Category: Success Stories

Phil I know we don’t know each other but I just wanted to say thank you. Just by chance I saw a video of yours on youtube and it changed my life forever. I credit that video with me stopping smoking. It’s been 3 years now cigarette free. I would like to thank you for all you’ve done to help people like me and a lot of my friends to end our addictions to cigarettes.

I’m a 57 year old male I have been 100% disabled for 30 years I spend most of my time at home in bed. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 21 I liked to consider myself a very light “Social Smoker” the last 5 to 7 years that I smoked cigarettes I smoked 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 packs a day everyday along with 2 or 3 packs of Backwoods Cigars. (I spend all of my life in bed other than 4 doctor visits a year) my kids do everything else for me. On August 10th 2013 my Daughter and Son got me a Vape Set-up 2 Ego batteries a 5 pack of tanks and 4 or 5 small bottles of E Liquid and that’s where this story began. On 8-10-2013 just before midnight I put my last cigarette out and have not had even 1 drag of any tobacco product. A Monumental Accomplishment for someone like me who has been diagnosed by Professionals with a “Very Addictive Personally”. The main reason for me writing this email is about “Vape Flavors” if the only options for me we’re tobacco and Menthol I am 100% positive that I would have been back on cigarettes in a very short amount of time as the few times that I had tried any tobacco or menthol even anything like mint chocolate chip or anything that resembles a Menthol Cigarette just brings on very very strong cravings to smoke a cigarette and that’s the very last thing that I want or need. And lastly there’s an App myQuitTime shows how long I’ve been a non smoker, Cigarettes Not Smoked 169,877 Money Saved @ $5.00 = $42,469.30 it puts things into perspective for me anyways.
Thank You Shane

It’s been six years since I thanked you, and now I have to again. lol Though this time, you’re a lot busier with many more people msging you (sorry to add to the pile, will be brief.)

1. The Ares is a wonderful tank. Haven’t liked a tank as much since the Kayfun Lite+, which I solely used until the Ares, for the last three’ish years. You, Dimitri, and Innokin have outdone yourselves.

2. Your review on the Berserker MTL RDA inspired me to give dripping atties one last shot (I’m exclusively mtl and spent too much money on rdas that just weren’t for me) and I’m glad I did. It’s great.

All throughout my vaping experience, you’ve given some of the best advice and have helped so many people. Myself included. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Again. 🙂

Dear Sir,

Thankyou very much for all the great work you and your bother from another
mother do…. Ive followed for few year now, been hard journey, doing both
smoking and vaping but with the vaping i smoke way less, and with recent
products that came out ie, your tank, that cut my smoking down even more and
the suorin ishar… any way im smoking less and less….. i
find with your tank and the salts im smoking even more less in the last few
weeks….. thank you sir…. Cheers,
respectfully

Ryan

Mr. Busardo

First, I don’t write fan letters. Having said that, I wanted you to understand my
situation. Next week, I turn 62. I smoked for 40 years. 6 months ago, as a
promise to my 16 year old, I put cigarettes down and started vaping. After trying
numerous other methods to stop over the years, for some reason vaping took hold
immediately. From the first day I tried vaping, I havent looked back.
Vaping became a hobby for me. I’ve tried numerous mods, tanks – you know the
drill. But after all the ‘playing’ I’m finding myself (finally) settling in.
I’ve purchased 2 zenith tanks, and I’m hoping my Ares will arrive before Friday
3/16 as my birthday prrsent to myself. And I’m equally confident, once I’ve
gotten familiar with it, I’ll be ordering a second Ares. The world of 12-25
watts is my domain!
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. I appreciate your videos and your efforts
on behalf of vaping. I am a fan, and will continue to be so. Keep up the good
work.

