I smoked for almost exactly fourty years. From the age of 13, I had smoked almost one tobacco product a day. At the age of 53, I had a brief dalliance with vaping before finally giving up.
Some of this I’ve related in this post, but here’s the full story, in case it might help someone.
So shall we start?
The full explicit details are now lost in the mists of time (it was almost fifty years ago), but here’s what I can remember:
It would have been around summer 1974. I had just joined a detachment of the Army Cadets and was away on a camp somewhere.
The Army Cadets would organise camping trips quite often in summer. Once a year there was a big two week annual camp that brought together detachments from all around the County and “camp” in an actual Army camp that was usually on the south coast somewhere. The two weeks were in the school holidays, so the excitement of annual camp had time to wear off before returning to the mundanity of school.
Each detachment would organise their own weekend camps however, usually somewhere reasonably local. It would have been on one of these, that the siren call began.
I remember all of us camping in a field, in two man tents. We were all paired with another cadet; sadly, I can’t remember who was paired with me. It would be a Saturday night, as the weekend camps were always not on a school day, so Saturday/Sunday. Our cadet sergeant (I can’t remember his name either, unfortunately) was around 16 years old and he smoked.
He asked the two of us whether we wanted to have a cigarette that evening. Of course I said yes – mainly out of curiosity – so tents were identified and a time was arranged.
He appeared at the back of our tent at the arranged time. He gave me a cigarette – it was a Players No.6.
And this was the point at which I heard the siren call and fell in love with that siren!
From that first drag, I knew this was something special. I loved the taste of the tobacco and I loved the action of inhaling it and exhaling a stream of smoke. I think I smoked most of it, and I started to feel pleasantly dizzy. Then a strange thing happened. The sergeant offered me a mint. He said it was “to take the taste away”. I asked him why? He said “because it doesn’t taste very nice”. I thought that odd… I loved the taste!
After camp
No more cigarettes were consumed that weekend, but I spent all week (at school) thinking about them.
I decided that I would buy some and smoke them. At the time, there existed cigarette vending machines, usually situated outside newsagent shops. The cost was approximately 40p for 20, 20p for 10. They were slightly cheaper (18p for 10) if you went into the shop to buy them (and more of a variety to choose from), but that meant interaction. And interaction meant that the shopkeeper would probably tell my Mum and I would get into trouble for smoking!
So, two 10p coins were acquired and 10 Consulate Menthol cigarettes were purchased from the newsagent’s machine, when it got dark and no-one was looking. It was like a military operation.
The first puff is always the sickest
The next day – after school – I hopped onto my bike, armed with 10 Consulate and some matches I’d stolen from a box in the kitchen (these weren’t safety matches – they weren’t commonly used in 1974. These were “strike anywhere” matches that you could light by running across a suitable rough surface e.g. a brick).
I wanted to go to somewhere quiet to smoke my cigarettes. So I peddled off on my trusty bicycle to the nearest train bridge, a quiet spot that almost no-one used. Stood atop the very pinnacle of the bridge… I lit five cigarettes at once. Yes five. All in my mouth, puffing on them like there was no tomorrow.
They were spent in no time, so I lit the other five, all at the same time again. After the initial dizzy spell, or rush had passed, I began to feel very, very sick! Suffice to say a lesson was learnt that day and I discovered exactly what was under a train bridge.
A week later
A day or so later, when I’d recovered from overdosing on nicotine, I’d sorted out what I wanted to do. I didn’t like the menthol cigarettes very much – the only reason I had bought them was because the sergeant, who gave me my very first cigarette, told me they would be good to start with since they tasted of mint (or menthol). That wasn’t my opinion, so I settled on Players No.6, a popular brand at the time and slightly cheaper, as they weren’t king size. I’d just started smoking, so a ten pack (at 18p) would last me a week or so.
