My #Vaping Journey: The First Two Months

A Smoker Turns Into A Vaper

After I left Vaporz in Portsmouth, NH with my EVOD starter kit and e-juice, both excitement and fear went through my body. Anytime this smoker makes changes to habits or addictions, the nicotine anxiety monster inside fires up and cravings go through the roof, not to mention mental gymnastics go into overdrive. “What if this doesn’t work?”, “Did I get strong enough ‘e-juice’ or whatever this shit is?”, “What if I get home, one of these batteries is bad and I have to wait X hours for one to charge before I can get another hit?”. The “itty-bitty shitty committee” was eating at me, but I took a couple hits off a cigalike to shut it up.

I held myself accountable to my youngest daughter, who used to come outside after me countless times while I was partaking a cigarette, and told her that I was going to give this a try. I promised her many times I would quit, only to make it a couple hours to at most a couple days before she’d come after me outside again. While I feel incredibly blessed my kids never saw me hammered, the flip side is I have felt like shit for years when they’d catch me smoking outside. That wasn’t the model I wanted to be.

I got home after the hour-plus ride and quickly grabbed a cigar and basically chained smoked the 8 or 10 I had left in three hours before I racked out. In between, I looked over the EVOD, trying to remember all the clerk said. I filled the tanks, and let them sit overnight with the batteries ready to go. I went to bed that night, praying for a solution to all these years of nicotine and smoking hell.

The First Day

I woke up the next morning to a quiet home. My wife was away, my oldest was away at school. It was just me and my youngest, and she was in bed. I grabbed the EVOD as I got out of bed and began puffing away on it. I enjoyed the flavor of the e-juice at first. It was watermelon from World’s Finest Vapors, and I got a fair amount of vapor out of it. The first day went well overall. I did get a bit of burning and a couple dry hits which made me wonder if this was the right idea. Burnt juice is the most disgusting things on the planet… especially when you take a lung hit. The transition from smoker to vapor I knew was going to take some time. I chained vaped through the day out of fear I wasn’t getting enough nicotine, was reasonably satisfied, and felt little difference from actual smoking.

The First Week

The next test was going to work as a vaper while most of the most of the rest of the department were smokers. One thing that helped a lot was it was raining and cold outside. While my co-workers grabbed jackets and hats to go out and burn one, I just sat in my office and vaped. I made it home that night without smoking, but I did feel tempted a bit because I missed the chats and life check-ins while we had a smoke. I wasn’t jonesing for a smoke as my nicotine levels were satisfied, although I was breaking in the EVODs with vigor. Both batteries needed to be charged at some point during the day, but I made it.

My body began to adjust during the course of the week, and I actually found myself vaping a bit less by the weekend. I had one scare as I left home one day without the battery charger and burnt through a battery by 11 AM, and I knew I wasn’t going to be home until 6-7 that night. I made the 800 mah battery work until I got home, where it died upon door entry. I scrambled around to get one charging, and figured the sooner I could get to bed and not think about my need for nicotine, the better. I woke up and switched batteries in the middle part of the night, and had two fully charged the next morning.

The Second Week

One thing I have learned in this process is that it takes a couple weeks to get used to the hardware and figure it out. One thing I knew for sure is the e-juice from World’s Finest Vapors I had was disgusting. “American made. High quality, 50/50 blend” and it tasted like battery acid to me by this time. My mind was thinking that it may have been the 1.8 ohm coils the clerk gave me. I changed the coils (a newbie fail… I never thought to change the coils) and it helped, but the onslaught of watermelon all the time at this point made everything taste horrible. I did a Google search and found Old Port Vape and went into Portland to check them out. The education continued. They had me sample a bunch of liquid, and it was there that I was turned onto Suicide Bunny. Mother’s Milk was my first bottle, and I thought I died and went to heaven. I got that in 12mg nicotine, and it was the next day when I got a nicotine headache that the little voice inside said, “You’re ready to step down.” My head denied it, however. The clerk who sold me the EVOD kit in Portsmouth insisted to me that I use 12mg for two months then step down. I survived the intermittent headaches while I sucked down a 30ml bottle of Pip’s finest in 8 days.

