Long damned time, OP. I'll be the first to admit, when absolute certain circumstances arise, I'll accept an offered cigarette.
Here's the rub - whether or not
you want to completely quit cigarettes is on
you. No one else. Some folk pick up a vape and never touch a smoke again. Others continue to smoke and vape, and others just don't take to vaping altogether as a
replacement, but as a
more accepted, less damaging crutch. In my humble little opinion, both of these outcomes are complete victories for the person in question just as long as that's what that person set out to do.
Stuff like this...
Today is my best day yet, I've only had one so far and I've been smoking for almost twenty years and was over a pack a day.
...is
awesome. Good job, sir, I offer you my congratulations and hope you continue on your path to healthier lungs, and a longer life.
Not a whole lot in this world is completely binary, on or off, black or white. I've come around to accepting vaping as one of those things that can cover quite a bit of grey in between.
My personal story? I'm in love with nicotine. I have been since I was a boy and I swiped a Benson and Hedges 100 from my folks' packs, snuck around the back of the house with a busted disposable lighter and was the only one of a group of 4 younger boys that didn't hack his lungs up and attempt to yack our breakfast up. Steady smoker before the end of high school, quit smoking to dip chewing tobacco when I joined the service. Went back to smoking when it gave me health complications, and swapped to vaping more-or-less a couple years ago.
Now, I can't sit here and type out "and that was the last cigarette I ever did have" with a straight face, because that's a bold-faced lie. And I'm not a liar.
I've smoked since switching to vaping, here and there, but certainly never on the level of where I was before I switched to vaping. In fact, it's been... two weeks, give or take, since my last cigarette. (think turkey-day - had in-laws over for dinner, was offered a smoke after dinner and I took it up. Smoked half the thing, put it out, and went back on the vape right afterwards.)
But why? Because I wanted it. It sounded good, it was being offered up, and I didn't feel like turning the offer down. It was fine, it wasn't a "oh god this is what I've been missing out on all this time!" it was a smoke. Half a smoke, because I
prefer my Pipe-Tobacco concoctions over roasting tobacco leaves. It wasn't horrible, burning-rubber murder-in-my-mouth, and it didn't make me cough my lungs up.
It also didn't make me want to go back to smoking.
So! For me, if I'm out camping with my brother and he offers me a cigarette around the campfire with a canteen cup full of Sailor Jerry, yeah, I could go for a smoke in that situation. Long hours under the sun, working a sweat up - I'll have my vape stash close at hand, but if I'm taking five and someone offers me a smoke, I very well may go for it.
I used to smoke two packs a day. Prided myself on it. That's 40 cigarettes a day.
Times 7, we're at
280 cigarettes in a week. A week. Probably more, I'd smoke a lot more on the weekends.
If I can be comfortable not depriving myself of something (which, psychologically only makes me want it more, kinda like dieting and
forcing myself to hate and stay away from sugar - just gonna rebound back the other way) - if I can get that number from
14,600 cigarettes a year to
3, I'm a happy camper. I've succeeded. That very well may be your path as well.
Keep at it, but don't punish yourself, don't put a ton of stress on top of all this, all any of that is going to do is drive you back to a warm, comforting habit that you've conditioned yourself over twenty years to cherish. Treat it like ... I don't know, "letting your hair down." Do it once or twice a year and you're good, but if every night is hair-down night...