I’m very happy for you. Everyone has a different journey and much of that also depends on what was available at the time. The only thing near me was cig-a-likes at the gas stations and I didn’t like them that much but I tried to use them while I was still smoking, hoping it would help me cut down. It really didn’t so when I went on vacation I planned to take my last pack of cigs and a bunch of blu ecigs. After my last cig I was jonesing but the ecigs got me through the first rough days. Luckily, soon after that I saw someone vaping on an ego. She told me where I could buy one and that was the final nail in the coffin for cigarettes.
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@Echodub you reminded me of how I made the transition. Back in the way back, the equipment, was kind of shit (not all, but a lot of it). Very limited selection, hell I even remember kiosks in malls pushing kinda “Ehhhh” equipment.
Somehow I found out about dripping on Ego atomizers, and somehow, I have NO CLUE, I was able to kick OFF of the cigs, over to dripping. Granted it was pretty high mg, maybe 24mg or higher, but somehow it worked.
Yup, yup, and more yup. Most of the “fails” I saw, were due to too low NIC levels, really bad equipment, and they just gave up.
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30+ years smoking with no intention of quitting. I just didn’t think I could. I did think about it often and knew I needed to.
I saw an old friend walk into the local vape shop and followed them in just to say hi. They told me about the store and introduced me to the people inside. We hung out for a while, as I listened to them tell stories of friends and family who quit with vaping. They had my full attention.
They recommended a 65w mod with tank and explained the importance of finding a flavor I truly enjoyed. Just like that, I was vaping.
A few days later, I thought “oh no what have I done? I’m smoking and vaping.” For about a week I did both. One day I woke up, lit a cigarette and found it less satisfying than my vape. Actually, smoking wasn’t very good at all. I put it out after one drag and never went back.
I have been messing about making recipes for a while now and after a few weeks of experimenting, I came up with pb and jj and it’s been my every day vape ever since.
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Welcome. Like you I was a solid pack a day smoker, and now I’m less than a month away from 9 years vaping.
A freshly opened pack smelled glorious, but while smoking all I got was a burn at the back of my throat. Vaping changed all that.
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Fantastic to hear your story. Amazing how vaping can be a sufficient substitute for smoking when you find the right gear and juices that tickle your taste buds. Congrats and glad you joined the forum. Lots of great folks here who’ve been incredibly helpful to so many.
@big_vape Congrats on your upcoming 9 year smoke free anniversary. That is huge. I think I’ll have 11 years smoke free on September 30th.
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I lit my first cigarette when I was around 15 or 16. With both my parents smoking, it didn’t take much peer pressure to get me to try it. What started as the occasional puff quickly turned into a full pack a day by the time I left high school. That later became two packs. By my late 30s, I switched to rolling tobacco and discovered flavoured blends, which I absolutely loved.
Then COVID hit. Lockdowns, bans, and desperation led me to a tobacco farmer, and I started making my own flavoured blends from raw tobacco. I knew it wasn’t doing me any favours, but at that point, smoking was just part of my life.
That December, after the lockdown was lifted, I was introduced to my first vape. I’d seen them around but believed the usual scaremongering—“they’re worse than cigarettes,” “they’ll kill you faster,” and so on. But after everything I’d been rolling and smoking, I figured I’d at least try one. Curiosity, more than anything, got me to take that first puff.
I started with disposables, drawn in by their rich fruity flavours. But then I got my hands on a PX80 and discovered dessert flavours. That was it. Hooked. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I quit smoking because it wasn’t a conscious decision—it just happened. As my love for vaping grew, cigarettes faded into the background.
Then I got my first mech mod and RDA, and there was no turning back. I started making my own coils, mixing my own juice, and before I knew it, vaping wasn’t just a replacement for smoking—it was a hobby, a passion, and a way of life.
Today, I’m deeply involved in the vaping community, sharing my experiences, doing reviews, and helping others find better alternatives to smoking. I went from rolling my own cigarettes to crafting my own e-liquids, and if you told 16-year-old me that one day I’d be advocating for vaping, I’d have laughed through a cloud of cheap cigarette smoke.
But here I am. Smoke-free. Healthier. And loving every flavourful moment of it.
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Thanks for sharing your story with us. Congrats on giving up smoking and finding that vaping is a sufficient substitute. I’m grateful for all of us who have quit smoking, whatever way it happened.
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Almost 10 years into vaping, still loving the smell of a freshly opened pack, and still can’t stand the smell of burning tobacco or the stale smell still lingering on clothes…
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Yes!!!
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Instead of telling an awfully long ass story, I’ll just say that i did go back and forth over the past 8 years. It was mostly due to stressful life situations. Then I wanted to quit smoking again in 2023. Successfully went from chain-smoking to 3mg liquid, and now I just mix my own at 1.5mg. This time its for good. I very confidently feel I will never go back to cigarettes. I have too much enjoyment fiddling around with my vape, tanks and juices. My life is a lot better now too.
I think vape mods now are kind of like the new way of how the older generation people used tobacco pipes, you see the older generation that smokes tobacco pipes would have collections of them. My grandpa had a pipe collection. Now in this era, people have mod collections. Tobacco pipes needed to be cleaned and fiddled with, I think vape mods kind of give that same sort of activity, just in a different way. Not saying they’re the same thing, it just seems like they’re similar but different.
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My story is i smoked “poppers” in highschool which is basically mixing tobacco with marijuana in a bong. I started doing straight tobacco unfiltered in a bong i got so hooked
this was so much worse than just smoking, I only started Cigs because i can’t always be doing poppers i would smoke and entire cigarette in about 4 massive puffs
thankfully i only did this for a couple of years and quit smoking entirely.
Thanks vaping
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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.
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It’s good to keep the hands busy 
Well, I’ll speak for myself anyway. “Idle hands do the devil’s work” 
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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.
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