Something unusual happened Saturday evening… For the first time in 12 years I ran completely out of Marlboro Lights; none stashed in the freezer, or in the glovebox, or in the pocket of a coat I haven’t worn in a few weeks. I was well and truly out of cigarettes… except for the pack I had left over from my trip to Italy  two years ago and that was stale when I bought it. After two years, I think I can safely label that one for decorative/historical purposes only. I had my Baskin Robins-esk assortment of 32 flavors of cartridges for my e-cig and a just-arrived-in-the-country shipment from my new friends in Sweden, so I wasn’t particularly worried about going into fits before I could get out to the Tiger Mart on Sunday.

Sunday came and went and I went to Kroger to restock the fridge. I filled up the tank at the Tiger Mart. And I was home putting the groceries away before I realized that I had actually forgotten to pick up more smokes. Much to my surprise, this wasn’t cause to immediately drag myself back out of the house. It was more a moment of “ehh, I’ll pick up a pack on my way to work tomorrow.” Tomorrow turned into today and I made it to the office with the help of General Mini Mint portions and realized it was 11:30 before even thinking of taking a smoke break (that’s only really impressive, I suppose if I mention that smoke breaks usually roll around at 8, 9:30, and 11 like clockwork. At that point, I popped a portion of Ettan, took a few pulls on my e-cig, and assumed I’d just pick up a pack on my way home.

Well I’m home now and we’re getting on past bedtime and I’m still out of smokes. That’s not to say that I’m on the wagon. I know that I’m probably always going to be one bad day or even one bad minute from having a cigarette. I’m predisposed towards addictive behaviors and have been for as long as I can remember. I don’t imagine there’s anything that will change that. I won’t delude myself or try to fool anyone into thinking that I’m off the juice. E-cigarettes are basically untested, but hold promise, and Swedish snus, at least in the research available, appears to be a significantly lower-risk alternative to smoking, so I’m still feeding the beast. I’ll wake up tomorrow at the beginning of my third smokeless day. How I end it mainly depends on environmental factors that are beyond my control and my response to those stimuli, which is entirely within my control. It’s good to have options and since cold turkey has never been something within my reach, I’ll happily settle for “safer” (and cheaper doesn’t hurt either).

I know I’m spending alot of time writing about this, but since cigarettes have more or less defined my waking actions and driven my schedule since I was 19, that’s to be expected. It’s a massive change in lifestyle and in though process and I want to capture a permanent record of it as it happens. One thing I promise is that no matter what happens, I’m not going to become a zealot or a crusader. I’ll record my experiences and thoughts, interesting tidbits I pick up along the way, and I’ll report them here. Anyone reading can decide their value or lack thereof for themselves.

I’ve have my new e-cig hobby for a little over a full month now (my Vapor4Life kit arrived on January 21st). At first, I got interested in e-cigs as a non-taxed alternative and primarily as a way to save money overall. Yeah, do the math and 1.5 packs per day x $5.50 per pack x 365 days per year end up at a little over $3,000 a year not including days where I burned up well over my “assumed” 1 and 1/2 packs. Even testing out my e-cig by laying on lots of new and interesting flavors, picking up accessories, and more batteries, it was obvious that I was saving money and therefore meeting my goal. Not to mention that my cigarette intake was down to about 5 a day at it’s low point and there were some days when I would’d have an “analog” at all. And then something unexpected happened… That number started creeping back up and some days would get back within striking distance of a pack a day. So not only was my old habit coming back, but I was keeping up with my new one too… That’s a cost saving measure only a government could love.

It seems to me that although I was getting the nicotine by body tells me I need, there was something missing in the e-cig that my long-standing relationship with Marlboro was giving me… I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that when something contains more than 4000 chemicals, more than one of them may have addictive qualities. And as we all know, I’ve rarely met a bad habit I didn’t want to have for myself. My point here is that I didn’t start this thing with any intention of actually giving up cigarettes, but the last month has taught me that e-cigs and analogs don’t make good company, at least for me.

Because I’m a historian by nature and by education, I set about to find what others have done who faced same situation. What I discovered was that while some people turned in their lighters after their first e-puff, a great many have needed something extra to get over the proverbial hump when the big cravings hit. What that “something” seems to be for many e-cig users is Sweedish snus, a smokeless tobacco product that most reputable studies show is far fewer long-term health effects than the burning tobacco in cigarettes (and no, it’s not snuff – check out a WSJ article on the topic if you’re interested and/or bored). A tin of snus has the added benefit of still being much cheaper than a pack of smokes and a “hit” tends to last more than an hour in use so a tin could theoretically last for days.

I’m still a big proponent for the e-cig and it’s going to be my go-to delivery system for nicotine for the foreseeable future… but for those couple of times a day when the urge goes over the top, I’ve got a package inbound from Sweden that may just be what I need to fill the gap. For now, I’m trying to learn all I can on ye olde forums: http://www.snuson.com.