It is now 54 days since I started vaping. I have had only one cigarette in that time - about 3 weeks in, when I was worried my cat was going to die. I no longer crave cigarettes, miss cigarettes, or want anything to do with cigarettes. Not even curious of how it would feel, anymore.
So I figure it's about time to tell my story. A couple people have expressed interest in my telling it, since the story of how I became a smoker is somewhat unique. So here it is.
I had been an occasional (once every couple weeks) social smoker since I was 17. I kept that up with no problems until around the time I turned 19.
I never craved a cigarette. I was very aware of how much I smoked. I don't believe my social smoking was the gateway to my junkie smoking. And if you'll bear with my emotionality, this is the reason why.
I traveled the world from a few months after my 18th birthday until a few months ago. By myself. I am now 21.
And as sometimes happens when you decide to take on the world totally solo as a teenager, some bad, bad stuff happened along the way.
I have always been a sensitive person with mental health issues, which I had chosen to handle med-free, and while the process wasn't always painless, the trend was up.
I went through extreme trauma, and lost control completely. Completely. I was borderline psychotic, and unable to leave my apartment for weeks on end. I was suicidally depressed and extremely unhinged. I tried desperately to get help - I tried to commit myself twice.
I got turned away. Because since I had foreign insurance (even if I was just in another state and not another country), they wanted me to pay first, and bill my insurance later. Pay upfront for hundreds or thousands of dollars, when I had insurance specifically for this purpose.
They turned away someone in desperate need because I didn't have money.
So at a certain point, I had decided I had to live. I couldn't... not live. I couldn't deal with the guilt of that.
So, how do I live?
I thought back to when I studied psychology. What do people with mental illness do to help themselves?
I had managed to get a psychologist to see me, where I'd gotten a dual diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar NOS. So I thought... what do people do to ease that pain.
Smoke. A lot.
Nicotine is an anti-psychotic. MAOI's are an anti-depressant. Both are present in cigarettes.
So I bought a pack of Pall Malls, the first pack I'd ever bought in my life, and sat on my door step, smoking.
Halfway through the first cigarette, I began to notice a change. My panic was less. My perception was clearer.
I kept smoking. And smoking. And smoking.
And by the time I finished my second cigarette, I felt like I could deal. I didn't feel ok - I was still depressed and paranoid and in hell. But I felt... better. Good enough. Good enough that I could go outside without going into a panic.
I was miserable, but I could function on some low level. I could keep a part-time job.
As long as I smoked 2 cigarettes back-to-back, every half hour. I smoked like people take medicine.
I knew I would become addicted. But at that point in my life, I needed to live. I needed to be able to live. And cigarettes took me from "unable to live" to "able to claw myself along." I could deal with the consequences later. Right now, I needed to live.
I never regretted my decision to smoke. I still don't.
So I continued like that, burning through 3 packs a day for a while until I realized I was spending most of what I was making on cigarettes, and I switched to rolling.
I started on the long, hard road of healing yourself, by yourself. It took over a year. But I got there. I got happy and functional again.
By that point, I had tapered myself down to 2 packs a day. Yes, I realize how absurd that sounds.
My entire lifestyle had changed. I was (and still am) med-free, but I took Omega-3 (it has mood stabilizing properties), had a sleep schedule, a diet, and generally did everything I could to encourage stability. My one big, bad habit was smoking like a chimney.
I tried to quit, cold turkey. And immediately began to lose my mind.
I was angry. Viciously angry. That lasted all of 2 days, before I went back to smoking. Not because I couldn't tough it out - I've been through worse. But because I was going to lose my job and my friends if I didn't smoke.
So, the consequences. I was now an addict.
This was the price, of deciding to live.
I agreed to it when I paid the admission and bought those Pall Malls, and picked what I believed to be the lesser of two extraordinary evils, and I was paying for it now.
I began to get chronic tonsillitis (no history of it in childhood). My gums began to rot. I got pneumonia for the first time in my life that winter. I had a smokers cough. I woke up every morning feeling like I had swallowed my spit down the wrong airway. I even had a light snore. Pretty uncommon, in a girl as small as me.