At the time, king size cigarettes were considered a luxury cigarette (like the brand “More”). Most popular brands like Embassy, Players, Woodbine etc. were considered a normal length cigarette.
School
I’d also started smoking at school. I went to quite a good (and fairly strict) grammar school, where smoking was not allowed unless you were in the Sixth Form (or years 12 and 13 nowadays), and then only in the Sixth Form common room.
There were a set of outdoor tennis and squash courts at the edges of the school – behind which was a small (but lengthy) garden area. You could access the garden area through the squash courts and it was well shielded from prying eyes. I thought that may be a good place to go and have a crafty cigarette at break or lunchtime. On morning break, I decided to go and have a look, scope out the area, as it were.
The smoking club
Passing through the squash courts, I could smell cigarette smoke. I had accidentally stumbled upon the secret smoking club, squashed (sic) in between the scout hut and the sports equipment store (both constructed from wood, by the way!). Here were mostly Fifth Formers (nowadays year 11), passing around either a No.6 or an Embassy. Remember I was 13, so I was in the Second Form (year 8 nowadays), so they were somewhat surprised when I asked for a drag! However, as the cigarette was passed around, everybody took a drag, the filter got hotter, wetter and yellower. I put up with that for a while then thought “nah, I’ll go my own way!”.
Garden smoking
It turned out – more than by luck than anything else – that no teachers, prefects, pupils or anyone else visited the school garden during breaks. I was left to myself, sitting on a wooden bench, puffing discreetly away. Perfect. All the way to the Fifth Form, and to the day I left, I was never caught smoking at school.
I had a couple of years with a small part in the annual school play. I was in the Fourth and Fifth Forms by then (years 10 and 11). The Sixth Form common room, as you’ll recall, was an area in which Sixth Formers (years 12 and 13) could legitimately smoke (as they were over 16 – the legal age for smoking back then). During the school play performances, it was used as a dressing room/makeup area for the “actors” before and during the performance. It was also an ideal place for me to have a crafty fag, whilst waiting for my stage performance. I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.
I was still in the Army Cadets (up until I was 18), which made smoking a lot easier! I could smoke indoors and outdoors (the indoor ban on smoking didn’t come into effect until the early 2000’s) and did so! It was also a bit easier to buy cigarettes from newsagents whilst dressed in my Army Cadet uniform (I was 14, I looked 18). By the time I had passed the legal age for smoking (16 in the UK), I was smoking a small amount on a daily basis. Player’s No.6, of course.
Home
Smoking at home however, was a different bale of tobacco. I didn’t know how my parents would react to me being a smoker, so for a long time I either didn’t smoke at home, or did it when they weren’t there. My Mother was an occasional smoker, so there were ashtrays dotted around the house (usually in the kitchen) so I could at least smoke in the kitchen – as it already had the smell of tobacco ingrained in its walls.
As my smoking habit progressed, I got into the habit (ha!) of liking a cigarette in the mornings, just after waking up. I remember opening my bedroom window, leaning out of it and having a quick puff before getting the wakeup call from my Dad. I used to stub out the cigarette, then throw it over our next door neighbour’s flat roof, so you couldn’t see it from my window. Unfortunately, our neighbour noticed and complained to my Dad, who quizzed me on it. Feigning innocence, I denied all. But I think that hinted to Dad I was a smoker.
When I turned 16 (the legal age to smoke in the UK), and I started work, I told my parents. It came as no surprise to them and I was allowed to smoke in my bedroom. And that’s what I did, right up until I left home at age 22.
Home accidents
As I recall, I didn’t have many smoking-related accidents at home. I do remember having a cigarette before bed, and sometimes falling asleep with a lit cigarette in my hand. It would burn down, burn my fingers then wake me up! It could have been worse!
The chocolate duvet
There was one exception. My Mother bought me a new bed set, which comprised of bottom sheet and a chocolate brown single duvet cover. She told me where she got them from (the Co-Op in town) and they were duly fitted.
