Smoking... Switching from Analogue to Digital...

I thought this was the funniest of the no-smoking pictures...
In a morbid kind of humor...

For the past 2 weeks, my family and I have been attempting to plan a trip to Casper, Wyoming, where the majority of my Dad's-side of the family lives, specifically his father... my last grandparent.

About a month ago, he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, which has since spread to his spine, liver, kidneys and bones (which, apparently, is the point when the doctors start talking about quality of life, because the quantity is just about ZERO). In addition to his quickly degrading condition, time is NOT on our side because our family doesn't get "normal" cancer... we get the Navy-Seal-Team-6 cancer: It strikes hard, and it strikes fast.

• My Mother's-Father died in 1997... Lung Cancer.
• My Mother's-Mother died in 2001... Emphysema
• My Father's-Mother died in 2003... Lung Cancer
• My Father's-Father WILL die in 2013... Lung Cancer

All from smoking cigarettes.

For most people, that would be enough to swear off cigarettes and fantasize about all tobacco companies going bankrupt.  However, as the saying goes, the acorn does not fall from the genetic tree...

so, I'm happy to say that I am WAS a smoker.  I had my last cigarette at 7:53 AM on Monday, March 25th, 2013.

Now, I am a VAPER.  I've been using e-cigarettes for the past 9 months while smoking tobacco cigarettes, and I've finally made the full transition away from tobacco.

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I must let all prospective-quitters of smoking know that switching to e-cigarettes is not easy... analogue cigarettes (what the vaping community calls tobacco cigarettes) have many other addictive chemicals, called alkaloids, and the majority of e-cigarettes only have liquid nicotine.  This means that there is still a period of withdrawal, and it's still awful... just less awful with an e-cigarette.

Here's what most people think of when they hear "e-cigarette":

There's 3 basic components of an e-cigarette:

1. Battery (you know what those are)
2. The Atomizer (a wire that heats up to vaporize the e-liquid)
3. The E-Liquid (liquid that gets vaporized, and then inhaled.  Usually flavored, and usually with nicotine)

One group of people that typically LOVE stimulants... like nicotine... are engineers.  Engineers began installing bigger batteries, better atomizers, electronics that control everything that happens in the device.  NOW, e-cigarette devices even come with COMPUTER SOFTWARE!

I started with a basic set-up, called a "box-mod".  Spent about $40 on that device...

All it had was:

1. Box
2. Battery
3. Fire Button
4. on/off switch (so that the button doesn't activate in your pocket)
5. Atomizer.

Then I moved to the eGo Twist (pictured left).  The Twist has an on/off switch integrated with the firing button and a variable voltage dial on the bottom to control the strength.  That was $60...

Next was the Bolt (to the right).  Sadly, this device got stolen, but it had a huge battery, and I added a variable wattage regulator.

The biggest investment to that point... $160.

Finally, after switching devices every 2 months, I found my current e-cigarette and I LOVE it like a child... maybe even more than a child... the Provari V2, variable voltage device, with an 18650 extension cap and Phoenix Rebuild-able Atomizer.

Because this device is ridiculously durable (it's been dropped dozens of times AND submerged in water) and made in the USA, the price tag is the highest so far... $240 (the discounted price).

It's a hefty price to pay for a piece of electronics, but when considering I was spending $270 each month to support my pack-and-a-half per day habit, a 1 time expense that was LESS than I was spending already made sense.  My addiction now costs roughly $60 per month for the e-liquid (which is pretty high for most vapers).  A couple other little benefits include:

• Not getting cancer
• Being able to play music again
• Being able to exercise without having coughing fits
• Being able to speak without taking breathing-breaks.

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A couple misconceptions about e-cigarettes:

THEY EXPLODE!  A couple of e-cig batteries DID explode... and I literally mean A COUPLE... however all e-cigarettes are now vented to prevent heat or pressure build-up... no more explosions.

THE CHEMICALS ARE WORSE!  Ridiculously untrue. E-liquid is made up of:

• PG (propylene glycol) - Used in foods, personal care products and medications.  FDA certified as safe.  Used to dilute the nicotine liquid.
• VG (vegetable glycerine) - Also used in foods, personal care and medications.  Also FDA approved. Used to dilute the nicotine liquid.
• Flavoring - Most e-liquid companies use FDA/USDA approved flavorings.
• Nicotine - Well... Nicotine isn't really good for you... but smokers were getting significantly higher doses from cigarettes anyways, so it's a lateral move, at best.  The e-liquid manufacturers also typically indicate on the bottle the nicotine potency, so it's actually possible to monitor the nicotine intake.