I was smoking 40 a day, occasionally more, of rollies or Lucky Strikes, sometimes without filters. And I was killing myself.
At the time, I was living in New Zealand, and they had a deal where you could get 6 months of NRT products for $15.
They took my history, and sent me the highest dose nicotine patches and gums available. They were apprehensive, because of my size, but with my smoking habits, it was clear that nothing else would even make a dent.
I made it for 4 days.
I had a 44mg patch slapped on my hip, and I still had 4mg gum in my mouth at all times. I blew through 2 sheets of gum in a day. I still wanted a cigarette. I was still barely able to control my irritability and anxiety. Even as my body overdosed on nicotine, I still wanted a cigarette.
By the end of the 4th day, I found myself chaining my second cigarette, with the patch still on.
I took it off.
And began to wonder what kind of ink I had signed that contract in.
I kept trying to taper down, as my body protested against what I was doing to it. I made it down to 30 a day - sometimes a little less, if I was being very good.
I tried to quit a couple more times, with equal degrees of failure. I was beginning to wonder if this contract I had signed was binding for life.
I resigned myself to it. No way in hell I was going to try Chantix - not with my psych history. And everything else had failed.
Screw it. I'm a smoker.
I returned home from my travels, with my habit in toe, and tried to just make peace with it. Make peace with the fact that I had done this to buy myself time, and I had succeeded in that. And this contract was binding.
And then, my father's work mate lent him her Blu e-cig. He let me try it.
This was not the first e-cig I'd seen. I had a friend in New Zealand who had an EVO, but I was so broke at the time it wasn't even worth getting my hopes up.
I didn't like this one as much as the EVO. But it made me curious of what was out there.
Cue some Google searching, and finding this website.
I read endless accounts of 10, 20, 30, 40+ year smokers who had tried everything, finally quitting with e-cigs.
I started to get my hopes up. Just a little.
I settled on the Kr8, with 18mg juice. I smoked, even as I clicked the Order button. And waited, with baited breath.
I amped up my dose of Omega-3, in preparation for what I was sure would be another crashing decent into mental instability.
It came. I opened it up. I put on a carto. I hit the button. And I dragged.
It had been an hour since my last cigarette at that point. I had waited for the mailman. And I wanted a damn cigarette, in the worst way.
I pulled on my Kr8 a couple more times. Then a couple more.
Hmmm...
I thought to myself,
Cigarette?
Well...
Maybe...
A couple more pulls.
Hmmm...
Cigarette?
Nah.
I don't need one.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the hours clocked by and me and my e-cig became acquainted. I kept waiting to feel furious and unhinged.
And waiting.
And waiting.
The hours clocked by.
Still waiting.
And then the days.
Still waiting.
I began to taper down my Omega-3.
Still waiting.
Down to zero.
Still waiting.
And it never came. The other shoe never dropped.
I do feel as though my perceptual/emotional range has widened slightly. But I don't feel unhinged, or unstable, or irritated, or crazy.
I feel fine.
In fact, I feel more authentically me than I think I ever have.
I began to get really hopeful. One week, two weeks, three weeks.
And then my cat became seriously ill. I thought she was going to die. I vaped and vaped, and still, it didn't fix the pain.
So I went outside, sat on the stoop with my head in my hands, and had a cigarette.
It didn't do anything for me. Except make my mouth taste like sewage.
Pain is pain. Life is life. I can deal with this, and I don't need cigarettes to do it.
Four weeks, five weeks, six, and now they're flying past, almost uncountable. And I still feel fine.
I thought when I signed that contract, to survive RIGHT NOW, that I did so at the expense of the last 20 years of my life. I thought that was the price I was going to have to pay for picking the lesser of two extraordinary evils. Die young, or die REALLY young. I thought those were my choices.
And now, I am finally beginning to feel as though I may be able to get out of that contract, as my preferred nic juices dwindle down from 18mg, without any particular effort on my part. And I still feel fine.
I got my cake and ate it too.
I made the choice that I wanted to live now, and it's beginning to look like I may get to live later, too.
I got my mind back, my life back, and now I'm getting my health back. And I want to stand on the rooftops and sing it to the world. I want to save people. I want to be a damn evangelist.