A couple of days later, I fell asleep with a lit cigarette in my hand and burned a hole in the duvet cover. I thought “bugger”. I knew I had a couple of days before the linen was to be changed (and therefore the hole would be discovered), so I turned the duvet over (burn hole downwards) and legged it to the Co-Op in town, to buy an identical set. Which I did – and I got away with it. It was a lesson learnt, however. No more falling asleep with a lit cigarette!
Work and College
When I left school at 16, I managed to get a four year apprenticeship in engineering at a local factory. This entailed one year of only College, then three years of one day a week at College and the rest at work.
Work
You could smoke at work in the appropriate places – it was a food factory, so smoking was not allowed on the factory floor. You could smoke in the offices and workshops that adjoined the factory floor – which many people did. You could also smoke in the canteen – ashtrays were provided on every table – and the workshops in which I learnt my trade.
As an apprentice, I always seemed to be penniless. We were paid weekly (in a little brown envelope) – and I was being paid quite well for an apprentice. The problem is, I used to spend it! When I spent it, I had no money left to buy cigarettes, so by Tuesday (payday was Thursday) I had very little money left – which I needed to spend on food.
The apprenticeship (four days at the factory and one day at College) was modular: we would spend three months in a department and then move to a different one. This was designed to allow us to learn many different skills across many different departments.
Safety Sam
One of the departments was the Safety Officer’s department. He had a factory-wide nickname of “Safety Sam” – a name that he wore with pride, I might add. Everybody across the whole factory knew him. And he was responsible for safety across the whole site. He was also an avid smoker – and he smoked Player’s No.6 by the packet load.
His office was six feet by four feet (1.8m x 1.2m), with one window. It was winter when I had my three months with him, so the window didn’t get opened. It was somewhat smoky in there. Of course, I had no cigarettes, you would have thought the passive smoking alone would have kept me going, but no.
Much to his credit, he recognised that I didn’t have any cigarettes (I did earlier in the week, when I could afford them!), so he offered one. And then some more, later on. Throughout that three months, whenever I had no cigarettes, he kept me going. I am, and always will be forever grateful to Safety Sam for showing me that kindness.
When I moved on to a different department, we would bump into each other around the factory. He would always ask me if I was OK for cigarettes. Lovely man.
College
At college, smoking was banned in the classrooms, but you could smoke anywhere else. In the corridors, the refectory (canteen) or outside the classrooms. There were a few specialist classrooms where smoking was banned close to them, due to flammable equipment.
The smoking ban
In the UK, smoking wasn’t banned (in public places) until the middle of 2007. Whilst public establishments like pubs, clubs and cinemas etc. waited until the actual day of the ban (July 1st 2007 for England) and then just banned it outright, many businesses, offices and factories had a phased approach to the ban.
Starting from as far back as 1995, the factory where I was working at the time introduced non-smoking days. These were days that smoking anywhere indoors was banned – you had to venture outside to a specific area designated as a smoking area if you wanted to go and have a smoke. Fortunately, it wasn’t too far away from where I worked, so it didn’t take long to get there! Several “smoking points” were set up around the factory. Over a period of a couple of years or so, the number of non-smoking days increased until smoking was banned anywhere on site, except for the designated smoking areas.
I changed careers in 1999. I joined the NHS, where all smoking was banned not only indoors, but on any NHS premises (including car parks etc.), so if we wanted a smoke, we were supposed to venture off-premises. Sometimes this was just a few yards (metres), sometimes it was quite a walk.
A variety of consumables
Over the course of fourty years, I smoked a variety of tobacco products. As is most things in life, some were good, some were not.
Cigarettes
As mentioned earlier, my first cigarette was a Player’s No.6. These, like many of the other popular brands around at the time (Embassy, Gold Leaf, Silk Cut etc.) were not King Size cigarettes, as the greater majority of cigarettes are nowadays. These were what were called “standard size” cigarettes and were considerably cheaper than the king size ones (hence their popularity). I tried various brands over a few years, but always ended up going back to Player’s No.6, so I stayed with those for a while.
