Seebs has been a smoker for the past 20 years...
In years past; I always made the obligatory "New Year's resolution" to quit the habit, but you know how those things go.
Until this past December... I don't remember what show it was, or who it was that was asked the question... All I know is it was an interview show on PBS (Did I mention I LOVE Public Television?)... Maybe Charlie Rose, maybe Tavis Smiley... not sure.
The interviewer asked the guest about new years resolutions and the guy answered: NONE!
That got a "What do you mean none?" follow up question.
And the guest went on to say "Resolutions are for people that delude themselves into believing that wishing for something will make it come true"... He then said: "Don't make resolutions; instead, establish goals and objectives... And then work on meeting those on a day by day basis". I liked that and it stuck in my mind for days.
Come Dec 30th... I'm outside my apartment at about 3 AM, smoking my last "cowboy killer" of the night; it's as cold as it will get down here in SoFla (About 55 F) and I'm freezing my butt off (20 years of So Fla living will make your blood thin and you won't tolerate lower temperatures as well as someone from Wisconsin for example)...
That one cigarette was the last one in the pack and I made a conscious decision to not go to the store and pick up a new pack that night. Did the same thing the following day... And just kept on telling myself that I would not go to the store "TODAY". Kind of like the whole "set up a plan and work on it on a day by day thing" the guy being interviewed mentioned.
Fast forward to tonight and it's been ten (10) days of free tobacco living for me.
I don't believe in "destiny" stuff, but about two weeks ago; I had my BP checked (139/91)... Not blatantly high, but very close to being "bad".
Again; fast forward until today... I went in a got it checked again. Needless to say I, and the doctor, were pleasantly surprised with the new numbers (128/82)...
Very happy camper here to say the least...
Now for the "not so good" part... The nicotine part is almost a non-issue for me... I rode the "withdrawals" for a week "cold turkey" and got through that on my own, but the "routine" of going outside and "puffing" is something I still miss a lot; not to mention the fact that I've been "replacing" the "smoking" times with candy, chocolate bars, etc.
I had heard about e-Cigs before, but always dismissed them as "gimmicky", but a couple days ago I bumped into an old friend and he had one of them things so I asked him about it and he said they had helped him get off the "cowboy killers" when every other method had failed.
Long story short... I just ordered me a V2 starter pack to see what the fuzz is about and to try and stop my "candy" intake before high BP turns into diabetes.
I guess it's all going to go down like all my other hobbies. I start with the "cheap" starter pack and then end up getting into it hard and that's when the "custom" stuff starts getting delivered to my doorstep. It happened to me with computers (Have enough computer parts here to run my own data center if I wanted) and I'm sure it will happen with "Vaping" too. I've already seen a couple of super good looking wood carving "mods" that have me looking at my wallet with bad intentions.
So that's it for my introduction...
I'm Seebs and I used to be a smoker!