Most of my life I have had what would have been called in a previous age as Lung Fever. Most of my chronic lung issues come back to one thing, smoking.
I had been smoking for almost twenty years when my pulmonologist, yeah I had my own lung specialist, told me that if I didn’t quit smoking for good I would have COPD within five years. Now I had been having bronchitis about three times a year, and pneumonia at least once for almost a decade.
“Do whatever you have to do,” he said. “Patches, gum, medicine, anything. Do whatever you have to do, but you have to stop smoking. In fact if you don’t stop, I can’t see you anymore.”
That was a wakeup call. I left his office, threw away packet of smokes I had, and went to the newly opened store in town that sold e-cigarettes. I spent $100 and bought a starter kit and some e-liquid. I’ve never turned back. The reason I’ve never gone back to smoking is because since that day in mid-2014, I’ve never been sick.
This is hard for me to really put into words, how amazing that is. Something most people took for granted, their health, was returned to me. I always had a nagging cough, and several times a year would by deathly ill. The pain of my chest was a constant, something that just was. But since that time in 2014, I’ve never been sick again.
I was a regular figure at my GP’s and had a pulmonologist for fuck’s sake. I’ve not gone to see either one since that day. Ever. The amount of money that I have saved by switching to vaping from smoking is almost incalculable. Thousands in just the amount of the cigarettes. but then many thousands more in saved doctor co-pays, perscriptions, lost time at work, and gas money.
For two solid years I’ve been happy. And then a few weeks ago that all changed. You see the reason I went with vaping instead of one of the more traditional methods to stop smoking because I have a severe addiction to nicotine. I love nicotine. And when you get your nicotine from vaping it is clean, a pure influx of joy.
It happened a couple of months ago when I purchased the Aspire Triton v2 from my local shop. This brought me into the world of reliable sub-ohm tanks, when coupled with a decent power pack, it would produce a huge amount of smoke. Which means more nicotine.
One thing you need to know is that I work at home, which has many benefits, but also allows me to vape constantly indoors, something I would never think of smoking cigarettes inside. So I was now vaping sub-ohm all day long, burning through 60+ mL of e-liquid on average per week, most people seem to go through about 10-30mL at best.
I was completely stoned on nicotine. All day. Every day. And the secondary impact was that I was flat fucking broke. Thirty milliliters costs about $24 per bottle, so we can assume at least $50 a week in juice, and then another $5 per week in replacement coils. The cost benefit for vaping has evaporated just as quickly that eliquid does.
So I’m too broke to buy any more liquid, but I have a serious addiction to nicotine now. So I’ve started smoking cigarettes again. And now Ive had the first touch of ill-health that I’ve had in two years. The rolled smokes are set aside now and I have found an old bottle of eliquid with 18mg of nicotine, I normally vape about 6mg. Sub-ohm’ing 18mg of nicotine isn’t fun, you can actually overdose on it quite easily. Something that isn’t fun at all.
And that is where I am now. Waiting for a payday so I can buy more juice, stop sub-ohming and probably increase my nicotine level to something like 6mg hoping it will be good enough to bring it back under control.
So while vaping has increased my overall health, it has also made me dependent on nicotine to a level which I not really thought possible. So was it still worth it? Undoubtedly so. But will I continue to do it? I don’t think I will, but I can’t tell you how long it will be before I can actually stop. I’m back where I started, looking for another way to get off of nicotine.