To prove this isn’t just some spam site, and, to add a pinch of validity to my posts, let me give you a little background on myself. Prepare to be bored, very bored. Seriously, don’t read this if you want to stay awake.
I grew up a happy and healthy kid, good grades, athletic and lots of friends. I started smoking medicinal herbs at the tender age of 12, cigarettes at 13.5. By grade 9 I was what you might call a chronic. We would light up at every opportunity, and believe me, we were very opportunistic.
Between grade 11 and 12 I started to think about smoking and what it was doing to my lungs. I was starting to feel the effects of a pack a day for ~4 years, I was also getting less exercise, maybe not directly related to the cigarettes but they definitely played a part. The friends I hung around with were not in bad shape, but a group of smokers tend to sit around and smoke more often than they go jogging.
I quit smoking cigarettes for about 6 months and life was good. I still enjoyed my herbal medicine but was breathing easier already. It’s hard to stop smoking when every single one of your friends smokes, I fell off the wagon, though jumped is more accurate. I moved to the Netherlands for 2 years.
If you’ve been living under a rock, Holland (NL) is home to a very tolerant and friendly group of people. Extremely high quality marijuana and hashish can be purchased at “coffeshops” in just about any town. Don’t be a moron and no one will give you a hard time. Needless to say, I smoked a lot of weed. Possibly consequently, rolling your own cigarettes is a popular thing to do in Holland. Fresh, Drum brand tobacco is an excellent smoke as far as deadly cancer sticks go. Roll a fatty with no filter for extra tarry goodness, I vainly smoked the “light” shag variant.
This story is getting even more boring, hell I’m falling asleep writing it… Ahem, 1 year upon my return to a less tolerant country I decided to give up smoking for good. This time was all or nothing– I was going to give up the herbs as well. I figured that smoking anything would make it easier for me to start up on cigarettes again, which I really didn’t want. Note: I’ve never used or possessed marijuana in my home country as that would be against the law. Legal herbs only.
Many moons later I am still smoke free and probably in the best shape of my life. It wasn’t easy, but determination and a lot of will power triumphed. I think the key for me was mostly psychological. I made myself hate cigarette smoke (including second hand), I “tricked” myself into “thinking” it was super poisonous. I decided to lead a healthier lifestyle and get into better shape. Smoking doesn’t fit into that picture, so things sort of fell into place and it was a win win.
Another thing that helped me quit and stay there was taking a look at the fucking facts. A quick Google search will produce enough to scare any sane individual. It still boggles my mind how smokers are able to totally disregard this information even when it’s plastered right on their goddamn pack with a morbid image to match. Seeing your own mother die on a respirator due to a lifetime of smoking should send a pretty strong message but you’d be surprised. Smokers are a stubborn people and nicotine is a powerful drug.
A few months ago I became interested in the practice known as vaporizing. Basically, heating your herbs to around 180°C so that all the desired medicinal and therapeutic compounds are released but without any combustion. I had heard about it back when I smoked but it seemed questionable and no one i knew had tried it. Rolling up a fat spliff was easy enough back then. But I’d gone without my herbs for years and missed them dearly, it was time to take the plunge. I did it. It wasn’t cheap. I couldn’t be happier.
I’ll save the rest for another post.
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My friends? Some of them quit for a few months but the vast majority of them still smoke. It’s funny (not really), back in grade 9 and 10, of my group of close friends, about 90% smoked. But of the entire population of those grades in my high school only about 20% did. Fast forward to university and that number shot up to probably 70% for the same sample of students. So much for all those science and biology classes. Maybe it was all the stress studying for them.
If just one person checks out this site and thinks about quitting smoking I’ll be happy. It pains me to see people I care about killing themselves with cigarettes. I believe vaporizing is a viable alternative. This post ended up way longer than I wanted and I’m sure no one will read it. Maybe the big G will like it.
Peace,
VB
