It’s a different world for me this week. It’s not filled with smoke, ashes or burning tobacco. Instead it’s filled with vapour, lovely tastes, great smells and real relaxation without a smidgen of guilt.

I traded in smoking for vaping full time. FINALLY.  I feel much better thinking of it as graduating to full time vaping than to say I quit smoking. I’d much rather think I’ve started something rather than an end to smoking. It’s just a much more positive spin and it’s more fitting of how I feel.

I got really frustrated that I hadn’t yet made the transition to vaping 100% to the point where, for a few days, I quit trying to quit. I was just getting too frustrated with myself and needed to take a step back and re-group. I’m glad I did. It helped get me in a better mindset. Something else that really helped was starting a thread in the AussieVapers forum and asking people to tell what their vaping day was like. That was really informative. I’d been making the assumption for myself that I’d just continue to have my usual smoke breaks but vape instead with very little, if any, vaping in between.  Turns out the vast majority of people who responded told me they vape all day. And some also take vape breaks as well.  That was interesting and proved to be quite helpful in making the transition.  It was also brought up that the amount of nicotine I was vaping was still quite low and if I increased it, that might help with cravings for cigarettes.

Around the same time I was doing some other reasearch online and found a few discussions and videos on the ‘right’ way to inhale when using an E-cig. What I was doing was inhaling directly into my lungs (the same way I smoked). The better way to inhale vapour is to draw it into the mouth first and then into the lungs. This works much better for me I have less issues with asthma doing it this way.

So I taught myself to inhale differently and once I could handle the nicotine I made up more E-juice with slightly more nicotine and slowly, every other day kept increasing the nicotine amount until I was vaping 18mg successfully. This seems to be my level as I vaped more but smoked less cigarettes.

Last Saturday I knew my tobacco would run out sometime during the day or night and I made the decision not to buy any more. Also in my favour on the weekend is my particular brand (and genre) of rolling tobacco is menthol and only available at the smoke shop. I can’t just go into any grocery store or petrol station and get my tobacco. The smoke shop closes at 5pm on Saturdays and doesn’t open again until 11am Sunday.  I saw this as a real advantage for running out of tobacco – it’s not like I’d be able to run out and get more for awhile.

I finished my last smoke around 3:30 am and went to bed.  When I woke on Sunday I reached for my E-cig and starting vaping away even before making myself coffee.Each day I’ve still spent time out on the patio taking breaks but instead of smoking, vaping instead. And it’s been quite pleasant.  I haven’t had too many cravings at all and when I do have one, I’ve been able to quickly deal with it by having a vape instead.

When I think of all the awful nicotine lozenges I’ve gone through in the past when trying to quit smoking and how much easier and more pleasant this transition was, I’m blown away.

I should clarify.  It hasn’t been easy getting sorted out as far as my asthma goes but learning how to inhale correctly really made a huge improvement in that regard. Once all the conditions were right though, the actual change over to vaping full time wasn’t anything as horrific as other ways I’ve quit smoking. And I can still take breaks on my patio and pretty much follow the same routine as I always have with the exception that I’m using an E-cig instead. This is SO much better!

I have lots of other news about vaping but wanted to share this today. It’s been almost 4 full days now!  I’ve definitely graduated to full time vaping. 😀

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