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Today's the day. I've really done it.
Aug. 24th, 2016 06:11 pmIt's been one year since I last smoked a cigarette. I can actually call myself an ex-smoker now.
Yes, I still vape, that's how I did it. Over the past year I've come down from 18 mg/ml nicotine juice down to 3, and some of the flavors I'm currently using have none at all. This stuff saves lives, FOR REAL.
It's amazing, the changes in attitudes that I've seen. I started smoking in my mid-teens, in the mid-80s, in very tobacco-friendly rural Virginia. You could smoke in the grocery store! I remember smoking sections in restaurants, on buses and airplanes, etc. Most of my friends circles in my late teens, 20s, and 30s were composed of smokers. I'd say nearly half of my older RL friends still are, in the same boat as me, trying to quit as middle age comes on and we finally start to feel the effects.
My parents always wanted me to quit, and my mom in particular got so up in my face about it that it made me double down and become less likely to quit for a while, I think. I actually told her once that I would smoke an extra cigarette for every time she brought it up!
Nagging doesn't help. Shaming doesn't help. What eventually motivated me to quit was, frankly, money. Cigarettes are so expensive in Chicago I just started hating myself for all the money I was wasting. Vape shops were everywhere, so I just looked at my last pack of cigs from the 2 cartons I'd bought in NC where they're half the price, swore I'd never pay Chicago prices again, spent two packs' worth at the local vape shop (an indie business with juice made in-house), and I never did buy cigarettes in Chicago again. My last one, on August 24, 2015, was bummed from a co-worker. Menthol. Blech.
Cigarette smoke still smells good to me, but the desire to do it myself is all but gone. I still have sensually vivid dreams about it though, and I'm told that might never stop entirely. It's OK. It can stay in my dreams.
Yes, I still vape, that's how I did it. Over the past year I've come down from 18 mg/ml nicotine juice down to 3, and some of the flavors I'm currently using have none at all. This stuff saves lives, FOR REAL.
It's amazing, the changes in attitudes that I've seen. I started smoking in my mid-teens, in the mid-80s, in very tobacco-friendly rural Virginia. You could smoke in the grocery store! I remember smoking sections in restaurants, on buses and airplanes, etc. Most of my friends circles in my late teens, 20s, and 30s were composed of smokers. I'd say nearly half of my older RL friends still are, in the same boat as me, trying to quit as middle age comes on and we finally start to feel the effects.
My parents always wanted me to quit, and my mom in particular got so up in my face about it that it made me double down and become less likely to quit for a while, I think. I actually told her once that I would smoke an extra cigarette for every time she brought it up!
Nagging doesn't help. Shaming doesn't help. What eventually motivated me to quit was, frankly, money. Cigarettes are so expensive in Chicago I just started hating myself for all the money I was wasting. Vape shops were everywhere, so I just looked at my last pack of cigs from the 2 cartons I'd bought in NC where they're half the price, swore I'd never pay Chicago prices again, spent two packs' worth at the local vape shop (an indie business with juice made in-house), and I never did buy cigarettes in Chicago again. My last one, on August 24, 2015, was bummed from a co-worker. Menthol. Blech.
Cigarette smoke still smells good to me, but the desire to do it myself is all but gone. I still have sensually vivid dreams about it though, and I'm told that might never stop entirely. It's OK. It can stay in my dreams.
