My Bad Habits Threaten to Catch-Up with Me

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Since I was seventeen, I’ve been a smoker. I should warn you, this whole post is about nicotine, smoking, and addiction, and if that’s something you don’t want to read about, click away. But, I smoked for a long time, even tried dip, early e-cigarettes, and nicotine gum. Eventually, vapes got enough variety and development that they were actually viable, and five years ago, I replaced cigarettes with vaping. Little did I know, that vaping would also harm me.

You see, vaping is safer than cigarettes, but it’s still dangerous. You’re still inhaling chemicals that coat your lungs, and, if you’re bad about changing your coils when they’ve burned out, you’re also inhaling metals. Nevertheless, a lot of vapers will talk your ear off about how totally safe and fine vaping is, and how nicotine is really not that much different or any more dangerous than caffeine (which, I tend to agree with, especially since they sort of do the same thing).

I’ve seen a lot of anti-vaping ads that are disingenuous over the years. So much so, that I started to believe the tobacco lobby was just trying to get people back on cigarettes (see: Camel Snus). Exaggerated Tik-tok rage-bait ads, where someone’s got plastic tubes duct-taped to their chest and they’re pretending to cough, wheeze, and stagger as they walk.

Because the number one way to convince people that their vice is bad, is to make it look like you’re lying and trying to manipulate them.

But, with my addictions, and how easily accessible my vape is, at all times, when I’m at home, it seems I may have caused myself a lung injury.

I’m talking, driving to work, hand on my chest, heart racing and trying to figure out if I needed to pull over and call an ambulance. Which, I didn’t. I kept driving, I walked into work, and I sat down in the office.

… continuing to clutch my chest, while my face burned red, and then, suddenly, it went away.

One of the reasons I’ve held onto nicotine all these years, is because I just enjoy the calm it gives me, and when it comes to tobacco, I also like tobacco! The smell of tobacco, the taste.

I’m a weirdo!

But, unfortunately, this stuff can kill you. And despite my vices, it’s possible this could kill me.

Wild, right?

Much the same as drinking (which I actually don’t really do, at all), it’s the moderation part that you have to take seriously, whether you smoke cigarettes, dip some chew, or vaporize e-juice. And, as most of us know, addiction works directly against the idea of moderation. Cigarettes tar up your lungs, chew eats away at your gums and your cheek, and vaping, from what I can feel in my chest when it’s hurting, uh, stabs me in the lung with a knife?? Oh, and I guess drinking damages your liver, which, once that’s failed, you’re done.

Never-the-less, ergo, therefore, I’m kind of at another life crossroads? I have some tins of Zyn that I’ve been sucking on and it helps, but the urge to grab my vape is so strong.

I wish we were at the “replacing our bodies with cybernetics” part of society, rather than the “erase science and send everyone back to the dark ages” part.