Sunday 9 September 2012

Quitting Smoking With E-Cigarettes

I began smoking aged 14 and as i'm 43 now, and if my crude finger counting is correct, that makes it 29 years that i have been sucking goodness knows what chemicals into my body.
Like almost everyone who starts smoking at a young age, i only began because i thought it looked cool and there was an element of danger about it as we posted a younger kid to act as a look-out as we stood behind the school art block. Getting caught would mean a caning from the headmaster and a letter home but i managed to avoid that fate but those few puffs around the back with the cool kids led onto a 20 a day habit that has stuck with me since.
I have tried giving up a few times, even managed it for 7 weeks once with a stopping smoking group where i got given a 'I've Quit' mug which came in handy in the morning for my coffee and cigarette when i started up again.
I have used patches, throat spray, lozenges, chewing gum and almost every type of quitting aid there is but deep down inside i never wanted to quit because i enjoyed the cigarette breaks at work. A chance to get away for 10 minutes every few hours, a reason to stand outside on your own and have a few minutes peace. So i knew i wouldn't quit but it made me feel good that i was trying, however half-arsed and fruitless i knew it was.
Things seemed to have changed with the e-cigarette though and i see more and more people stood around puffing on the things with the brightly coloured LED light and blowing out plumes of smoke, or vapour.
I made a few enquires but everybody had different ones and some that were dismissed as rubbish were raved about by other people and i admit the disposable 10 motives one i tried from TESCO was great for about 10 puffs and then i may as well have been puffing on a lolly stick as much use it was but i am reliably informed the cheap, shop bought ones are all the same and i needed to buy a proper kit so much reviewing of websites and forums later and i have ordered one.
There are much better reasons for stopping and if you ask anyone they will state they are doing it for their health, the expense or the smell it leaves behind on clothes and it is the craving that keeps them smoking.
For me it is the fag-breaks that keep me hooked so e-cigarettes could be the key for me to carry on slipping away outside for 10 minutes every few hours and blow smoke about.
How cool they look i don't know yet and looking cool is important because if it wasn't, most smokers wouldn't have started in the first place if they are being honest.

13 comments:

Cheezy said...

Whatever way you choose, good luck. Hope you can kick it.

I've 'given up' smoking several times, so I know how hard it is.

I'm currently in a "I'll only smoke 'em if they're yours" phase... and hoping to ween myself off this practice soon...

It definitely gets easier over time, as less & less of my friends are smoking...

david g said...

You can do it if you really want to, Lucy.

One thing that helps is to visit the radiology department of a hospital periodically and wander around the wards where people are drawing cigarette smoke in through a hole in their throat or have just had their legs amputated or their tongue.

Cigarettes and religion are two preventable curses!

Aaron said...

I saw my first e cig smoker at a football (American) game last weekend. I found myself getting pretty disgusted with the idea that every time I inhaled a little bit of this dude's second-hand water vapor (or so we're told), I was really inhaling this dude's little lung/spit particles.

Oddly, I don't really mind being around actual smokers, so I've kind of been debating how I find e cigs nastier than real cigs ever since. My current theory is that real cigarette smoke isn't as nasty because I must believe that all the poison and radiation and such kills off all the nasty germs from the smokers lungs, thus purifying the spit particles in the real smoke.

Anonymous said...

lucy,

i had a great grandfaather who died at 80. he was roofing his house, slipped, feel, died. he had smoked for 70 years and his fingers were stained by the tobacco.

point, it appears smoking is correlated to cancer, not causal. kinda like global warming (had to get it in there).

you can quit if it is important enough to you. my dad literally just stopped one day and never started again.

choices, decisions, consequences...

if you are doing it for health reasons and can't afford the health care then go to mexico and sneak across the US border and we'll provide you with "free" care.

q

Lucy said...

Nice angle effay, i never considered that. According to the adverts the vapour is nicotine and a few chemicals that allow you to 'blow out smoke' but there are some water vapour ones but with no nicotine in them and they seem to be phase 2 stopping smoking.

I always had reasons not to stop rather than to stop, main one being ciggie breaks at work. Now i can still do that and 'give up', i will give it a go.

Clickacig - An Ecig Retailer said...

I can't believe you effay but anyways, that's still one way to put it. You think that regular smoking is less nastier because it kills off the nasty germs in the lungs? You're more disgusted with vapor than smoke? No offense but I think it's all in your mind. At least I know now, so that's that's the reason why some people overreact when they see someone vape. lol. But you know right, that you inhale hazardous smoke from cigars...I mean you say that poison and radiation kills the nasty germs from the smokers lungs...do you really think that such substances stay in the smokers lungs alone..? No I guess not, it also is included in the smoke.. meaning 2nd hand smoke also is hazardous to the one who gets to inhale it. Get the point?

Kind Regards

sheena said...

E-cigs are always the best choice if you want to gradually quit smoking. This works best if you accompany it with exercise.

Lucy said...

I would have been with you all the way if that last word had been chocolate Sheena.

Daniel said...

This is really very interesting and great way to write it.
People who read it they can be sure to quit as it shows us a perfect way of quit smoking.
For people who want to quit smoking cigarettes, you'll find this information here
Quit smoking using hypnosis

E-Cig Supplier said...

Yup! Disposable e-cigarettes made a lot of impact for those who cannot quit smoking. Good that you switched. :)

e liquid flavours said...

I've been using the e-cigarette for 2 months now & I haven't smoked tobacco cigs since after that.I never thought I could ever quit, BUT I have . If your really serious about quitting the e-cigarette is the way to go!

Unknown said...

E-cigarettes are a band aid solution. Nicotine patches, too. They are one and the same. They are also the same because they've got an identical underlying strategy: that of replacing stimuli, in this case, the cigarette. But instead of just replacing the stimuli, why not realign the entire thought process itself, so that this kind of stimuli wouldn't even figure in one's waking mind? That's my take, anyway.

MakeTheShiftNow.com

Unknown said...

It's not easy to turn cold turkey especially when you have been doing it for more than 20 years. Electronic cigarettes were made to help people have a healthier alternative rather than inhaling all the carcinogens that analogs contain. What type of juice do you regularly use?

Frankie Edwards