The First Month

After figuring out the EVOD and realizing it was turning into a pain in the ass, I went back to Old Port Vape and began to check out hardware. Those guys were excellent with me. Of course, they tried to sell me a Kanger Mega AeroTank with a 50W battery, but I had not educated myself on that. I thought at the time that all MODs were rebuildables, and I wanted nothing to do with that. I have barely enough time to spend a few moments with my youngest daughter most days, let alone sit down and build coils. I saw the brand new EVOD MEGA and I figured I’d give it a shot. I liked the bigger battery idea… this idea of charging two 800 mah batteries a day was bullshit in my mind at this point. I have to say that was a decent step up. I got almost two days out of the 1900 mah battery and since its a vape-while-charging style unit, I just plugged it in and used it. The dual coil is very good on flavor, and decent cloud production for its type. I got less burn hits (still a few) but overall, I was satisfied. I went back the next week and picked up another for a Christmas gift, along with a bottle of Phillip Rocke Grande Reserve Crème de la Crème eLiquid. If there was a great juice for a dripper, this 20/80 blend is killer. Unfortunately for the lowly MEGA, I was burning coils every 8 ml or so. It pissed me off, actually. I had no idea at that point that higher VG (vegetable glycerine) plugged coils up like storm drain in a tropical downpour (live and learn). I went with Phillip Rocke at the highest available of 9 mg of nicotine. Since it was very satisfying at 9mg, I knew I was ready to drop to six milligrams in January.

The Six Week Point

Christmas came & went without too much family related drama, which is what I like. I talked to both my sister-in-law and brother-in-law about my success with vaping. Both had tried it, and had poor luck with it. I asked why and both said they didn’t know what were doing. (For you people that own or work in brick & mortar shops, I tip my hat to you. To have knowledgeable staff who uses the product to ask questions is so vitally important in this journey.) I tried to help them out but they didn’t have their eGo’s or whatever they have on them, so I was useless to them.

I stopped into a shop in the north west end of Portland looking for more of Pip’s finest, based on a Google search. This skanky place was a gas station “vape shop” that sold tobacco, as well as bongs & bowls. The clerk was totally clueless about anything vape related, but tried to spin some bullshit on me. I ended up walking out the door with a bottle of Suicide Bunny’s Madrina since they were out of both Mother’s Milk and The O.B. (my one and two eliquids of late) and won’t go back again. The Madrina is nice for melon/berry & creme folks, and vapor is excellent. I won’t knock it since I know it is Pip’s personal fave, but it tasted too much like the one I got started with from Worlds Finest Vapors and I just personally couldn’t get into it. It was my nighttime juice for a couple weeks until I gave up on it.

Two Months

I was checking out YouTube and saw where Chris from Indoor Smokers raved about the Aspire Nautilus Mini & iStick 20 watt combo. Doing some more digging, a few others said the same… and a few more did also. So I did some research of where to get that kind of a set up, and get the best price for it. Knowing the amount of clones and counterfeit tanks & batteries on the market, buying online can be a risky proposition. I took a chance with BuyVaporizerPen.com & Vapor Beast. BuyVaporizerPen had a package on the Nautilus Mini & iStick, but as I scrolled through I saw they also had one with the new Innokin MVP20. I liked the features of the MVP20 so I went that route. I ended up getting two Nautilus Mini’s and one MVP20 for just under $100. Since I am tough on equipment, I needed the stainless steel replacement tanks, which I found at Vapor Beast for $8 each, along with a killer deal on the BVC coils at $12 for a 5-pack. Everything showed up authentic per both the Aspire & Innokin websites, so I was relieved. I cleaned the tanks, loaded them up with eLiquid, primed them as suggested by the Vape Miser on YouTube and was instantly blown away just how flavorful and vaporous the Nautilus Mini performed. It took me a couple days to play around with voltage, but I found what worked for me. It’s totally changed the way I look at vaping up to this point.

Looking at this from a physical & mental standpoint, I still have no desire to smoke. I am actually excited about nicotine reduction, having transitioned from 12mg eLiquid to 6mg of eLiquid without noticing. I use a 3mg eLiquid during the evening, and I am more than satisfied with that. The goal for me from the start was to be nicotine free by June in time for my 46th birthday. I have read testimonies where some did it faster, but I know myself and my relationship with this drug all too well. “Easy Does It” is the right way for me to taper off of it.

I will start doing reviews on my hardware experiences, eLiquid, and purchases in the time ahead.

Thanks for reading, and #VapeOn

-MV