A tale of two vices

Or one, I suppose, they're both nicotine.

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I have an embarrassing confession. This summer I started vaping. (If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen an occasional elf bar make an appearance. This has always been unintentional, I’m mortified by vapes.) I have enjoyed a very occasional cigarette since I was probably 19 or 20. Because doctors measure cigarette consumption in pack years, I never felt like having a cigarette while out with friends, once a month or so was a problem. (Honestly, I still don’t believe it is a problem. Smoking is bad! But so many things are bad for us and we are all doing what we need to to get by, I will never begrudge someone their vices!) In the spring and summer of 2022, I started smoking a bit more frequently. Enough that it was becoming a habit. I was not a pack a day smoker but I did smoke five or six cigarettes most days. It felt gross, I wanted to be finished. A friend of mine suggested buying an elf bar to wean off cigarettes. I took her advice. Her intentions were good but it was a horrible suggestion.

Vapes come in delicious flavors. They’re portable. They’re easily placed on a nightstand; start your day with a nicotine hit. They don’t leave a stench in hair and clothes. They’re more subtle and more common (at least in America) than cigarettes.

They’re also disgusting. They leave a mossy film on teeth. Smoking a USB drive or neon battery pack looks stupid. Vape fiends- and we are all absolute fiends- often do an embarrassing dance flipping couch cushions and searching pockets to find misplaced inhalants.

After my first elf bar, I was hooked. All of the gross parts of vaping were extremely easy for me to ignore. Especially when it was new to me, not a habit yet. Yes, I thought vaping looked silly at best and trashy at worst, but I wasn’t a vape person! I was just a person enjoying an occasional vape! I bought two new flavors at a head shop, eager to try them out.

But after hitting more than one nearly empty vape and feeling what I assume is hot battery acid in my throat, I can no longer ignore the gross and embarrassing parts of the habit. I am absolutely certain, having done very little research into the long term effects of vaping, that vapes are worse than cigarettes. I have become convinced, though I have not even googled it once, that elf bars are contributing to my chronic hives. I would, personally, rather be an occasional cigarette smoker. At least cigarettes look cool! There’s nothing less sophisticated than a vape pen.

But it’s difficult to stop vaping. Cigarettes require effort. I would never smoke a cigarette indoors but it feels like there’s very little harm in taking a pull of a vape on the couch. Vaping is so effortless that the habit, for me, became almost passive. So I made a proactive plan to stop.

Well, I made two plans to stop. The first plan was to tell my boyfriend I was quitting in hopes that he would look at me with disapproval whenever I reached for a vape and that I would be instantly shamed into abstinence. I did not take into account that he is very nice and not the shame-y type. He shot me exactly one puzzled look when, approximately 30 minutes after a declaration that I was throwing away all of the elf bars and banning them from my sight, I asked him if he had seen my vape. One look was not enough to deter me. Matt could not be relied upon for accountability, especially when I hadn't asked him to hold me accountable and instead just hoped he would develop a passive aggressive streak.

So I’ve had to fall back on plan B. It is very difficult to buy e-cigarettes and vapes in the Bahamas. I knew this before we sailed here and I decided that I would simple not buy any more elf bars while in the States and that, within a few weeks, all of my old vapes would die or run out and I would be forced to quit cold turkey. I still believe this was an excellent plan. That said, I am now out of elf bars and I am not enjoying quitting cold turkey. I am a little moody and I feel weird and I’m considering buying a pack of menthols to ease the transition (which seems like it may be setting me up for vicious nicotine cycling.) I don’t actually miss the nicotine hit, I was just so used to the ritual of vaping. Of casually taking a hit when I am annoyed or there is a lull in conversation. I don’t know what to do with my hands.

All of that to say, learn from my mistakes and do not start using any form of nicotine. And also, if you run into me in the next three days and I seem a little less chipper than you’d expect- it’s absolutely my fault and I apologize.

Xx

Hannah