NSM
Towards the late 1970’s, one of the adult sergeants turned up at our cadet meeting night with something rather special. He had a packet of 20 Player’s No.6 with NSM. By the time the late 1970’s had arrived, the dangers associated with smoking were pretty much well known. In the quest for a so-called ‘safe cigarette’ Player’s trialled replacing tobacco with something called NSM or New Smoking Material. It was actually cytrel, a cellulose-based tobacco substitute. He (the adult sergeant) let me smoke a couple. They weren’t very nice, so I never bothered with them again. Not just me, however. A lot of people didn’t like them and the NSM replacement was withdrawn.
I wasn’t overly keen on rolling my own cigarettes. I didn’t mind smoking them, but in the 1970’s/1980’s filter tips weren’t ready available so you had to smoke them without – which could be problematic for a jumped-up smoker like me. (Later on in life, I reversed this decision a bit quick!)
King size cigarettes
Up until the early to mid 1980’s, tax (or duty) on tobacco products – notably cigarettes – was based on how big the product was. A standard sized cigarette was smaller than a king sized one, so the tax was less for standard ones and therefore standard cigarettes were noticeably cheaper than the king size ones. When the taxation laws on tobacco were changed to tax the content of tobacco rather than the size of the product, standard sized cigarettes became almost the same price as king sized ones.
By the end of the 1980’s I was buying cigarettes in packs of twenty (or cartons of 200). It seemed to me to be better value to buy 20 king size cigarettes for the same price as standard ones, so I stopped smoking Player’s No.6 and started smoking Benson & Hedges King Size Gold.
The new tax laws for tobacco was responsible for the downfall of several brands of standard cigarettes. Brands disappeared from shops during the early 1990’s; Player’s No.6, Gold Leaf and Embassy Standards had all been discontinued by 1993.
A costly business
I smoked Benson & Hedges from the late 1980’s right until I gave up cigarettes, in early 2015. The cost of cigarettes kept increasing over the years, as the British Government took more and more tax, in a bid to make people give up smoking. I was going on holiday a few times a year and had a reasonably well paid job, so I could buy cheaper duty-free cigarettes abroad – which used to tide me over from holiday to holiday! At some point – I can’t remember exactly when – I decided to reverse my decision to not some roll-ups and started to roll my own cigarettes for home consumption only. It was cheaper than buying the “ready mades”, even factoring in the costs of filters and papers and of course, I was able to get duty free Golden Virginia at the time.
Pipes
I also had a dalliance with pipes. A girlfriend of mine’s father smoked a pipe, I thought it rather a good idea. So I paid a visit to one of those dedicated smoke shops (of which there were many), bought myself a pipe and some St. Bruno (I liked the TV advert for it!) and gave that a whirl for a while. I (briefly) joined a pipe club at one point – for a monthly fee, you could buy (at a “discount”) selected products. You had to buy one, once a month though, so it got a bit much and I cancelled my subscription. Much like the book clubs at the time, it was a bit of a rip off. I can’t remember too many details about the pipe club, but I do recall they featured mainly EA Carey pipes, of which I amassed a few.
I discovered the difference between flake and ready-rubbed tobacco. The flake tobacco came in big slabs – you had to break it up and rub it in between the palms of your hands to make it into a texture ready to fill your pipe with.
I gave up smoking pipes in the late 1980’s. I’d got a job in a factory, where the environment was not conducive to all that faffing around with cleaners and tobacco, rubbing and sparks and went back to the trusty B&H full time.
Cigars
I’ve smoked a few different cigars over the years, from the smaller Hamlet style ones, to the big fat ones. I’m not a huge fan of cigars as such, so never really bought them for myself. I’d smoke them if offered, and would prefer the Hamlet style ones, if available.
