Giving up smoking is never going to be easy, anyone who has formed any kind of addiction can testify to that but I think losing my dad was the catalyst to stop me from picking up the cigarettes anymore.
It wasn’t even as if it had been peer pressure at school to be one of the cool kids that drew me in, I was older and should have known better. I had been working in an off licence and stupidly thought it was cool to smoke when I saw designer YSL cigarettes, it was the whole idea of smoking ‘designer’ cigarettes that got me started and well you know where it heads from there….
It’s now coming up to almost 10 years since dad died and both me and hubby have given up the dreaded cancer stick. One thing that has always worried me was the thought that having 4 sons, at least one of them would smoke and when our eldest started out it really was like a kick in the gut to everything we had tried to teach them.
I think having his own child has made him realise his own mortality though and he has made the switch to vape, now I was brought up when it was cool to smoke and all the movie stars walked round with cigarette holders and fancy little cases they would flick open looking super cool! You were allowed to smoke in doors, in work places, pubs…if you wanted to smoke you had to sit at the back of the bus! Now though there seems to be such a stigma attached to smoke actual cigarettes that I was surprised he even went there!
Having made the switch to vape I decided to read up on a guide to vaping before berating his choices and I just wish there had been something like this around years ago and maybe I wouldn’t have made the decision to smoke in the first place. I am a sucker for different scents and flavours so the thought of hundreds of vaping liquids including coconut, cherry etc would have drawn me in more than smelling of an old ashtray! There is a whole culture out there too including forums for vapors to help promote their lifestyle and building their own vapes – did you know you can build them from scratch and custom your own!
Numerous studies have shown that second hand vapour is not the same as secondhand cigarette smoke. As we’ve seen already vapour is far less dangerous than tobacco smoke, but it also dissipates far quicker without any lingering odour.
There is still a blanket ban on vaping in public spaces and transport etc but the vaping culture is strong and here to stay. Whatever choices you make in life do it with an open mind and please read up on things before jumping in ‘because everyone else does it’ – we have said this a lot to our children and I can only hope they make the right decisions for themselves.
XOXO
Debbie
This post is in collaboration with Superior Vapour