Congrats on being smoke free and finding vaping to be a suitable and enjoyable alternative. Like you, my health has improved in many ways since quitting smoking 10+ years ago. I am grateful to the vaping community and THIS mixing community for so many reasons.
Keep on keepin’ on !!
I’m going to do this all over again. Its been a few years since I’ve been around much and lots of things have happened. In October of 2018, husband had lost his job and we made the decision to move from CA to UT where he’s originally from. After getting here, covid hit, and he still couldn’t find a job. Stupid me picked up the stinkies again and pretended to vape while only at work. This lasted until July of 2022 when I decided it was time to quit again. Quitting wasn’t too bad with disposables around. Here’s where things get interesting… August comes and I feel like crap. Thinking maybe I had covid and just fatigue, my right should hurt like hell, so I went to an urgent care. Covid negative, flu negative, Dr. said probably a irritated nerve in my shoulder, so he gave me a steroid shot and sent me on my way. That weekend my fever spiked to 104.5. Thinking he missed something, rotated Tylenol and IBU and fever was controlled. That Wednesday, I decided to go see my regular Dr. She just kept shaking her head and saying “something is wrong, but I can’t pinpoint it.” After a while she asked me to put my chin down to my chest, and I couldn’t. She immediately told me to go to the ER to be transported to a nearby hospital. I don’t remember much after the ride and some Dr. asking if I was one of those people who novacane took forever to work on (I’m pretty sure this was when they took the spinal fluid). When I finally get conscious and talk to the Dr. Yep, bacterial meningitis. Almost died. During this whole 3-4 days I was hallucinating about my husband and daughter being alone. Was crazy to say the least. Well 8 days in the hospital, they send me home weak as hell. At this point I have infection in my upper back that will not consolidate, but I have a nice pic line to do antibiotics at home. After 2 days at home, my left leg gives out, I sit around for a day, PT comes to the house and makes me call an ambulance to come get me. Grrrrrrrrr. So back I go to the hospital, get MRI, CT, infection isn’t going anywhere. Decide they have to dose me in the ICU for 4 days. Because nothing is consolidated they don’t want to do surgery. They finally get me on an antibiotic that works, back to regular hospital room for 8 more days. My left leg is so weak I can’t walk on my own. I have numb spots all over my body from apparent nerve damage (no one can really tell me why/where), but I’m alive. I made them get PT in there so I could get out of that bed. I finally get to go home, not knowing if I’d ever really walk again on my own. PT comes to my house 3 days a week and I fought like hell. After about a month I could get around pretty well with a walker. In November I go into work to see everyone and I tell my boss I cannot sit at home anymore. I’m an assistant manager in a big box hardware store. I figure they are going to make me step down or quit. My boss says “I don’t care if you come back in a wheelchair.” Thats all I needed. After a few months of hobbling around with a walker, I retired that and went to a cane. And about June of 2023 I started leaving the cane in the truck. At this point I have neuropathy in my feet, still some weird numb spots all over my body. I still have weakness in my back and legs, but its getting better every day. I know now that I never have to pick up stinkies again. If I can go through all that and not pick them up, then I’m done. I’ve been using disposables until about a month ago, I decided to finally get all my mixing stuff out of boxes and dig out my rda’s. Here I am mixing again and I hope to never stop. New quit date 7/1/2022!
That story is a nightmare! I’m glad you seem to be on the mend and off the stinkies. Was there any questions about the steroid shot? Could you have had a reaction to it?
Thanks for sharing this. You’ve gone and are going through some tough stuff. So glad you are healing and got off the stinkies. And thrilled you are getting back into mixing.
I am 4 weeks smoke free as of friday because i went fully vape
Congratulations on choicing a safer alternative to Tobacco use.
Congrats on being smoke-free 
Fantastic. Glad you are smoke free. Vaping is the one thing that has kept me smoke free for more than 10 years. Celebrate your accomplishment. Being smoke free is HUGE !!
I realized i haven‘t shared my stoy here.
I started vaping in December 2015, before that, i smoed a pack per day since 1996.
So i got this new job and my co-worker was already vaping.
It always smelled really good so i asked if i can try
I was amazed by the taste (i think it was forrest fruit and menthol, french liquid brand called survival vape or something)
So i went to the vape store near the workplace smd bought a joyetech ego pen and blueberry liquid.
Back home i tried it for the first time and i knew in that exact moment, that this will work to get me off the cigs and since that day I’ve never touched a cig again.
