I am curious to hear from people who started vaping without having smoked beforehand.

I’m curious about these things - feel free to respond to as many or as few of them as you wish. Primarily I am thinking about nicotine, but feel free to reply if you vape something different.

  1. What age were you when you started vaping? Feel free to reply with a vague range (e.g. 12-15) or description (e.g. young teen / adult)

  2. Why did you start?

  3. Do you regret having ever started? If so, why do you regret it?

  4. Have you noticed any long-term negative health effects from vaping?

  5. Do you feel that the socialogical and/or legal issues around vaping are more or less of a concern than health effects? (e.g. having to go outside to vape, vaping being banned/restricted in certain places/situations/countries, the risks of vaping being more legally controlled in future, etc.)

  6. Do you feel that the financial cost of vaping is more or less of a concern than the health effects?

No need to follow the numbered format or anything, this isn’t a survey, I’m just looking for answers to these questions for my own personal curiosity! Also, feel free to add any more information that you wish!

Please only share from your personal experience - no links to news stories or studies, please.

Also, not interested in responses from ex-smokers, sorry - those can be found in huge volume already.

  • rufus
    2·
    1 year ago

    I like you being curious and asking the right questions. I think I can empathize with most things you said. I’m just a regular person, not diagnosed with anything. But I also can relate to caffeine, sugar, … playing a role in my life. Maybe I’m not spot on ‘normal’ when it comes to impulse control or dopamine receptors myself. People are different anyways… I absolutely like(d) the kick I got from nicotine. I could afford it and judging by the studies I read, it’s not that harmful. So I always continued. If I could just vape a bit in the evening on weekends, I’d certainly wouldn’t see a reason to stop and happily continue as of today. But unfortunately I can’t. I’d be full on addicted the next day.

    I think there is a range of addictiveness. And it depends on the substance. How easy it lures you in, how severe the consequences and health effects are, and the withdrawal and how complicated it is to overcome the addiction. These are independant from another. I think nicotine scores quite high on the addictiveness (for some people). But I can only compare it first hand to everyday substances. I’ve never done hard drugs and weed only once or twice. But I’ve cut down on sugar or caffeine. I’ve also had headaches from caffeine withdrawal. But it was easier.

    I think you can even smoke or vape and get away with it. You just need one of the few brains that are wired to allow this and impose strict rules on yourself to limit exposure. And judging by the people I know, odds are always against you.

    I think I should buy a mountainbike and from now on get my dopamine rush from speeding through the undergrowth instead of abusing substances. I’m going to continue using caffeine, though… abuse sugar and a beer or two every now and then. I’m not perfect. And I don’t strive for being a perfect human. Whatever that would be.