Thread by @davereaboi

VAPING STORY: In 2014, I moved to Texas. On the road trip from DC, I bought 6 cartons of red Pall Malls. I’d half-heartedly tried to quit smoking a few times, but I always returned. Working from home, I was up to 3 packs a day...

In my attempts to quit I even tried very primitive ecigs from the mall. They were cumbersome, they hit very weakly, and were often unreliable. It in no way was a replacement for cigarettes, which didn’t need to be charged, tasted great, and always worked when lit.

When I got to Texas, I saw a vape shop across the street from the gym. I had joined Match and started chatting with this woman. We’d set a date to meet up, and I was excited by the prospect—and I did NOT want to be a smoker when that date came around.

I went into the vape shop at around 7pm. The folks there were so helpful, walked me through everything. I tried a number of juices, but settled on a familiar tobacco taste. I came home with my kit and saw it as an investment. I was determined.

Got home, went out on the balcony, and vaped and vaped. When I wanted a cigarette out of habit, I vaped more and more. I was out there for hours, and started going through a kind of withdrawal.

When the sun was coming up, I went to bed. I had the ecig next to me by the bed on an unpacked box I was using as a nightstand. I still wanted to smoke a cigarette when I got up—just out of habit—but I vaped every time that feeling came back.

By that night, I was so committed to vaping, I didn’t think about cigarettes at all—here was thing I enjoyed, and the nicotine, and a ritual—but my clothes didn’t smell grotesque and I didn’t have that nasty cigarette shit coming out of my pores.

I was very curious about the date—could I “pass” as a non-smoker after a few days? I needed to wash my clothes several times and pray the toxins in the cigarettes would leave my pores. Driving to the date I was nervous.

It ended up not being just two nice dates, and then I moved to Austin. But I arrived a non-smoker. Gave away all my Pall Malls but 1 “emergency” pack. Every few months I’d try a cigarette, take a few puffs, and couldn’t stand to finish it. I tossed the pack after about 2 months.

In Austin, I was a recent ex-smoker, and started seeing a woman who smoked. On our first date, she smoked and I vaped. Not long into the relationship I convinced her to switch to vaping as well.

Around that time, the vaping industry was exploding: seemed like every month, new products were introduced that changed the game—quality got better, battery life increased, flavor, reliability, everything. It was no longer a bit of a hassle; it was easy and tasted great.

Over the years, I’ve pushed vaping on a ton of smokers. I’ll say, the vast majority of my smoker friends have made the move—and all of them are happy they gave up smoking.

-Fin-