So, I'm trying to make a point to have something posted every Monday -- so for lack of better topic, my friends at work reminded me of a fun one: I used to smoke.

Normally, not a big deal, you quit, woohoo. But of course: I quit like a nerd.

Taking control

Let's not kid around: cigarettes are scary addictive. They controlled a lot of how I made my daily decisions on where to go and what to do. I suspect many smokers are like this, even if they're not ready to admit it.

Want to go visit family? How long will you stay? Do you smoke around them? What about a movie? Is it too long? What about that restaurant? Oh, they don't have a smoking section. Nevermind. 

It was late 2009, April and I had just found out our first child was on their way to meet us, and so we needed to "become parents." Yes, that sounds ridiculous even now, but it's how it made sense in my head. It was time to start thinking longer term. One of those thoughts was:

I REALLY NEED TO QUIT SMOKING

So I started doing research, and I found out about electronic cigarettes. Then I did a lot more research.

Then I bought this:

And actually, what I bought was specifically (though an older packaging):

Two batteries, two atomizers, mine actually came with a charging case for the batteries, which was quite helpful, as the batteries (at least then) didn't seem to last particularly long (but then, my memory is also pretty fuzz at this point).

I got a "Tobacco" flavored "nic juice" (what they call the fluid that contains the nicotine, flavoring, and propylene glycol), liked it, and after a week of struggling, was happily 100% on e-cigarettes. Yes -- I had withdrawal when switching entirely to e-cigarettes. Let's be very clear here: nicotine is not the only thing in cigarettes that you are addicted to. If there was any question in your mind, let me make that clear. You will go through withdrawal switching to e-cigarettes from traditional cigarettes.

Once I had made the transition, a few weeks after that my body realized I was no longer "smoking" and ... started, we will say, "removing" some of the "toxins". Gross. Anyway, not long after, I had to start figuring out a long term plan to get off of nicotine completely. Now here came an issue: The nic juice I liked came in 24mg, 18mg, and 12mg "flavors" but that is as low as it went. They didn't offer 8mg, 4mg, or 0mg versions, so I had to start trying to branch out my flavor choices into one that could support me stepping down to a 0mg nicotine fluid.

After many rounds, I was forced to give up on the pre-made option, as none of them either A) tasted good to me, or B) had 0 nicotine versions. So I did what any programmer does when nothing out their suits their needs: I rolled my own!

Let's take a side-step and look at what nic juice is made of:

• Nicotine
• Flavoring
• Propylene Glycol
• Vegetable Glycerin

Now I'm not sure of the exact origin of the science of all of this, but it seems that they figured out they could extract nicotine from tobacco leaves with a Propylene Glycol based solution. I was able to find a business would send me a (relatively speaking) GIANT bottle of (I think) 36mg nicotine solution. Now this is not for the faint of heart. If I had spilled this solution on my hands, could have possibly died from nicotine poisoning. Kind of scary, but if you take appropriate precautions, it's fine.

So I took this essentially flavorless nic juice, and had to cut it down. I didn't need 36mg nic juice. But if I used 1 part nic juice and 2 parts propylene glycol (Remember to get USP grade, kids. It's going in your body, it needs to be food-safe.), I would get a nice 12mg nic juice to start with. To that, I kid you not, you add candy flavoring. YES! CANDY FLAVORING! 😀 My flavor of choice, which tasted the best to me after all the ones I tried: grape.

That's right, I smoked grape nic juice. And it was hilariously awesome when others caught a whiff of it, as it completely threw people off. Having full control of the nic juice let me slowly titrate myself down to 0mg, freeing myself from the horrors of smoking. Or so I thought.

2 weeks of vaping 0mg grape nic juice, and I started to feel a little silly. I needed to just stop, as there was now no gain from the action, aside from all the trouble associated with trying to create, maintain, and fill my own containers with candy flavored propylene glycol. It was a mess, it took quite a bit of time, I needed to be done.

So I quit.

Second reality check of the whole thing: even though the chemical addition was gone, my body rebelled against losing the habit of smoking. I had all of the classic nicotine withdrawal symptoms, with irritability being close to the top of them. It was a very tense week or two at my house.

But then I was free.

Now, nearly four years later, I think you could count on one hand the number of cigarettes I've had since -- and that's only because I can't remember well enough to say I haven't had any since I quit. I don't remember any. You will occasionally find me standing by the smokers, wistfully wishing they wouldn't taste horrible if I tried one,  breathing in their smoke.

What does this have to do with programming?

Well -- not a lot. But I think I told you that story to tell you this: there is always a way to accomplish something. Don't let "it's hard" stop you. Not get derailed because not all the options you want are present. Persist.  I went to ridiculous lengths to quit smoking, because it was important enough to do so. Don't let "can't" stop you if it's important. Find a way.