I quit smoking 2 years ago

I was in London. It was the last day of my stay and this wild thought struck me: why not try to get hold on one of those electronic cigarettes? Since I live nearby the North Pole, such devices are hard to find and as a total novice a little help to get started would be brilliant.

So I aired the question to my friend, Rich. As the helpful guy he is, he looked up the nearest shop in the neighborhood and it turned out to be near the railway. Good. We were going there anyway.

I'm no novice in the use of devices, but electricity has been and still is almost magic to me. Not that it is hard to understand but who thinks about resistance in their daily life? Who thinks about discharge rate for a battery? Probably no one. Except for the usual nerds. Since I'm not that much of a nerd, the choice to go to this shop was brilliant.

The guy in the shop looked at me and said "how much do you smoke?"

"100-150 grams of rolling tobacco" I answered.

The guy thought for a second and said "that's a lot. I recommend you try 24 mg nicotine"

He went on and found some liquid in his cabinet. A test device would be my first hit of smokeless nicotine.

I inhaled from the divice and could immediately feel the nicotine. It was a taste supposed to be a tobacco variety. Not convincing, too sweet but not as sweet as I had feared.

We went on to my options in gear. He quickly found a set with premade coils and a pen style battery. A sensible starter kit. I learned later that I should have bought two, since one always need to have a backup. One to charge and one to use. And if one breaks, you definitely want to have a spare device.

I got home from my London trip and tried to remember all the guy had told me. I had however bought a kilo of tobacco in the tax free, so there was no rush. But I was eager to get up to speed with my new toy and quickly learned that I really did not need tobacco. This shit did the trick effectively. So I ended up reducing my tobacco use to a few fags a day. I think it took me a full year to get through the tax free box.

I spent that summer expanding my gear to also include rebuildable devices and stronger battery packs. To learn what you like is a harder effort than staying off the analogs is my experience.

And slowly I have reduced my nicotine strength down to two milligrams. I can sleep without waking up in the middle of the night to get nicotine. I never thought that would be possible! But it is!

I can't remember last time I had a fag now. It is strange. And naturally both smell and taste is much better than it used to be.

I might follow up on this topic since the politics of tobacco is similar to the politics I fear for crypto currencies. Ecigarettes was totally unregulated and I fear the regulating eagerness can be similar when it comes to crypto.