In Round Rock, Texas, a woman named Becky Crownover, age 55, found a way to quit smoking. Crownover smoked for over 40 years. How did she do it? Vaping.
After being diagnosed with COPD, emphysema and bronchitis, she was at a crossroads in her decision-making when it came to her health. Her doctor informed her that her lung function was at only 26 percent. At this time of a seriously negative diagnosis, she tried many of the traditional methods to quit. None of them had the favorable outcome to which she was so adamant of attaining.
After attempting these widely available alternative methods to quit, without success, her lung doctor actually recommended e-cigarettes. This is when her vaping journey began.
She started out with the e-cigs you would purchase at a convenience store, such as 7-11. “They didn’t work,” she says. She then went down to her local vape shop, sat with experienced vapers, and found a “formula” that worked. She was able to find the right vape device, tank and a specific nicotine level for her flavored e-juice. The amazing part early on in her transition is that after 6 months of using vaping instead of cigarettes, her lung function was at 47 percent. Anyone hearing this from their doctor would be ecstatic, as the light at the end of the tunnel was now getting brighter. The goal seems attainable with positive results soon to follow. This was a remarkable improvement over the 26 percent lung function just 6 months prior.
She admits, it was not easy. In fact, it took a good two weeks from purchasing a vape device to completely transition over to vaping instead of cigarettes. The hardest part for her during those two weeks was trying to abstain from the first cigarette in the morning, the one after meals and lighting up those smokes while driving. Smokers know what I’m talking about… The same was difficult for me when I was fighting those strong cravings.
In the end, she is very glad she did this. “There are much healthier alternatives to smoking,” she states. And Becky saw the positive results. Her lung function almost doubled, she barely ever coughs, she no longer gets sinus infections that she was constantly getting, and she doesn’t have as many respiratory infections as she once did. She gives a word of advice to those smokers that really want to quit, “You just need to stick with it. Be determined that this is what you are going to do. It will work if you let it.” After five years of being smoke-free, she is happier and healthier.
Ultimately it is up to us as individuals how far we will go to quit smoking. As we see from this story, vaping worked the best for Becky out of all the other alternatives she tried. Vaping was by far the easiest method to stick with and the most enjoyable for her. After a while of vaping, she found the taste of cigarettes to be harsh and the smell, disgusting. She actually craved the flavored vapor from the e-juice.
There it is! Another success story with vaping.
Like the one I shared yesterday, this story is from the YouTube channel Vapers Helping Smokers to Quit, a project run by Dr. Christopher Russell at the Centre for Substance Use Research in the UK.
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