I smoked my last cigarette on April 10th. I had been a smoker for many years. I used to enjoy smoking a lot. I can honestly say that I smoked out of pleasure, not out of addiction. (Only the few believe me when I say that; but it happens to be true.) I smoked exactly twenty cigarettes a day for most of my adult life.
Truthfully, I don't miss smoking at all. I have given up because I wanted to do so and because it has become a very expensive habit. I therefore started asking myself if I was really getting enough pleasure from the cigarettes I smoked by comparison with the amount of money I was spending on them. Clearly, I wasn't.
Furthermore, smoking today has become such a hassle: one cannot smoke anywhere indoors in public. Not even in friends' homes. The only place left to smoke is in one's own home. I have never smoked in the street. It wasn't the "done thing" when I was growing up, so I never got used to doing that. (It sounds a little old-fashioned, I know; but that's how it was back in the day.)
The biggest problem for me of not smoking is weight gain. That happens not so much because one eats that much more, though that can happen because smoking is an appetite suppressant, but it also happens because smoking increases one's metabolism. So after giving up the habit, the metabolism slows down.
E-cigarettes have never appealed to me. In any case, I have no intention, or desire, to rid myself of one habit only to replace it with another. Further, I don't trust e-cigarettes. Scientists can say all manner of things about them being safer, but the fact of the matter is clear to me: Nobody knows the long-term cpnequences of vaping. And for one simple reason: We haven't got long-term data on the habit.
I hope my new-found smoke-free existence lasts. – © Mark