If you're reading this, and trying to decide if you should get hopeful, I can tell you right now.
Get hopeful.
Love,
Cassie
So I figure it's about time to tell my story. A couple people have expressed interest in my telling it, since the story of how I became a smoker is somewhat unique. So here it is.
I had been an occasional (once every couple weeks) social smoker since I was 17. I kept that up with no problems until around the time I turned 19.
I never craved a cigarette. I was very aware of how much I smoked. I don't believe my social smoking was the gateway to my junkie smoking. And if you'll bear with my emotionality, this is the reason why.
I traveled the world from a few months after my 18th birthday until a few months ago. By myself. I am now 21.
And as sometimes happens when you decide to take on the world totally solo as a teenager, some bad, bad stuff happened along the way.
I have always been a sensitive person with mental health issues, which I had chosen to handle med-free, and while the process wasn't always painless, the trend was up.
I went through extreme trauma, and lost control completely. Completely. I was borderline psychotic, and unable to leave my apartment for weeks on end. I was suicidally depressed and extremely unhinged. I tried desperately to get help - I tried to commit myself twice.
I got turned away. Because since I had foreign insurance (even if I was just in another state and not another country), they wanted me to pay first, and bill my insurance later. Pay upfront for hundreds or thousands of dollars, when I had insurance specifically for this purpose.
They turned away someone in desperate need because I didn't have money.
So at a certain point, I had decided I had to live. I couldn't... not live. I couldn't deal with the guilt of that.
So, how do I live?
I thought back to when I studied psychology. What do people with mental illness do to help themselves?
I had managed to get a psychologist to see me, where I'd gotten a dual diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar NOS. So I thought... what do people do to ease that pain.
Smoke. A lot.
Nicotine is an anti-psychotic. MAOI's are an anti-depressant. Both are present in cigarettes.
So I bought a pack of Pall Malls, the first pack I'd ever bought in my life, and sat on my door step, smoking.
Halfway through the first cigarette, I began to notice a change. My panic was less. My perception was clearer.
I kept smoking. And smoking. And smoking.
And by the time I finished my second cigarette, I felt like I could deal. I didn't feel ok - I was still depressed and paranoid and in hell. But I felt... better. Good enough. Good enough that I could go outside without going into a panic.
I was miserable, but I could function on some low level. I could keep a part-time job.
As long as I smoked 2 cigarettes back-to-back, every half hour. I smoked like people take medicine.
I knew I would become addicted. But at that point in my life, I needed to live. I needed to be able to live. And cigarettes took me from "unable to live" to "able to claw myself along." I could deal with the consequences later. Right now, I needed to live.
I never regretted my decision to smoke. I still don't.
So I continued like that, burning through 3 packs a day for a while until I realized I was spending most of what I was making on cigarettes, and I switched to rolling.
I started on the long, hard road of healing yourself, by yourself. It took over a year. But I got there. I got happy and functional again.
By that point, I had tapered myself down to 2 packs a day. Yes, I realize how absurd that sounds.
My entire lifestyle had changed. I was (and still am) med-free, but I took Omega-3 (it has mood stabilizing properties), had a sleep schedule, a diet, and generally did everything I could to encourage stability. My one big, bad habit was smoking like a chimney.
I tried to quit, cold turkey. And immediately began to lose my mind.
I was angry. Viciously angry. That lasted all of 2 days, before I went back to smoking. Not because I couldn't tough it out - I've been through worse. But because I was going to lose my job and my friends if I didn't smoke.
So, the consequences. I was now an addict.
This was the price, of deciding to live.
I agreed to it when I paid the admission and bought those Pall Malls, and picked what I believed to be the lesser of two extraordinary evils, and I was paying for it now.
I began to get chronic tonsillitis (no history of it in childhood). My gums began to rot. I got pneumonia for the first time in my life that winter. I had a smokers cough. I woke up every morning feeling like I had swallowed my spit down the wrong airway. I even had a light snore. Pretty uncommon, in a girl as small as me.
I was smoking 40 a day, occasionally more, of rollies or Lucky Strikes, sometimes without filters. And I was killing myself.
At the time, I was living in New Zealand, and they had a deal where you could get 6 months of NRT products for $15.
