Damn, this is a sobering post.
I remember nagging my mum to quit smoking a lot when I was a kid. I come from a family where literally everybody smokes. It killed my grandparents and it's killed an aunt and uncle as well so far. More will follow, but my mum is luckily the youngest of her 4 siblings so she'll be around for a while yet. Miraculously, she is still in good health (for a smoker).
The worst thing is that even I took up smoking when I reached 18. After all those years of nagging her to quit, I started smoking myself. My closest friend had picked up smoking and she often asked me if she could smoke in my house. I told her yes because my mum smoked indoors already, so it wouldn't make a difference. I was used to the smell of cigarettes. I even found the smell comforting. I grew up around it. Everybody around me smoked. So after a while, I started smoking with my friend. After a while I graduated from simply smoking with her to smoking by myself and buying my own cigarettes. I was of legal age, so it wasn't an issue. But I hid it from my mum for a long time. Even though she smoked, I knew she wouldn't like the idea of me starting.
One day though, she came home from work unexpectedly early and came into my room as I was having a cigarette. She wasn't angry, but she was definitely disappointed. The cat was out of the bag, so I just carried on smoking and slowly I managed to build my habit up to the point where I was almost smoking 40 cigarettes a day.
I smoked like this for around 6 or 7 years, but when I got to around 25-26 years old, I knew enough was enough. We'd been illegally importing cigarettes from other countries for a while to avoid tax and get them cheap, but we got caught and suddenly smoking got real expensive. I was also feeling like shit over it. My lungs hurt, I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like shit and I just couldn't stop coughing.
At this point, e-cigarettes were emerging on the market and my boyfriend told me he didn't like the fact that I smoked. That, weirdly enough, is what finally motivated me to quit. I had tried many times before, but I had failed each time. My record using the cold turkey method was 3 weeks. Then I had a particularly stressful day at work and all I had to do was bum a cigarette from a colleague. So I bought one of those weird e-cigarettes from my local cornershop and decided: "This is it now. This is all I'm allowed to have."
If it wasn't for e-cigs, I'd probably still be smoking. Lucky that they came at the right time. I was strict with myself. I only stuck with the e-cigs, which were horrible at first but over time I got used to them and got slightly better ones with proper batteries and tanks. I'm not trying to advertise e-cigs but my god, I'm so fucking relieved and grateful that they are a thing now. Since I switched, my lungs stopped hurting, I was able to breathe normally again and my cough went away. My nails went from a dark purple to a light healthy pink. I dunno how safe e-cigs are, but based on my own experience they're a damn sight better than real cigarettes.
I've been smoke-free for 3 years and counting now, but my mum is still smoking like a chimney. I've taken her to an e-cig shop and said: "If you switched to these, you'd feel a lot better." But they just make my mum cough like crazy and now she's unwilling to switch. I do worry about her a lot. I only smoked for 6 or 7 years and it completely decimated my health. She's been smoking for decades. I'm seeing her next week and I'll launch a fresh campaign on the benefits of e-cigs, but we'll see. I'll have many funerals in my future, I just hope hers is far, far away still.