Just discovering these forums, and this post. Cool idea, and some great stories in this thread! Kudos to all the decades long smokers who were able to quit.
My story is similar. I started smoking when I was about 12. Family smoked, and once friends started, I was all in. Amazing how cheap they were then. (about $1/pack)
I smoked for approx 25 years, averaging a pack a day. Give or take the stress of the day. I worked in a machine shop environment for about 15 of these years with machinist basically chain smoking all day while standing by their machines. So it was just easy to walk out of the office, and out onto the floor to chop it up with a buddy for a sec, and smoke real quick. One heavy smoker with a 2-3 pack a day habit started vaping a high nic salt pod and was able to quit. I was amazed it worked on him. Surely it could help me, right?!
Easter 2019 I bought a 25mg pod of some menthol to try and match my liking and brand. Totally confused. But it worked! Haven’t touched a cig since, and still around them all the time.
Now I’m a total fan Boi and have about 500 flavors which I mix my own once I learned how easy after about 3 months of buying expensive pods. Now I mix 3mg,and it’s plenty.
How nice is it to not have your house, car, clothes, etc not smell like an ashtray?! Probably one of the best rewards!
Shout out to Wayne at DIYorDIE for some early skills.
Thanks for sharing your story and being cigarette free since 2019. Fantastic. Glad you found our community. Sounds like you have a lot of mixing experience. Hope you have some fun here.
Well I’m Back!. It was in 2016 when I began my journey into Vaping. I loved how the people from around the world got together as a community. I had not seen this before, especially because many of the companies supported the vapers as well. It was truly a miracle when you look back to what was achieved. Then the bigger industries started to make waves to upset the big happy ship at sail. Well in 2020 the Con-Vid happened and I was caught up in all the mess being created. I started smoking again in May 2020 due to stress and other things. I refused to take that dam thing!. In February 2025 I discovered I had Environmental Lung Cancer and Pericarditis. So I went back to vaping, but things had changed so much including the hardware?. I cannot believe how much things have changed? There is hardly any releases of hardware. All the old channels are gone. The governments/tobacco/medical have totally pulled the guts out of it all. I am devastated to how much damage has been done!..
Well in June I was given the all clear and it was thanks to all the support of this wonderful invention called Vaping. Thankfully there is a lot of support still around
I did keep all my hardware from 2016 - 2020. Its hard to get hold of some spares but a bit of perseverance I found everything. The only thing I had to buy again, was all the concentrates. I had only thrown them out (400+) the year before because of moving, dam it lol…
Thanks to all here and the creator of ELiquid Recipes. XxX
Tony H in Portsmouth UK. Known here as TwoTone 2016-2020.
Yea, that surprised me a lot when looking for the old concentrates. A lot of the companies I used have gone. The best one for me was Rainbow Vapes in the UK. They held complete lines of concentrates. There still around but totally stripped there complete lines. I use Vapable, NomNomz or KingFlavors but I am not impressed as I have to use all 3 just to get what I want.
Regards Tony
I smoked a pack a day from when i was 17 until i was 45. I tried medication, patches, gum, therapy when i finally found vapes i finally realized it could work. I haven’t smoked in over 8 years nor have i wanted a cigarette. I make my own juice at 4% nicotine
Wow, what a journey you’ve been on! Congrats on coming back from all those health issues. What a blessing. Glad you came aboard where you’ll find all the support you need. Happy to have you with us
in December 2025 i was admitted into the hospital with a severe pneumonia and was successfully treated for it. while i was there it was discovered i had a heart defect from birth that had never been diagnosed , a faulty valve was the culprit and they said i had about 2 months left. 6 weeks after my release i was scheduled for open heart surgery.
jump forward 6 months…i am still recovering from the surgery but am starting to feel better than i had in 30 years. i still vape and advocate for it every chance i get. no nicotine for me any more just VG and flavors. i now realize i am one lucky SOB and wish all the smokers had/would take advantage of the opportunity to make the switch B/4 it is too late because there is always hope for happiness. hoping everyone’s story works out as well, <*{{{>{
Well, I’ll speak for myself anyway. “Idle hands do the devil’s work” 
