My e-Cigarette Experiences…

Yes, I am a smoker.  I’ve been cursed with this addiction since the 1977, and have tried in vain just about every remedy known to stop smoking.  But every time, and every EXPENSIVE method I’ve tried I’ve ended up coming back to it.  Most dramatic was my heart attack in December of 2007, which one would think would have given me good reason to stop.  I’ve done everything else.  I’ve lost weight – nearly 40 pounds and 8 inches at the waist!  I’ve learned to eat foods that are heart healthy and have lowered my stress levels.  I’ve continued to exercise more than I used to.  Perhaps not perfect at any of these things, but I’m working to be a healthier person.  So why can’t I quit smoking!?  Maybe, deep down, I don’t want to.  But more likely, I’ve had a physical and mental habit that has been a part of my lifestyle and is so deeply ingrained in my daily activities that I just CAN’T get past some of the patterns and I end up buying another pack of cigarettes.  But now… there’s something new!

Here’s the thing…  I get into my car, I reach for a smoke.  I hold it.  I take a drag.  It’s an action that has been for a long time associated with driving.  It’s natural and it keeps me calmer while I drive down the road amongst the chaos and sometimes urgency that we see every day on the road.  Whenever I tried to quit, I found that I was far more likely to experience road rage.  Higher stress was another side effect.  But both of these just seem to go out the window with my cigarette smoke.  Sadly…  my car reeks of smoke.  Then again – so do I!

I don’t spend a lot of time at the bars.  We don’t even have that many.  But when I do, I like to sit in the areas designated as smoking areas – if they even have one – or outside on the patio.  I’ll select a pub that has a smoking area so that I can have a smoke while I have a drink.  Most of the people I know that DO go to the pub are also smokers, so it’s more than likely that if I’m there, I’ll end up in the smoking section even if I’m NOT smoking.  Even when I sit out on my own deck with a beer on the weekend.   It just feels wrong without the cigarette – they just go so well together.

There are other situations and times that I just have a massive craving for the action of smoking.  Taking in a lung full of DEADLY gases and chemicals that are the by-products of burning the 4000+ chemicals found in the modern cigarette is killing me…. but the ACTION of doing so is calming.  The tiny dose of nicotine that is the only component we crave is almost completely lost in the rest of the junk we’re inhaling.  But even though I know these things I still have the overwhelming urge to light up.  And I do.

Now, we’ve had easy access to so many nicotine replacement therapies in the past years.  The patch.  Flat-line delivery of a controlled dose of nicotine.  How many smokers do you know that have tried the patch have failed?  I’ll tell you the main reasons.  First – nobody who smokes lives with a fixed level of nicotine in their system.  Through any given day we get highs and lows.  This is the main reason why patch users end up sneaking a smoke once in a while.  To get a spike.  To get a little higher rather than living at the same level constantly.  The second problem is the lack of the actions of smoking.

Then the gums…  Personally I think these should be banned.  They are costly and dangerous in my mind.  They are also horrible tasting for the most part and not really that effective.  Unlike the patch, gums were designed to give us some control of the dosage.   Chew, Chew, Park.  When you crave…  Chew twice and park the thing in your cheek.   Yeah right.  I want this chunk of rubber parked in my cheek all day, and will actually only move it to chew it twice.   I ended up chewing at times without thinking and getting a headache.  Or having it slip out of my cheek during a conversation and flying out of my mouth in the direction of the person I was talking to.  Or the really bad one during a flight from BC to Ontario where I actually swallowed a barely used piece of the damn stuff and spent most of the next 2 days vomiting and green.  Nice way to spend my birthday!  I didn’t have any of my own cake until nearly 2 days after the party.  I blamed the airline food for ages, but I’m quite sure it was swallowing that piece of gum and rapidly absorbing the entire dose of nicotine.  I actually thought I was going to turn inside out a couple of times.  NASTY stuff and I strongly recommend you stay away from it.

Lozenges…  pretty much the same as the gum, except that the dosage in each lozenge is lower, safer and dissolves slowly into your system.  Getting better – you have some control over the dosage so you can have the highs and lows you’ve become accustomed to, but they are still pretty chalky tasting (at the least the three brands I’ve tried) and you still lack the action of drawing the smoke and exhaling.  You still lack the physical part of the addiction.

Then the pharaceuticals…  Expensive.  Prescriptions required.  Pharmacy visits required.  Taken daily to help to overcome the addiction to nicotine.  There are a few of these now, but the most common are the ones based on a rather old Anti-depressant drug that had been discovered to have the additional side effect of lowering the need for nicotine.  And while more effective than most of the other methods, it still suffers from a near complete failure to get people off cigarettes after the magic two year mark.  And did I mention expensive.  It’s about the same price as smoking here in Canada – if not even more.   But of course, if you DO end up quitting for a while, you’ll save what you spent, and that can be a good thing.  But the list of warnings and possible side effects are almost as scary as the list attached to smoking.  Both times I’ve tried, I’ve gone back to smoking again.  There’s just too many things connected to that action.  And one little tiny hit of nicotine has ALWAYS managed to calm me down when the pressure is building. 