Tastes
For me personally, smoking was about the taste of the cigarette. I’d had my dalliance with the menthol cigarettes – didn’t like those very much. All the brands that were around me at the time I was starting in the 1970’s/1980’s (Player’s, Embassy, Gold Leaf) all tasted near enough the same. I’d even smoked Capstan Full Strength and Woodbines (two brands that were deemed “the most dangerous” as they were unfiltered) and they tasted pretty much the same. And I liked that particular taste. That was the draw for me in the first place: the taste of the tobacco when smoked.
Pipe tobacco came in many different flavours. I liked most of them (St. Bruno, Condor, Mellow Virginia, Erinmore etc.). I wasn’t keen on the flavoured tobaccos that became popular a bit later on: apple, strawberry etc. No thanks, I’d like tobacco flavour, please and thank you!
In 1984, I went on holiday to Paris for a week. It was a number of firsts: first time on a plane, first time abroad, first time on my own (on holiday). It was also the first time that I got to see and buy some “foreign” cigarettes. I bought a 200 pack of Gauloises, in a blue packet. Feeling very bohemian and in touch with my French inner self, I opened them up and lit one. It wasn’t all that nice. And here I was stuck with another 199 to smoke!
It’s hard to describe the taste of tobacco to anyone that doesn’t smoke (or does smoke, for that matter!). All I can say is that the Gauloises didn’t taste much like a Player’s No.6! I was expecting it to be slightly different, but subtle, as is the difference between an Embassy Standard and a No.6. But this was more like (as I would later discover) an American Marlboro Red or a Camel. I didn’t like those, either.
Getting caught
Smoking throughout the 1970’s/1980’s and into the 1990’s was pretty much “trouble free”. You could smoke absolutely anywhere (with a few exceptions): at work, in pubs, at home even in some shops.
The factory
In the factory, I worked night shift doing Quality Control work for a few years – including when the aforementioned non-smoking days were introduced. The non-smoking days ran from midnight to midnight, so on nights, we got away with smoking for a couple of nights for half a night.
The exception to being able to smoke anywhere for the Quality Control staff was the Standards Room. It was two rooms really, separated by double doors and both were air conditioned. One room held all the calibration and measurement standards equipment, the other housed the co-ordinate measurement machine and the measurement projector. I would spend a couple of hours a night programming the co-ordinate measuring machine, to make it easier for staff to measure manufactured components. Of course, I used to smoke in there.
Shift handovers
Every night I would arrive a few minutes early for my night shift, so I could have a hand-over meeting with the late shift chap. We both smoked, so we spent a happy thirty minutes or so smoking and chewing the fat until the next night… oh, I mean shift handover 😉 He would relate any message from the boss (day shift).
One night, he presented the “Message Book”. This was an A4 notebook that the boss wrote “important” messages in for our attention. One of these messages was telling me: “I was in no circumstances, none whatsoever, in any possible circumstance, smoke on the co-ordinate measurement room. It was no point in denying that I had been, as there was evidence on the floor”.
My colleague led me into the room, where on the floor was a square frame made from masking tape. Apparently in the square had been some cigarette ash, but the cleaners had cleaned it up that evening.
I continued to smoke in there anyway, and always checked the floor afterwards!
Shift handovers were always a joy. The chap that worked the afternoon shift was a good friend of mine and we got on like a house on fire. In his spare time, he ran a small business selling horoscopes.
The NHS
At the NHS sites where I worked, smoking had been banned anywhere on site for quite a few years before the ban came into force in 2007. For most places where I worked, a “public place” wasn’t too far away, but at some places, it was quite a walk to get to the nearest “public place” to have a smoke. There were a few of us that smoked, so when we arrived at a new NHS site to work, we followed the lead of smokers that had been in some buildings for years. We (and I) indulged in “surreptitious smoking”: smoking outside, but in a quiet corner a little bit away from your building, but not off-site. We always made sure we left no evidence, so cleaned up after us and left no cigarette butts or ash as evidence.
