Nov 172014
 

I probably started smoking around 13 years old and after smoking cigarettes for nearly 30 years, I switched to ecigs. The first one was rather crude and was quickly replaced a couple weeks later. Once I finally did make the switch from real cigarettes to electronic cigarettes, there was a very noticable improvement in my breathing. Matter of fact, eventually I was able to go back to working out and doing cardio for long periods of time (within a year). Eventually I realized I had been using an electronic cigarette for almost 4 years and although I wasn’t ingesting the 4,000+ chemicals of real cigarettes, I was still ingesting nicotine. I made a plan in 2013 to be off of nicotine by the end of 2014. My plan was very simple: i was currently using 24MG ejuice and I would just graudally reduce it over a period of time until I got to 0MG. So, approx January 1 of 2014 i bought 18MG ejuice. I didn’t seem to “Want more” or “smoke more” or “crave more” after switching to the lower MG nicotine. It was then that I realized this was real and I would be able to do this. Around April 1, 2014 I switched to 12MG ejuice (all the dates are really just approximate because it really happened when I “ran out” of the current ejuice strength, however, my planned dates of “every three months” actually came sooner. So by saying april 1, what I really mean was sometime around the last week or two of march but before april 1). Around July 1, since i had had such great luck by reducing my current to a lower amount, I bought a 2x 6MG, 2 x 3MG, and 2 x 0MG all 30ML bottles. I decided that I would simply use them in order of strength and when I ran out….that was it. When I got to the 3MG, I would alternate between the 3MG and 0MG. Sometimes I would do 3 x 0 MG and then 1 x 3MG…..but I basically kept extending the time between when I had nicotine and when I didn’t. Around November 1, 2014 I was using only 0MG nicotine. However, I noticed something….even though I was using 0 MG nicotine, I would still freak out if things like “my ecig battery went dead” or “i ran out of ejuice” or “I left the ecig at home”. So I realized then that I was basically addicted to the “act of smoking” …. you know, “going through the motion” of smoking. This was actually harder to break than the reduction of nicotine. I just kept extending the time between “hits” and I would try to do things like “go to the store but don’t take the ecig with you” and I would extend that to “go to the mall but don’t take the ecig with you”. So, basically I was also able to break that habit too. Basically when I finally ran out of 0MG nicotine, I promised I wouldn’t buy anymore. The first day or two was hard…..I basically kept “pretending like I was still smoking” by using the ecig without any nicotine and without a battery. I was going “through the motion” of smoking, but I really wasn’t smoking….at all. Once or twice I “almost” bought a pack of cigarettes…..just in order to have 1 but I basically was able to get past that point. By day 3 those cravings to go through the motion of smoking subsided. Today makes day 6, no ecigs and no nicotine and no cigarettes. Today is November 17, 2014…….i quit smoking a full 6 weeks earlier than I had planned.

You can also see these articles i wrote on ecigs:
Part 1: how I started using ecigs
Part 2: Modern Vapor – My First Kit
Part 3: Modern Vapor – my second kit
Part 4: Addicted to flavor
Part 5: Traceable Costs
Part 6: The Lavatube
Part 7: How I successfully quit smoking