I giot really interested in all things vaping, bought dozens of mods, rda and rta… then in 2016 started my first experiments with diy
I became one the mods on our national vape forum and although the forum got closed and restarted, i stayed moderator to this day
Hi all, this is my first and probably last post, as down under in the land of Oz, our masters are slamming the gates shut. My saviour is demonised and become a bland, inferior substitute sitting on a chemists shelf and guarded by the white coats. I pity the hundreds of thousands of smokers denied the same opportunity as myself, and detest the politicians whose hands now wear their blood. But governments fall and something will evolve from change, and I’m confident we"ll be back one day, but for now, I have to observe from the fringes. It could be worse though, and I consider myself one of the lucky ones, as I experienced vaping for what it could be before it became a roadkill. A ‘good ol’ days’ story for the grandchildren I may now live to see.
Many of you realise the toll of years of miserable failed quitting attempts. Some of my attempts were genuine, and some were pathetic, half-hearted offerings to appease a guilty conscience. Waking and the first conscious feelings being guilt and shame for what you desire the most, to surrender to an addiction that you know is killing you. To rob yourself, and those who you love, of your life, and to become intimate with hopelessness and helplessness. Sarcastically, I used to call tobacco my ‘life support system’ as there was no living without it. The chemist’s remedies took only the edge off the withdrawal madness, and the doctors poison introduced it own debilitating curse. Bed ridden depression didn’t seem like a smart solution. At least, that’s what a concerned loved one thought as they took my pills from me and said, “No more.” There were no more futile attempts as I was defeated. Self-loathing and accepting my fate was to die from something that I wasn’t strong enough to prevent. I gave up giving up.
May of 2019, the tide would turn. Whilst visiting a friend who was in hospital for lung cancer, as I sat and talked to the withered man and witnessed what I believed to be my own terrifying fate, he gave me my first vape. Sceptical to say the least, but upon first puff, the planets aligned, and something fell into place. For the first time in decades, I felt something not defined and something I struggled to remember. I felt hope.
The transition wasn’t instant, my juice wasn’t strong enough, and I was going through coils like lollies at a childs birthday party. 50mg salts burst onto the scene with a vengeance, as it would literally drop me in a euphoric dizzy mess. The elusive mythical nicotine demon I had been chasing for all these years could suddenly be caught, and it was grabbed by the tail, and we wrestled until exhaustion set in. Nicotine and I needed to come to an agreement, and the limits had to be learned. Whilst in the process of this, my smoking dwindled to a single habitual morning cigarette.
Two weeks into my journey, the unpalatable morning smoke was stubbed out after two puffs. Decades of a toxic dependence syndrome became transparent, and smoking was laid to rest that day. After an eternity of failures, there was no pain or struggle, and I hadn’t even tried. It felt as though I had given up quite by accident. My tobacco sat going stale, and sometimes I’d think ‘I beat you’. But in reality, I never stood a chance. My vape was the triumphant one.
That was five years ago, and there’s not the slightest urge to smoke again. Nostalgia surfaces when tobacco drifts on the wind as it reminds me of some good times, but there’s no desire to relive a past. It had taken a few years to find my happy place, but eventually, the code was cracked. The journey’s not over, I’m still vaping nicotine, and it is as yet to wave a white flag, but that doesn’t bother me. After 25 years of smoking, I’ve tasted freedom from tobacco, and now I’m not afraid to have hope for the future. And that is truly priceless.
@gone_bush, wow. That is one HELL of a first (hopefully not last), post.
I’m actually impressed, and hope that you are wrong, and NOT your last.
A tragic situation with barely any other way to describe it.
Wow great story and writing
Wow, sounds like a peaceful transition 
It’s stories like yours that just make me want to cry about the Australia situation. But you are right, empires fall and time changes all. Wishing you and your Aussie friends the best outcome possible ASAP 
I’ve been vaping and using nic for 10 yrs now and I’m doing fine and my doctor is happy. It’s probably the least of our concerns. Congratulations!
For the first month i was really worried that the products i bought wouldn‘t work for me and i would go back to smoking.
But every week without smoking gave me more confidence that vaping works for me.
I‘ve seen a lot of my friends starting to vape and then go back after a short time… just because they didn‘t understand what their addiction was…it‘s a mind game. Vaping just breaks your habit to light up a cig.
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.
@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.