We were caught surreptitiously smoking a few times, by our senior management. We’d get reprimanded and told to use the public areas. Which we did for a while, then went back to the surreptitious locations! I used to be reprimanded the most (of course), as I was the senior manager in the building.
A discovery of epic proportions
Outside my office external door was a fenced off area that contained the server room air conditioning condensers. These were big square structures that held big fans that used to draw air up through the bottom and blow it out of the top with some considerable force. The area was completely fenced off, but had a door for access, that was padlocked. I discovered that we had the key to the padlock, so we could access that area (there were many padlocks on site for various doors, they all used the same key – and we had one!)
It was almost perfect. We (the smokers) could stand in there with the door shut, we had a constant supply of empty coffee jars to put our ash/butts into and the fans would blow the smoke up into the air and away over the roof. The only downside to it was when our Service Desk moved into the portacabin that was just next door. During the summer, when it was hot and they had the windows open, they could sometime get smoke wafting in and so complained. The solution?: I wrote a paper justifying air conditioning for the portacabin. Which was approved, installed and I told them to keep the windows closed. All good. At least for a while.
The IT Director
We changed IT Director quite often. Some wanted to get involved with IT, others were just there to get experience before moving on to private sector (for a lot more money). Towards the end of my employment in that particular area of the NHS, we gained yet another new director. This one was more people-focussed than anything else, and he was a complete luddite when it came to IT. He knew absolutely nothing about it, knew nothing about IT security. Anything we tried to explain to him – even in the very simplest of layman’s terms – fell on deaf ears. But he was all ears if we wanted to do some team building exercises.
He was also very, very pro rules. If the Hospital rule was that you didn’t smoke on site, then that was written in stone.
Someone must have tipped him off about our little surreptitious smoking area. We’d been caught there a couple of times by my boss (a senior manager), but he understood fully what it meant to be smoking there (see the next part) and let us carry on. Yes, I got a bollocking, but he let us carry on regardless.
One day, the IT director arrived – angry – right when we were having a smoke. He was incensed. He started shouting at us (very unprofessional, if you ask me, LOL) telling us that we shouldn’t be doing this, it’s a fire hazard next to those canisters (they were fire suppressant canisters) and reprimanded all of us severely. We all dumped our butts in a full coffee jar (we were going to replace it right after) and put the lid back on – resting on the top as we always did. The IT director – still incensed – picked the jar up by the lid – which promptly fell off and spilt old cigarette butts and ash everywhere! We dispersed pretty quickly. I got a massive bollocking for that.
From then on, we walked down the road to the public area.
A community of sorts
In the factory, the smokers that I smoked with – either indoors, or later outdoors in the designated areas – I knew. I worked with them, we were colleagues. In the NHS, most of the people in the building where my office was worked for me. About 50% of them were smokers.
In either case, if there was a problem of either a work or even a personal nature, we’d go and have a cigarette and discuss it. Particularly in the NHS days, IT problems were discussed (and solved) at length with a group of smokers having a smoke and a discussion. We’d fixed more IT issues that way, that we ever did by calling formal meetings. Some of our non-smoking colleagues – the ones that were directly involved with an issue – would come with us (the smokers) to discuss the problems and solutions.
It was a community of sorts, there was a solidarity between us that bred loyalty and ensured knowledge was passed on. Those were the good days.
The beginning of the end
At the beginning of 2015, one of my work colleagues came to work with a vape. I’d never seen one before and I was fascinated! Questions ensued.
I’d been thinking about giving up smoking. I’d tried once in the 1990’s and lasted about six months before I started again. I’d realised that the problem was that I didn’t want to give up in the 1990’s, but perhaps I want to now. The cost of smoking was forever rising and although I still loved smoking deeply, I was fully aware of the health issues.