Best wishes

Dennis, a reformed smoker

Hi Phil, I decided to quit smoking for the new year. My 8 yr old son kept
asking me too, so because I love my children I made the jump. I should say blind
leap. I had always been bias aginst it. “You dont know whats in that stuff!” was
always my veiw. Not thinking about what I had been sucking in my lungs for 20 yrs.
Anyway, I started poking around on the net, picked up a smok pen 22, some 12mg chock
juice from a loxal shop, and started vaping. OMG! Bad start right off. Leaking
mod, burning coils, coughing, coughing. Did I metion coughing. Back to the internet.
I did a few searches on youtube and I kept seeing your site. I clicked on the first
one I saw, a review about something or another. I was kinda put back, all the
“lingo”, but I stuck it out. Now Im hooked. I picked up an innokin t20 starter kit,
6mg juice, got my wife to quit with me and I started my journey. As with all roads,
I stumbled over some rocks, but I havnt smoked in 2 weeks. Thank you for helping me
take those few steps.

Joshua

Phil,

On August 30, 2014 I officially quit smoking. This was after 24 years of about a pack and a half a day habit. Though this day is very monumental for me, it wasn’t the beginning. The beginning was when I found a “ciga-like” and decided to try that first. Then after that failed and I kept smoking I went to the Blu E-Cig. Great idea and concept, shit product. I felt somewhere inside that there had to something else to this because it seemed so promising. So a few google searches and I stumble upon tasteyourjuice.com. The Alton Brown of the Vaping community. I was there to watch your light saber mod with your Boba’s Bounty review, I saw your Rick Roll, your interview with the ducks in your swimming pool, that ridiculous mod with the massive non-customizable cartos that had a Bluetooth speaker and many others. I bought my Ovale Ego-Twist because of you, I bought Boge Cartos because of you, I bought my Kanger tanks because of you, I bought my Aspire tanks because of you, I bought my Provari because of you. In short Phil…you cost me a lot of money J

I cannot begin to thank you enough for your video’s, your generous contests (though I’ve never won), your humor in most of your video’s and your utmost respect and love for those in the vaping community, especially those that were and are just plain smokers who had this strange bipolar disorder where we wanted to stop and yet at the same time continue what we were doing but stop killing ourselves. Through it all, I myself have been able to convince about a dozen or so people to quit smoking and switch to vaping. The reason I finally was able to put down the Red Box for good was because any time I started to feel weak and that little devil on my shoulder was telling me the gas station was just 2 minutes away and so easy…I just launched another video of you for inspiration! Once I got over the initial hump, it was not even an issue anymore. So much so that last summer I went to this far off spot on Galveston Island for some surf fishing and as I was pulling onto the beach my mod took a shit! No backup, no nothing. Everyone around did smoke though. It would have been nothing for me to bum one off of someone. Happy to say I didn’t, I actually stayed the whole day to fish, but when it was over I sped like hell to my local B&M and bought a Smok Alien 220w. That was a rough day, but I felt better about it because I could see that look on your face every time I wanted to ask someone for a smoke. I prevailed.

I tell you this for a few reasons.

1. I respect and love the hell out of you!
2. I care very much about your opinion (Like Kirk respects Spock’s opinion more than other peoples facts)
3. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for quite some time.

Regards,
Jason

I smoked for 40 years, some of the time heavily, other times less so.
Last year, I was trying to see where I could save money, and thought I’d cut down on
smoking, and partially replace it with a simple vaping device. I’m pretty much
housebound, and didn’t really know where to start, but when I had a dental
appointment on 6th February 2017, discovered from a lady in the waiting room (who
popped outside for a quick vape) that there was a vape shop very close, and went in
as much for advice as to make a purchase. I left with a store badged CE5 and
supplies to run it, along with the URL of their online service to be able to
re-stock as necessary.
On the 13th February I realized that it was over 24 hours since I’d felt the need
for a cigarette – it had been easier and more convenient to take an occasional puff
on the clearomiser than to roll a cigarette (yes, I was on strong hand-rolled
cigarettes, as they cost less) – so decided to see how long I could keep it up. I’m
still tobacco free, and will be claiming 12th February as my first vape-iversary, as
that is the first day that I’m certain I didn’t smoke.

