Debbie

Age at interview: 51

Brief Outline: Debbie has been using e-cigarettes for two weeks and has cut down from about twenty cigarettes to five per day. She has also reduced the nicotine strength in the e-cigarette to the weakest dose. Her mother died recently of lung cancer. The money she is saving on cigarettes is helping to pay the mortgage for her holiday home. She plans to give up both smoking cigarettes and e-cigarettes by her next birthday.

Background: Debbie is married with adult children. She works part-time as a council officer. Ethnic background: British.

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Back in April 2014, Debbie’s son bought her an e-cigarette kit for her birthday. She had asked for it because since last year she has been thinking about giving up smoking. There were a number of reasons that motivated Debbie to try to quit cigarettes: her mother had died from lung cancer the previous year; financially it was costing too much; she had recently started coughing and wheezing at night and she was concerned that her son had started smoking as well.
 
Debbie has been using the e-cigarette kit for about two weeks, but she is finding it easy to substitute the cigarette smoking with the e-cigarette. She has cut down from about twenty cigarettes to five per day. She has also reduced the nicotine in the e cigarette to the lowest strength. Her GP - who was also her mother’s, is delighted with her decision, but told her that little is known about the side effects of e-cigarettes besides that they are thought to be better than ordinary cigarettes.
 
Debbie described herself as an atypical smoker because she could smoke a lot one day and none the next. She also didn’t smoke in the car or inside the house and with the help of hypnosis she gave up when pregnant. She uses the e-cigarette as she would do an ordinary cigarette. For instance, she does not vapor in the bedroom and does not use it at work. Debbie uses e-cigarette to replace ordinary cigarettes, but she doesn’t want to become dependent on them. When out with friends she would, sometimes smoke heavily, but doesn’t find it problematic to go back to e-cigarettes the next day.
 
Debbie says it is too early to say about the health benefits of giving up smoking, but she has noted that her senses of smell and taste have improved. The money saved on cigarettes is helping to pay the mortgage of her holiday home. Her son and husband have also started using e-cigarettes and she has calculated that if all of them give up for good, there will be a household surplus of two hundred pounds per month.

Days after she took up vaping, Debbie cut down from twenty five to five cigarettes a day. She doesn’t want to become dependent on e-cigarettes because her goal is to quit smoking and vaping.

I started using it at the end of January yeah. And I found it quite easy as well. It took me from twenty five… I was smoking, coming up to Christmas, where I was running about and quite stressed out, twenty five. I noticed I was using more than a packet a day, so I knew that I was going to… had to stop, and I was also feeling a bit chesty at night, which I'd never had before. So, I've had… it took me to five a day within sort of using it within a few days, I found it quite easy. Yeah, it did help a lot.
 
OK. So, you have reduced quite a lot smoking?
 
Yeah, the plan is to give up completely by April, which is my birthday. I plan to come down from like twenty to fifteen, and so on but I found I was quite comfortable using it, so I just come straight down onto five.
 
OK. And was it easy to use the e-cigarette outside the home, or also in the home?
 
No, no it's easy outside. I don’t smoke anyway in… you know it doesn’t worry me not smoking in… I don’t smoke in my house, at home, I smoke outside and you can't smoke in restaurants; I don’t walk down the road with a cigarette in my hand anyway, so that side of it really hasn’t bothered me to be quite honest.
 
And how often are you using the e-cigarette now?
 
I think I have probably about five puffs out of it maybe. I try not to use it in work because I think a lot of people tell me it can become like a comfort thing, and you can be hanging onto it all the time, and then you're going to be getting more nicotine out of it, so I just tend to get it out when I would go and have a cigarette, like on my break and at lunch time and things like that.
 
OK and then the evening?
 
I'm not used to sitting down and watching TV and having a cigarette because I never smoked at home anyway, so I don’t really tend to do that either. I don’t… and it's quite a… I bought a new one now; I've sort of upgraded to the sort of better version, and it's quite heavy and chunky, so you can't really walk round with it anyway.
 
OK
 
I use it like a cigarette really; I'd use it when I fancy a cigarette.
 
But if you're at home and after dinner, do you go out?
 
