Story Time with your Dodgy Uncle Brave
Apr 19, 2018 7:14:06 GMT 10
via mobile
GT, Fatman, and 17 more like this
Post by Brave on Apr 19, 2018 7:14:06 GMT 10
This is probably long overdue, but we're here now, so you might as well buckle in for a ramble if you've got nothing better going on?
Great! I'll get the kettle on then.
So I started smoking not long after turning fifteen. Averaged at least a pack a day for around twenty five years, and a whole lot more on weekends. Earnestly tried to quit for the last decade of that, give or take some, but it was an inevitable cycle of angst, frustration, failure, and depression for me. Usually in that order. Cold turkey, the patches, the Champix prescriptions, the inhalers, the gum (oh lawd the gum), quit programs, books, natural remedies, self-help... you name it. Actually, I never got around to hypnosis, but for a time that was seriously considered too.
Whatever the method, I could never go more than a fortnight without crawling back to the same old habit, and it was quite literally killing me. In more ways than one. The only time my smoking even slowed in twenty five years was through one particularly serious bout of pneumonia, and even then I somehow managed to squeeze in the odd cigarette between hacking coughs and phlegm. Sneaking out of bed to stand and sway - all dizzy, fevered, and pale - out in the cold night air while I dragged it all in. Quite the picture I imagine.
Thinking back, those memories make me physically cringe still today.
Fast forward to Western Australia in 2013, and I didn't know anyone that vaped. I'd never even seen a real life e-cigarette, let alone anyone actually using one. A friend of mine 'heard of a guy that once worked with some guy' who had some success with this newfangled e-cigarette 'fad'. As a result, they bought me back this super dodgy disposable cigalike from a trip overseas at the end of 2013. I was very grateful, but to be honest, couldn't even get the damn thing to work, let alone get a puff out of it. In retrospect that was probably for the best, but although I never had the heart to tell my friend, the idea of it had me more than intrigued...
From there I combed the net for everything and anything I could find. As I had no real idea what I was even looking for, that ended up being a fat lot of not much at all. It took quite some time, but eventually I stumbled across a vaping web store that didn't look like a derranged schoolkids home page, and my first cigalike starter kit arrived on 21 January 2014. I was excited, but from all my previous quit attempts I still had a mountain of doubts to climb. After messing around with the new kit however, I changed my tune a fair bit. Some needling doubts still remained, but gradually I began to believe this e-cigarette idea could actually work for me. Sure it could, but would it?
There was only ever one way to find out.
To get over my persistent anxiety at the idea of finally letting go of the anologs, I cut a deal with myself: Two weeks. That was it. I'd give up the smokes completely for a fortnight and see how I felt afterwards. At the end of the fortnight, I could go back to how things were before if I wanted, but thankfully, I never did.
Being an avid indoor soccer player, for some years prior I had used a small GPS tracking device while playing to record my game stats. Nothing too flashy or pin-point accurate, just some basic game data like top speed, number of sprints, distance covered, that sort of thing. So imagine my surprise when after just two weeks of vaping without cigarettes, every single stat this thing recorded had at least doubled. Seriously.
Doubled.
I was gobsmacked. Not only that, but I felt better than I had in years. I celebrated my first two weeks of full time vaping by throwing out my stinky old ashtrays, tobacco dregs, lighters, roly papers, the lot. I don't think I ever marked the exact day, but that was February 2014. I won't regale you with all my adventures of using different vape gear, but needless to say I stuck out the whole first year on various cigalikes from the same company that I'd started with. From there, I discovered the previous incarnation of this very forum, and my poor little brain pretty much exploded.
Sweet mercy! There were other people who vaped!
In 2015, I had still never met another person using e-cigarettes, so suddenly finding a whole forum full of them was an incredible experience for me. What's more, all these people were super friendly, incredibly knowledgeable, always happy to answer my vacuous questions, or point me in the right direction. I'm ever grateful for that guidance, as it led me to discover the joys of coil wrapping, DIY liquids, and a whole range of gear and information I would never have thought possible otherwise.
