Jun 28, 2017
2268 Views
Comments Off on Quit Smoking with eCigarettes
0 0

Quit Smoking with eCigarettes

Written by

Quitting smoking… but Quit Smoking With eCigarettes? Here is my story on how I did it…

It’s one of the hardest things to do. I began smoking when I was 17. Believe it or not, my first cigarette was offered to me by my stepdad. Don’t get me wrong, I had attempted to smoke a little bit but never really got into it. When I was 17, I was drinking a beer (if you know my addiction story, this was the time where it all began), and he offered a smoke. Man, that nicotine was so soothing.

But when I hit around 26, I began to notice a lot of health issues. Sure, some of it was due to the bad diet, too, but I could start to see in my eyes that I was aging. I knew that this was too young. I had to do something about it. So I vowed to start with quitting smoking.

This wasn’t my first attempt to quit. I tried the nicotine patches at the age of 19. They didn’t do anything. I bought the gum at age 20 and that didn’t help much either. No matter what, it just didn’t cut it. I realized that it was more the mental addiction of having something between your fingers and the feeling of relief after each puff that made me want to continue smoking.

So from age 20-26 I continued to smoke. I was never a heavy smoker. I only smoked 8-10 cigarettes a day. I never understood how someone could really smoke more than that because you really only needed a cigarette after waking, after each meal, and before bed. Those are the times you crave them most, unless stressed. Now obviously, if you also know my story, you know that I was hooked on quite a bit of drugs. On heavy drug days, my smoking spiked up a bit, but on average, it never really peaked past 10 a day.

Still, by age 26, I knew that something had to give. I was already beginning to research supplements and organic food. I knew that smoking had to give. Even though I began to notice occasional health warnings, I still couldn’t cut out the smoking. So by age 27, I began to take supplements and improve my health by creeping organic food in my diet. Still, the smoking was too hard. Occasionally, I would have a drink, too, and I would always have to have that cigarette!

By age 28 I was starting to see a lot of people smoking the eCigarettes. I figured I might as well give it a shot because there was a place down the street that opened up near me that sold the nicotine flavored juice. At this point, I was playing a lot of basketball with a good friend of mine and the smoking was holding me back a little bit when it came to the endurance. I hopped online and did some research and came across a company called Blu. They sold the flavor, the eCig charger and battery, etc, all together in a single package and then you just bought the juice online. I figured that this was perfect because they looked like a regular cigarette! My brain would still consider me smoking a cigarette because the size was the same, the way I held it would be the same, and the smoke would still be inhaled and exhaled like a normal cigarette, too!

Needless to say, it helped a ton! Especially at the beginning. I smoked and felt much better smoking them instead of a regular cigarette. No matter what people say, I dont think it was in my mind, I really felt better smoking the eCig instead of a cigarette.

By age 29, I had eliminated cigarettes completely and was 100 percent smoking eCigarettes. I eventually moved away from the Blu and tried to smoke one of the ones where you press the button on the side (shown below) with the battery underneath.

But something happened at the age of 29. I was able to smoke the eCig in my cubicle at work because the fact that eCig really don’t give off an odor and if you blow them at the ground then it disintegrates into the air before anywhere really notices. Due to being able to smoke it at work in my cubicle, I was noticed that I was smoking it more than if I was smoking cigarettes!

Soon after, my Grandma, who had raised me most of my life, passed away. She never liked me smoking. I knew that I had to do something to quit for good – in a sense, for her. A month before she passed away, I had finally joined a gym to commit to working out full time and I used this as an opportunity to phase out the eCigarette. I told myself that I really need to quit before I turn 30 years old. That it would be the biggest 30th birthday present that I could give myself. I had spent my entire 20’s smoking something and I knew that needed to come to an end.

So what I did is I decided that the best way to quit was to eliminate times of the day where i would normally hit it. Like stated before, I first needed to cut out the smoking at work. Then i needed to cut out the times of the day where I needed it most. (After meals, upon waking, before sleeping). So I did just that…

I eliminated smoking it at work by keeping it OUT of arm distance. I told myself that if I needed to hit it, I would have to get it out of my bag. This helps more than you know.

I then eliminated it before the gym and after the gym. I was running heavily and that was justification enough that if I smoked it before or after those times then my running would be tampered with, and running was becoming my new drug of choice.

Then, I stopped hitting it before going to bed. Why need it before bed? There was no reason and it didn’t impact me falling asleep. No need, so I dropped it.

Now, I just needed to tackle after meals and upon waking. I would only smoke it in the car on the way to work, not at home when getting ready. So I just simply told myself that I didnt need it in the car and that if I wanted to smoke it, I could always smoke it at work. Now this part was important – the times where I did still smoke it (on the way to work in the morning and after meals), I would usually take 3-5 hits of it. I told myself that since these were the toughest parts of the day to drop, I would start by hitting less.

On the way to work, i started just taking a single hit, and a BIG ONE! It was enough.

Same thing after meals. I would just take 1-2 hits after each meal, and that was good enough for me!

Before I knew it, after doing this for a couple months, I found myself not even thinking about it anymore. After eating, I simply didn’t think about it. If i did remember, then I would go ahead and hit it as normal. Same thing in the morning. In fact, there was a few days I totally forgot about it and left it at home!

Before I knew it, just a month before my 30th birthday, it was over. I simply didn’t need it anymore. I would go days without thinking about it and would still occasionally take a hit, but my body and mind no longer needed the nicotine. I also attribute this to the fact that I was working out heavily at the time, and I believe that running became my new addiction. But there is no question that eCigarettes helped me quit and gave me the avenue to quit. After all, do you think I would have been able to do the same thing with the same routines with an actual cigarette versus an eCig? Probably not.

What a 30th birthday present I gave myself!

And you can do it, too!

Questions? Let me know!

This is a fresh 2017 blog

Save

Save

Save

Article Tags:
Article Categories:
Latest

Comments are closed.