Being stuck in the house, it’s really been the internet support that’s made the
difference, including your Youtube channel, which I find refreshingly objective
compared to most (reviewers can suffer from shinyitis as much as any of us, but
their ability to infect others is far greater!).
Amazingly, I’ve even managed to pile up a fair bit of vape gear while still spending
less than I would have on tobacco, rolling papers and the rest of the consumables
that go along with an ounce a week habit, so I’m now getting the benefits
(therapeutic as well as financial – my physio-terrorist reckons the hand movements I
use in opening bottles, mixing, coil winding etc are as good as any she could
prescribe) of building my own wire to wrap my own coils to vape my own juice – I
haven’t bought any juice or coils since about May, only ingredients and wire).

Thank you for being an important part of my support network.

Regards,

Phil (the other geek) Lee 🙂

Although all the Success Stories I receive mean very much to me, every now and then there’s one that deserves to be posted here as well.

Simon, I can’t tell you how appreciative I am to you for sharing your story with all of us.

I’m wishing you continued success and many MANY more smoke free years in you future.

And to Simon’s daughter… GOOD JOB!!!

Hi Phil,

Firstly, a bit about myself. My name is Simon. I live in England and I’m now 48 years old. I never used to watch vaping videos on youtube because the vast majority of them just didn’t appeal to me. The first ones I did start watching were Daniel’s (DJLSB) because I found those were informative, Daniel mentioned you in one of his videos so I decided to check out this ‘Phil Busardo’ bloke. That was a very important day for me, as someone who’s always mouth to lung vaped at low wattage (even lower than you usually!) I was instantly captivated by your videos, all the reviews of fancy European tanks I knew nothing about and TC vaping, the ‘mini’ mod series etc etc. It felt like I had finally found someone who I felt was talking to me and people like me.

My vaping journey started on the 11th of March 2016, that date was my daughters 16th birthday and that is not a coincidence. A month or so earlier I had asked her what she would like for her birthday and she turned around and looked straight and me and said “I just want you to stop smoking Dad, I don’t want you to die”

As you can imagine, that was hard to hear, if you have kids you’ll understand how I felt that day. For years I had been really suffering because of my smoking habit, I’d been smoking since I was 14 and a regular smoker since I left school at 16 and started earning a wage,  So 30 odd years. I was smoking about 30 or 40 roll ups a day the week before I stopped and for about 10 years I was having breathing difficulties, coughing like crazy in the mornings, and without wanting to exaggerate too much basically almost dying every winter from a common cold, it would take me months to recover from a cold, getting chest infections almost every year. I was in a pretty bad way. If I had continued to smoke I don’t think I would be in the place I am right now.

I had tried all manner of things to stop, last time I got a bad chest infection I tried to quit cold turkey and I spend 2 days curled up in a foetal position literally crying from the mental torture I was going through. In the end I caved in because I just couldn’t bare the withdrawal and continue to function as I needed to, I had already taken a week off work.

So where was I? Right, so after my Daughter had said that to me, I knew I needed to do something. I talked to a friend who had recently started vaping, I knew he had a device but at that time I didn’t know much (anything) about it and I didn’t realise that he had not had a smoke since he had got it (I thought he was just using it for times when he couldn’t smoke or whatever) I couldn’t believe it when he told me, I asked him “really? it works?”

That was the moment I decided I needed to try this for myself, I prepared myself mentally over the next few weeks and I told myself that on my Daughter’s birthday I would go to my nearest vape shop and invest in a set up, if my mate could do it I could too right?

On the 11th of March 2016 I stubbed out my cigarette and walked into the shop and told the young man behind the counter “I need to stop smoking today, right now” it’s funny, I could almost cry now retelling this, as this day was one of the most amazing days of my life and I will never forget it.  Thankfully the guy in the shop was really helpful and I owe a lot to him. First thing he said to me was “No worries mate, I have a customer who’s 75 and he’s stopped now, he was smoking for 60 years” He let me try out several tanks, the one I picked was the Kangertech subtank nano with a 1.5ohm coil and I got an eleaf 20w to go with it. He also gave me 3 small bottles of 12mg liquid, coffee, menthol and something else I can’t remember. He filled the tank up with the menthol (as yeah, I had one of my ‘colds’ as usual) and I walked out of that shop an ex-smoker. I can’t say it was easy but it was easier than I imagined it would be going on past experiences of giving up smoking.