I had a forum hiatus for a while there - the smoking has long gone, though life's ups and downs still remain - but as you can see, I'm still here. Still writing super long-winded posts, and asking more vacuous questions than ever. We never stop learning right?
I think your tea has gone cold. Let me get you another?
Great! I'll get the kettle on then.
So I started smoking not long after turning fifteen. Averaged at least a pack a day for around twenty five years, and a whole lot more on weekends. Earnestly tried to quit for the last decade of that, give or take some, but it was an inevitable cycle of angst, frustration, failure, and depression for me. Usually in that order. Cold turkey, the patches, the Champix prescriptions, the inhalers, the gum (oh lawd the gum), quit programs, books, natural remedies, self-help... you name it. Actually, I never got around to hypnosis, but for a time that was seriously considered too.
Whatever the method, I could never go more than a fortnight without crawling back to the same old habit, and it was quite literally killing me. In more ways than one. The only time my smoking even slowed in twenty five years was through one particularly serious bout of pneumonia, and even then I somehow managed to squeeze in the odd cigarette between hacking coughs and phlegm. Sneaking out of bed to stand and sway - all dizzy, fevered, and pale - out in the cold night air while I dragged it all in. Quite the picture I imagine.
Thinking back, those memories make me physically cringe still today.
Fast forward to Western Australia in 2013, and I didn't know anyone that vaped. I'd never even seen a real life e-cigarette, let alone anyone actually using one. A friend of mine 'heard of a guy that once worked with some guy' who had some success with this newfangled e-cigarette 'fad'. As a result, they bought me back this super dodgy disposable cigalike from a trip overseas at the end of 2013. I was very grateful, but to be honest, couldn't even get the damn thing to work, let alone get a puff out of it. In retrospect that was probably for the best, but although I never had the heart to tell my friend, the idea of it had me more than intrigued...
From there I combed the net for everything and anything I could find. As I had no real idea what I was even looking for, that ended up being a fat lot of not much at all. It took quite some time, but eventually I stumbled across a vaping web store that didn't look like a derranged schoolkids home page, and my first cigalike starter kit arrived on 21 January 2014. I was excited, but from all my previous quit attempts I still had a mountain of doubts to climb. After messing around with the new kit however, I changed my tune a fair bit. Some needling doubts still remained, but gradually I began to believe this e-cigarette idea could actually work for me. Sure it could, but would it?
There was only ever one way to find out.
To get over my persistent anxiety at the idea of finally letting go of the anologs, I cut a deal with myself: Two weeks. That was it. I'd give up the smokes completely for a fortnight and see how I felt afterwards. At the end of the fortnight, I could go back to how things were before if I wanted, but thankfully, I never did.
Being an avid indoor soccer player, for some years prior I had used a small GPS tracking device while playing to record my game stats. Nothing too flashy or pin-point accurate, just some basic game data like top speed, number of sprints, distance covered, that sort of thing. So imagine my surprise when after just two weeks of vaping without cigarettes, every single stat this thing recorded had at least doubled. Seriously.
Doubled.
I was gobsmacked. Not only that, but I felt better than I had in years. I celebrated my first two weeks of full time vaping by throwing out my stinky old ashtrays, tobacco dregs, lighters, roly papers, the lot. I don't think I ever marked the exact day, but that was February 2014. I won't regale you with all my adventures of using different vape gear, but needless to say I stuck out the whole first year on various cigalikes from the same company that I'd started with. From there, I discovered the previous incarnation of this very forum, and my poor little brain pretty much exploded.
Sweet mercy! There were other people who vaped!
In 2015, I had still never met another person using e-cigarettes, so suddenly finding a whole forum full of them was an incredible experience for me. What's more, all these people were super friendly, incredibly knowledgeable, always happy to answer my vacuous questions, or point me in the right direction. I'm ever grateful for that guidance, as it led me to discover the joys of coil wrapping, DIY liquids, and a whole range of gear and information I would never have thought possible otherwise.
I had a forum hiatus for a while there - the smoking has long gone, though life's ups and downs still remain - but as you can see, I'm still here. Still writing super long-winded posts, and asking more vacuous questions than ever. We never stop learning right?
I think your tea has gone cold. Let me get you another?
