think what the price tag was going to be. He told me he bought it at a local vape shop and paid about $80 for everything. I was stunned!
He explained that with the improved technology more adults were switching to them, more businesses were seeing that there was real market potential and therefore more competition, which helped to lower the price making it even more attractive to the consumer. We talked a while longer about use, and maintenance, and I finally left.
A week and a half later, on December 28, 2012, I walked into that same vapor shop and purchased my first APV. I bought it with the hope/expectation that it would at least reduce the amount of cigarettes I would smoke. If I was really fortunate I might be able to quit some day down the road.
This was not like previous attempts to quit where I was "determined" and tossed all my cigarettes and ashtrays. When I got home, I had 12 cigarettes left in the last pack of cigarettes I owned. I tossed them in my nightstand and placed the ashtrays on top of the fridge. Like I said; I was simply trying to cut back.
Jump ahead two years to January 1,2015. Vaping has been so effective for me that I moved the ashtrays out to the garage (saving them only for the occasional visitor that smokes) and I threw out that very same partial pack of cigarettes from my nightstand. It still had 8 VERY stale cigarettes in it.
Today I consider myself an ex-smoker. I believe that I will never go back to smoking. I no longer think about cigarettes. I can be around smokers and it does not tempt me or even smell good. About once a year I will take a drag from a friend's cigarette, just to see if I am missing anything, and it tastes horrible. It makes me feel horrible. I can't figure out how on earth I ever smoked in the first place.
I'm too dang cheap to be paying $2.50 and up for commercial coil heads so very early on I learned how to rebuild my Viva Nova heads and haven't bought anything but wick and wire since. But I am also lazy. So unless there is substantial return on effort, I don't do ANY more than I have to. So my builds a simple and pretty basic. The fanciest I make are basic claptons and I buy the clapton wire pre-wrapped on a spool. That way I just wind it like a basic coil. 
That was the end of trying to keep up with the latest and greatest... mostly. 
), and laid up a 4 year supply of nicotine (FU FDA! 
). After more than a year that I have stuck with the DIY; it has become more enduring than most.