They took my history, and sent me the highest dose nicotine patches and gums available. They were apprehensive, because of my size, but with my smoking habits, it was clear that nothing else would even make a dent.
I made it for 4 days.
I had a 44mg patch slapped on my hip, and I still had 4mg gum in my mouth at all times. I blew through 2 sheets of gum in a day. I still wanted a cigarette. I was still barely able to control my irritability and anxiety. Even as my body overdosed on nicotine, I still wanted a cigarette.
By the end of the 4th day, I found myself chaining my second cigarette, with the patch still on.
I took it off.
And began to wonder what kind of ink I had signed that contract in.
I kept trying to taper down, as my body protested against what I was doing to it. I made it down to 30 a day - sometimes a little less, if I was being very good.
I tried to quit a couple more times, with equal degrees of failure. I was beginning to wonder if this contract I had signed was binding for life.
I resigned myself to it. No way in hell I was going to try Chantix - not with my psych history. And everything else had failed.
Screw it. I'm a smoker.
I returned home from my travels, with my habit in toe, and tried to just make peace with it. Make peace with the fact that I had done this to buy myself time, and I had succeeded in that. And this contract was binding.
And then, my father's work mate lent him her Blu e-cig. He let me try it.
This was not the first e-cig I'd seen. I had a friend in New Zealand who had an EVO, but I was so broke at the time it wasn't even worth getting my hopes up.
I didn't like this one as much as the EVO. But it made me curious of what was out there.
Cue some Google searching, and finding this website.
I read endless accounts of 10, 20, 30, 40+ year smokers who had tried everything, finally quitting with e-cigs.
I started to get my hopes up. Just a little.
I settled on the Kr8, with 18mg juice. I smoked, even as I clicked the Order button. And waited, with baited breath.
I amped up my dose of Omega-3, in preparation for what I was sure would be another crashing decent into mental instability.
It came. I opened it up. I put on a carto. I hit the button. And I dragged.
It had been an hour since my last cigarette at that point. I had waited for the mailman. And I wanted a damn cigarette, in the worst way.
I pulled on my Kr8 a couple more times. Then a couple more.
Hmmm...
I thought to myself,
Cigarette?
Well...
Maybe...
A couple more pulls.
Hmmm...
Cigarette?
Nah.
I don't need one.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the hours clocked by and me and my e-cig became acquainted. I kept waiting to feel furious and unhinged.
And waiting.
And waiting.
The hours clocked by.
Still waiting.
And then the days.
Still waiting.
I began to taper down my Omega-3.
Still waiting.
Down to zero.
Still waiting.
And it never came. The other shoe never dropped.
I do feel as though my perceptual/emotional range has widened slightly. But I don't feel unhinged, or unstable, or irritated, or crazy.
I feel fine.
In fact, I feel more authentically me than I think I ever have.
I began to get really hopeful. One week, two weeks, three weeks.
And then my cat became seriously ill. I thought she was going to die. I vaped and vaped, and still, it didn't fix the pain.
So I went outside, sat on the stoop with my head in my hands, and had a cigarette.
It didn't do anything for me. Except make my mouth taste like sewage.
Pain is pain. Life is life. I can deal with this, and I don't need cigarettes to do it.
Four weeks, five weeks, six, and now they're flying past, almost uncountable. And I still feel fine.
I thought when I signed that contract, to survive RIGHT NOW, that I did so at the expense of the last 20 years of my life. I thought that was the price I was going to have to pay for picking the lesser of two extraordinary evils. Die young, or die REALLY young. I thought those were my choices.
And now, I am finally beginning to feel as though I may be able to get out of that contract, as my preferred nic juices dwindle down from 18mg, without any particular effort on my part. And I still feel fine.
I got my cake and ate it too.
I made the choice that I wanted to live now, and it's beginning to look like I may get to live later, too.
I got my mind back, my life back, and now I'm getting my health back. And I want to stand on the rooftops and sing it to the world. I want to save people. I want to be a damn evangelist.
If you're reading this, and trying to decide if you should get hopeful, I can tell you right now.
Get hopeful.
Love,
Cassie
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I know where you're coming from.