For the first few days I vaped that thing hard, but I kept telling myself that if I could do a day, I could do two days and if I could do two days I could do 3. On the 4th day I couldn’t stop saying to my family “I can’t believe it, 3 whole days, I can’t believe it” and after a week I knew that I was never going to smoke again, before I started vaping I couldn’t have gone more than a couple of hours without a cigarette.

Not long after than I joined an online vaping forum, I found support, knowledge and friends but most importantly I found many many people with stories similar to mine. I joined that forum thinking that what I had done was rare, I soon realised that the fact was that this ‘vaping’ thing had helped many many others in exactly the same way. I discovered liquids that I enjoy way more than I ever enjoyed cigarettes, I discovered re-buildable tanks, I started going on long walks with my family without needing to stop for ‘rests’ and I stopped getting colds and chest infections all the time. I saved almost £1,500 in the first year. I also found the guy on youtube (you!) who would keep me entertained, amused and informed and I would learn to trust his opinion and his judgement as I would trust any of my friends when they told me something.

So I’m just about to hit 2 years of being a non-smoker on my Daughters 18th Birthday and that feels amazing, no it IS amazing and what you do for people like me and smokers who still have yet to make the decision that I did, is also amazing.

I just wanted you to know that you are doing the right thing and in the right way and it means a lot to people like me and will mean a lot to many more people in the future.

Thanks for everything and thanks for listening.

regards

Simon

Dear Phil,

I’ll be looking back at 2017 as the year in which I
smoked my last cigarette. It was the year I decided to stick with
vaping, a far healthier and more interesting way of nicotine delivery as
I’m sure you’ll agree. I have tried the first cartos back in 2011/2012,
but that didn’t work for me. Then I got an eGo clearo three years ago,
which was much better and made it possible to seriously cut back on smoking.
This year I bought my first RTA and mod, and got into building. While it
was me stubbing out the last cigarette, binning the last carton and
lighter, and actually deciding to quit smoking, there is much I have to
thank you for.

For starters, I have to thank you for the many reviews, rants, laughs
and discussions that I watched and enjoyed. You fueled my curiosity. I
learned a lot from you about building coils, and wicking RTAs, and
understanding how to make things work on the mod. Of course, I also
received a lot of help from the vaping community and the forums that I
now participate in, but there’s a huge difference between a description,
and actually seeing someone doing what’s described.

Your reviews, along with reviews from many other vaping channels, also
allowed me to make a more informed decision about what to choose from a
myriad of other options. It helped me understand what to look for in
RTAs and devices, and what to expect from different ones.
My first mod was one you reviewed fairly positively. Same with my first
RTA, in fact, you used it in your review of that mod to illustrate how
the device performed in TC. It was just an inexpensive beginners setup,
but it allowed me to take the transition. I have to thank you for that
as well. For the small investment, the setup has been a life changer.

Compared to the first cartos and clearos, vaping equipment has really
improved a lot over the past years. There is so much choice in starter
kits, and other vaping gear these days, that probably any smoker will be
able to find something to suit their preference. Quitting smoking for
vaping has never been easier. It just takes some initial curiosity,
perhaps a little helpful push in the right direction, and a willingness
to try.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, I’ve bought a good starter kit for a
good friend who has been trying but failing to quit smoking for a long
time. Perhaps that is another way of saying, “Thank you, Phil” ?

Anyway, enough for now, apols for the long email. I hope you and your
family will have a great Christmas party, and an excellent New Year. And
I hope your father is recovering well from the knee operation, and
gradually getting back on his feet again.

Thanks for all the vids, the discussions, the trips, the expos, the fun,
and the clouds, and I’ll see you again in 2018.

Best wishes from the Netherlands,

Robert
(also known as Vikram)