There was a modicum of research available on the internet. I researched as much as I could about vaping, discovering that you could buy vape fluid that contained different levels of nicotine (the addictive bit of smoking). You could get a certain percentage that was high, all the way down to nothing. As I’d seen a vape in the flesh (so to speak), I thought I might give it a go.
I bought a vape that was in the shape of a pipe (!) I bought some medium strength vape fluid and vaping commenced without further ado. The plan was to start with the medium strength vape fluid, reduce gradually to the 0% nicotine vape fluid and then stop completely. In the meantime, I knew that I could never again smoke another tobacco product, otherwise it would wipe all that nicotine reduction away. I wanted to give up.
The chrome vape pipe quickly became impractical. It was a good gimmicky idea at the time, but the battery life was short, it didn’t hold much vape fluid and was quite weighty. I needed a new vaping machine: which was duly purchased. I bought quite a nice one, a good capacity battery, so it would last all day and a variable heat setting. I bought a variety of vape fluids, some of them fruity. I didn’t like those at all! I settled on what was laughingly called “tobacco flavour” which it wasn’t, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It had the added bonus of being smell-free, so I could do surreptitious smoking in the office.
I smoked the vape like I would smoke a cigarette. Some high capacity vapes allowed you to inhale the vape smoke directly (resulting in a huge plume of smoke on exhalation) but I didn’t want to do that. The goal was to reduce nicotine content, not change the way I smoked. So I used the vape like a cigarette – drew the smoke into my mouth first and then inhaled it, to subsequently exhale.
I spent six months vaping. Every month I would reduce the nicotine content (and maybe try another vape fluid), getting ever closer to the 0% that was the end goal.
The end
The end of vaping came when I bought some cheap vape coils from Amazon. The coils are essentially the little heaters that heat and atomise the vape fluid as you draw it through the smoke chamber, and were the other consumable (other than the fluid). You could buy them in packs of ten, which I did.
I’m not sure whether these were counterfeit ones, or they were defective, but one failed just as I inhaled. The result of that was a huge slug of raw vape fluid directly into my mouth. It was horrible. It burnt like buggery and tasted like shit. Following that, I put the vape down – and never picked it up again. Had I opted to inhale directly, instead of into my mouth first, I would have had fluid enter my lungs for sure.
Cold turkey
As I said, I put the vape away and never picked it back up ever again. I decided that I’d just style it out and ride the storm of giving up nicotine and smoking addictions/habits right there and then. No patches, no gum, no nothing, just willpower and discipline.
It was hard going for a few weeks – I craved the vape more than the cigarettes. That was a good thing, as it meant at least if I failed, it would be better than cigarettes. I had to get used to not having a puff on the vape after meals, first thing in the morning, last thing at night. As I vaped (and used to smoke) in my outside garage, that wasn’t difficult to not miss. I didn’t have to go out in the cold and rain any longer – I’m sure that helped, at least a little bit.
Eventually the cravings stopped and the habits were forgotten. It took quite a while, but I eventually stopped thinking about smoking, for several times a day.
Health benefits
I’m pretty sure there are health benefits in stopping smoking. I’ll be honest – I haven’t really noticed any! I didn’t really put any significant weight on and I couldn’t really taste food any more than I used to. I used to ride my bicycle to work (14 mile round trip) for five days a week – I didn’t really detect any discernible difference from when I started to the day I finished after five years. I still hated it.
My doctor is pleased though. He says it was a good thing, as does my wallet. My wallet is definitely fitter.
The upshot
The upshot is now I’ve been tobacco (and vape) free for nine years. I didn’t find it all that hard to do, I think that was mainly because I actually wanted to give up smoking. The fact that I did it in a staged way, by vaping first, probably helped.
If asked, it would be my recommendation to give up the same way as I did: stop cigarettes, stop vaping and then style it out. But you do have to be in the right mindset to be able to do it.
But if you do have a go – good luck!