After 17+ years of trying everything out there, I finally found a way to quit smoking. What I'm using is new, controversial and many don't even consider it "quit". But there is NO SMOKE in my life and it feels great.
From the blog's title, some might guess what this is about. I'm a "vaper" now. I'm still getting the nicotine, but not from a cigarette. Just like some people stop smoking by using patches, gum or pills, I use a device that "vaporizes" a liquid that contains nicotine and I inhale that. The media calls it an "electronic cigarette". I disagree with the name because it is NOT a cigarette. I would be like using "cigarette patch" for nicotine patches or "chewable cigarette" for the nicotine gum. I prefer to call it "Personal Vaporizer", or PV for short.
It wasn't a silver bullet. There are many different models out there and it took some time to find out something that could really work for me. Is just like cigarette brands. What is somebody's favorite brand, is un-smokable for others. It took some of experimentation and a lot of research to find something that worked for me. I almost gave up a few times along the way. I'm glad I kept trying.
It all started last year. I wasn't even thinking about quitting. I just wanted to find some way to get the nicotine fix without smoking. I've tried patches, gum, snus, pills, everything... nothing worked. Sometimes I have to stay at the office for long periods of time with no break, or overnight with my kids @ the hospital. I needed something to get those nicotine cravings under control.
I looked at all these adds for PVs and I got interested. Most of them had a big price tag of around $100 bucks. That is not the amount of money I could spend of something when I don't know if is gonna work or not. I searched on the internet to no avail. Everywhere I looked I was bombarded with adds saying "our model is the best". I could not found one single real review from an actual PV user, not "sponsored" by any re-seller. So I waited.
Months went by and last January a friend showed me his new PV. I tried it out, it kinda worked. When he told me it was on sale at 7-Eleven for just $20 bucks, I ran there to get me one. It was an Npro from Njoy. It is similar in size to a regular cigarette. The kit came with a battery, a charger and 2 cartridges. A pack of 5 extra cartridges was also being sold for another $20 bucks. My friend said that one cartridge could last for days (beware, that is false... more on that later) so it looked like something I could afford. I came back home with the unit (battery + charger) and a total of 7 cartridges, for around $40 bucks.
That day I tried the PV, using the unit instead of cigarettes. I found I could substitute every other cigarette for the PV. But anything more than that would give me cravings. Also, the cartridges that should have worked for days were more than 10 cigarettes worth. After that they would still give some vapor, but I wasn't getting any nicotine fix out of them.
I went back to my research. I searched on the internet, this time using the brand/model of what I was using. Finally, I found a few forums made by actual users, talking about their experiences with different types of PVs, including mine. It was there where I learned about nicotine content. I found out that the cartridges I got were filled with a nicotine solution comparable to an ultra light cigarette. I was a full flavor smoker, using strong stuff so, of course, this small nicotine content was not going to do it. My cartridges were 1.6% nicotine content and what I really needed was something with around 2.6% nicotine content.
Since I wasn't able to get cartridges on the correct strength from neither the local stores or the Njoy website, I decided to move forward to something else. I made a list of everything I wish my PV could had:
1. Longer battery life (Njoy would only last me about 2-3 smoke breaks worth).
2. Refillable cartridges (a lot cheaper that way).
3. Standard (able to get replacement parts from different manufacturers).
From what I found, the battery on the Npro had a capacity of 180MaH. A popular battery on the PV arena, the standard Joye Ego battery, was 650MaH. I read a little bit more and found that these Ego batteries also come in "pass-through" models. This means they have a mini USB connector and can be charged with a USB cable, no charger needed. Also, you can still use it while charging. I kept reading and these batteries accept all 510 cartridges. The 510 is a widely used standard and many manufactures make their products 510 compatible. So I pulled the trigger and order an Ego unit and some liquid.
One month later, I'm still vaping out of that Ego unit. I've tried a few other things and I'm planning on getting something even better. But the Joye Ego is a solid unit. It works. I have not had a cigarette in days and I don't want to. I am now smoke free, puffing away glorious clouds of vapor.
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