I was at a friend's house last weekend. And we were sitting jawing. I was talking about EX and addiction to cigarettes and he said he was given an e-cig by some vendor for free to try. (He doesn't smoke any more.) Never having seen one up close and personal I asked him to show me how it worked. It looked exactly like a normal white cigarette with a tan filter made of ? plastic? (Not one of those hookah looking things) I stupidly asked "What do you do? Do you light the end?" He said, "No, you just draw on it like you would cigarette." And he proceeded to take a puff, er - vape, then exhaled the vapor. Really cool I thought. The end turned red just like a real cigarette. He then handed it to me and said, "you wanna try?" I said, "Oh, no no no. Not one puff ever means Not One Puff Ever. I don't need to reintroduce nicotine into my body." He said "these have nicotine in them?" I replied in the affirmative. He didn't know that.
But I did hold it in my hand and examine it. Wished like hell I'd had one when I first quit back in my 20s, I thought. Though back then, of course, they hadn't been manufactured. They only had those fake plastic cigarettes that had a little hole in the end and some mint flavor. But do I really wish I'd had one back then?? I wonder if I would still be vaping 40 years later or whether I would have been able to get off them. Or would I have gone back to the real thing? I'll never know. I do know, however, that I quit smoking almost 9 years ago. And I know that I am free with no vaping strings attached.
If vaping enables people to become permanently free of smoking I would have to say that that is a good thing. My fear is that, just as with cigarettes when they first were heavily advertised, before all the studies came out that informed us of their slow-killing nature, vaping may ultimately prove to cause different but equally long-term damaging lung function disorders. Even if it's LESS than what cigarettes do to us.... why introduce that to yourself? In a way I have to admit I'm kind of jealous of vapers. Hey, I'm a cigarette addict. I'd like to be able to vape. After all, it's "smoking without penalty," right? Isn't that what we all want?
The problem is it's not without penalty. Nicotine IS addictive and the e-cig is still giving us that nicotine which enslaves us. And it is also keeping the hand-to-mouth "habit" alive and well. It also takes our money, just like cigarettes did. And we don't yet know what, if any, the long-term damage may be.
I think I'll just stick with my quit. Day Won. Never Another Day One.