I’ve tried acupuncture, cold turkey, and other non-medicinal techniques with a varying degree of success in terms of the time that I didn’t smoke, but always end up coming back.  And it’s always – ALWAYS – one of those times that I have associated to the action of having a smoke that does me in.  My car – having a drink with a friend – working the BBQ – getting to the end of my fuse – after sex – even the morning coffee.  All of these are times when I have had a cigarette close at hand if not IN my hand for more than 30 years.

This past week I learned of something quite new.  The electronic cigarette or e-cig as it’s commonly called.  Vaping rather than smoking.  So I’ve read all about these rather interesting little devices.  The consist of a battery, an electronic micro vaporizer and a cartridge that contains a liquid mixture of water (SAFE), Nicotine in varying dosages all the way down to none (Also considered safe on its own), some flavouring to emulate the taste of regular tobacco or menthol cigarettes (and some companies offer other flavours as well), and propylene glycol (PG) which is also considered to be safe and is commonly used in and on food products.  PG is most recognized as the liquid that is placed into the special effects foggers and smoke machines that we see in stored at Halloween, and in this application is used to do exactly the same thing – produce a puff of smoke.  Put these parts all together and make it look and handle like a real cigarette, and you’ve got an e-cig.   You handle it the same way, and you actually draw vapour as you inhale, and exhale a little wisp of ‘smoke’ which is as harmful as the smoke that comes out of that fog machine.  Actually a lot less harmful as it’s typically a very small puff compared to what comes out of the machine.  The smoker doesn’t sting anymore.  You don’t taste like an ashtray.  You don’t create a path of butts that take far too long to finally break down and become part of dear mother earth again.  I actually read that butts represent a huge and growing problem for disposal.  They actually make up a measurable percentage of our regular garbage in the landfills.  Vaping is also getting a lot of press in that it’s being done in places where smoking is prohibited by law.  People are vaping in the bars and pubs.  There have been sightings at restaurants.  In homes where people generally go outside to smoke.  I know that this easy access might make some people likely to consume more product than they would regular cigarettes, but these things are magnitudes safer…  so why not let them!?

So here’s a product that, on the surface at least, appears to be completely safe to use.  It’s already gaining popularity around the world and has been in use in China for several years.  It gives us complete control of our nicotine dosage from heavy to none at all.  It completely replaces the part of smoking that I’ve identified as my greatest problem area and the part that I actually enjoy.  It’s most CERTAINLY a lot safer than burning regular tobacco cigarettes.  And as an added bonus it’s as much as 80% CHEAPER than smoking!  In fact, the company that I’m dealing with has an affiliate program (please use the links on my site to buy yours!) where you can make 20% back on orders that are placed through your links.  It’s not a multi-level deal.  It’s a simple affiliate program.  In other words, I don’t make money off of the people you make money off of.  I only get paid if someone sets up an account through my links.  And you may qualify to as well. 

You can get e-cigs in packaging that looks like regular cigarettes, but I’ve ordered the cool black ones.  The tip on some brands glows red or orange, but the ones I’m getting glow blue.  This is a good thing in my mind as they will look different enough from normal cigarettes that they won’t get quite as many people bugging me to butt out should I pull one out in a place that doesn’t allow smoking.  Now I’m not going to be entirely blatant about it, but I know that I will, at some time and place, test the waters a little just to encourage other smokers to change from tobacco to something that is safer, cheaper, and still lets them enjoy the act of smoking, and the little high we all get from our nicotine.

So there it is…  my history, and my future as a smoker.  The 21st Century is indeed a technological marvel at times, and I look forward to receiving my starter kit in a couple of weeks and heading down the path to being tobacco free in July – and for a long time to come I hope.  I will, of course, continue to blog on this topic once I have my product and have some experience with them, but wanted to start things off with this post to set the stage for the months ahead.  I’ve added a section of e-cig related links and of course my affiliate link to blu so you can check out their products, prices, and hopefully make the decision to rid yourself of the deadly chemicals you are likely breathing in right now.

Cheers!

PS:  A couple of quick disclaimers… 

1. I am NOT advocating e-cigs as a way to quit smoking.  While you can gradually decrease your nicotine intake right down to zero with most brands, I personally don’t think that I’ll quit, but if these work, I’ll be using what I believe to be a safer delivery method than conventional cigarettes. 

2. There is no current evidence that e-cigs are completely safe, and they most certainly are not as good as quitting altogether, but they are certainly free of some of the really nasty tihngs that we inhale from cigarettes.

3. Yes…  if you purchase Blu from my link, I make some money off this.  But the only reason I’m recommending Blu is that they appear to be a high quality product at a really good price.  If I find, after I receive my starter pack, that I don’t like them, I’ll cease promoting them and remove myself from the affiliate program. 

And finally…  If you don’t smoke… don’t get into e-cigs.  Why would you?  But if you do smoke…  why not try to use something that offers so many benefits over conventional cigarettes.  They cost less, they don’t stink, they won’t yellow things and you’re not burning things and inhaling smoke.  Sounds like a better way to go to me.