Yeah after dinner, but I don’t have to go out with it obviously now. I still open the door, but it depends on what sort of flavour you put in it; some flavours like mint smells quite nice, and some people actually like the smell of it when you're smoking it. I think there's only one person that hasn’t, to date; it's a guy that used to work in here, he can really smell it and doesn’t like the smell of it, but he's the only person who's really commented on that.
 
I've bought the nicotine down because I started I think on one point eight, and then I bought it down to one point to one, and then I brought it down to zero point eight, so I've been bringing the nicotine down quite quickly in it. But I found you can get plain tobacco favour which I thought that’s what I would want to smoke, but I don’t… it was horrible, it actually tasted horrible so. I mean I tend to smoke, I think I've got mint humbug,
 
So, if you are at home do you tend to use more the e-cigarette or?
 
Yeah, yeah I still use the E because I don’t have to go out, and as I say, it's been really cold so I don’t want to go out anyway, so I'm quite happy with it. But I'm not bringing… you know like some people bring them upstairs to bed with them; I never brought a cigarette upstairs so I wouldn’t bring up with me, so I don’t think I'm getting… I don’t want to sit holding it all the time, because I have noticed a lot of people do do that.
 
And they're just puffing on it all day, and I don’t really want to get… where I've got to get off… get myself off of using that then afterwards.

Debbie told her GP and pharmacists about her intention of using e-cigarettes and got two different opinions.

I did tell my GP that I was doing it; she was quite happy about it. I mean she did offer for me to go to the smoking clinic, but I did find it hard to get there when they wanted me to go. I've had patches, but I was allergic to them, they brought me out in a rash, and I was a bit worried about trying the tablets because I've got like a tummy ulcer and I can't take Ibuprofen and people said that they'd been quite sick. I got hypnotised, I've been hypnotised when I was pregnant – that worked. That was like aversion therapy, so I thought it was just worth a try. But I think I am ready to give up now because you get to a certain age and I don’t want to be still smoking in ten/twenty years' time to be quite honest. I don’t like being addicted to anything, and it's really the only thing that’s really… like drink doesn’t bother me; anything else and it's sort of the only thing that I seem to sort of have issues with so, I won't let it beat me.
 
And where did you get your information from about e-cigarettes?
 
Mostly online.
 
Online?
 
Yeah. I sort of looked, and I have looked and obviously I did ask the GP about it. She said you know that they're not really sure what the risks are with them yet, but it's better than smoking; and she was my mum's GP as well, so she's really happy that I was doing it.
 
And I had a meeting with the pharmacy; you know when they bring you in and just discuss your drugs and what you're on. They're not sort of very happy with them [e-cigarettes] at the moment, the pharmacists, they prefer you to…
 
No?
 
No, they want you to smoke those other ones. You know, like the cigarette type… because my one is like this, it's… But you know like the plastic cigarettes sort of type ones that you put the cartridge in. They think that they're safe, are those. They said these are not really tested at the moment, but what I've… sort of information I've got online, you know they're better than cigarettes anyway you see.

Debbie feels confident that she will be able to quit smoking cigarettes. Her mother died of lung cancer so she is aware of the risks.

How do you feel about the prospect of being successful at…?
 
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. As I said, it is the only thing that’s really sort of caught me, I'd say in my life, and it's… and I don’t really like the idea of, you know, not wanting to smoke but still having to. So, yeah so I will beat it.
 
Why do you think you were able to stick to e-cigarettes so fast, and reduce the nicotine levels and everything?
 
I think because I wanted to, because I was coughing at night and I just wasn’t feeling right. I'm getting older and I didn’t feel… I mean my mum, as I told you, had cancer, and I knew she wasn’t well by listening to her breathing at night and things like that; I sort of knew there was something not right a long time before she was diagnosed, and I don’t want to get, you know… because she was told to give up years ago, she was told to give up when she was fifty/fifty five/sixty – she kept going to the doctors, chest infections and what not – and I think if she'd have given up a lot earlier, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up with what she had, and I don’t really want to get in that situation if possible.
 
Yeah
 
Not that you cannot get something else, but it's another specific risk really.