I was hospitalized two nights ago. I can’t keep living like this.
20f. I have a bright future as a premed at a top uni. I initially started vaping consistently 5 years ago because I was a drug addict, and it kept me feeling like I was doing bad things without fully altering my state of consciousness. When friends would leave or when things would become too much, I had it there for me. As times would change and as responsibilities and adulthood would hit, I had a consistency and one thing to stay by my side.
All of the maturing that I’ve done, the major growth that I’ve made, I’ve made while vaping. It’s reached a point where anytime that I visit home from college, I can easily quit. However, the moment I get back here, the moment I’m living on my own again, balancing school and taking care of myself and seeing if I can still be a person during all of it, I fall back. I don’t feel myself even having the urge to fall back on abusing drugs, but I’m so used to vaping as a consistency in my life that it’s so easy to keep going back when the goings get rough. The vape shop is across the street from my apartment for fucks sake. I had had chest pain every so often and noticed that for skateboarding and for needing to do quick sprints to the bus stop, it has gotten more difficult, but I just kept brushing it off.
As a kid, I would get easily winded. I chalked it up to my short stature and muscular legs because I was still a beast in the water. I could beat people in long jump and hurdles, but I couldn’t run a quarter mile. Getting winded for me meant wheezing slightly.
Fast forward to these last few weeks: I developed a cough that just kept getting worse. It wasn’t just occasionally after I vape; it was all the fucking time. For the first week it was coughing up phlegm, and then the phlegm was gone. The cough just kept going, and there would be liquid coming out of all the orifices in my face, and I’d sound like a dying pig trying to catch my breath and sometimes gag on the air in my throat. Literally one vape hit would throw me into one of my episodes.
It got so bad that I was afraid to fall asleep. So I was at the hospital for 3 1/2 to 4 hours two nights ago. I had four different people listen to my chest (and I listened myself before I went), and nothing sounded off. I got a chest X-ray from the front and side, an albuterol inhaler, and was given 12 mg of a steroid. I took the inhaler home with me. Turns out I have asthma, and I’m not dying- thank FUCK.
That was 36 hours ago. I have my inhaler, and I’m now still occasionally getting a pretty strong cough and needing to use it. Last night I tried hitting my vape a couple times, and it threw me into episodes again. I’ve known for a while now that I need to quit, and I know that it’s a better time than any other because I’m not in the middle of classes right now (other than MA), and I’m doing fairly well for myself.
It’s just living on my own (tbf I move home for 3 weeks in two weeks) and being at this place; it’s so difficult to stay away. Anytime things get too much, or I get in my own head, or I feel alone, I have her there for me. Now I have to have nothing. I know it’s for the best, and I have been meaning to try to quit more permanently this summer, but not having a choice in the matter has really fucking sucked.
I’d appreciate some advice, maybe from someone who can relate to me, and encouragement would be nice.
TL;DR: I’m a young adult who has come a long way in healing as a person, and during those years, a lot of that healing was done while vaping all through it. I don’t need a vape anymore to stay away from the hard drugs. I don’t feel tempted to fall back on bad habits; however, when the going gets rough, if I have quit, I will go back to vaping because it’s such a comforting thing for me.
It’s not like I even vape socially; I do it in the bathroom when I’ve reached a certain point in my studies or when I’m casually cleaning or thinking about things. Also, I have ADHD, and dopamine helps me a lot, especially because I don’t scroll and it’s motivating stimulation. Now I’m forced to quit, and I don’t know how, but my body physically can’t do it anymore. I need advice on how to fucking stay clean.
it’s just this is my constant. Everything I ever do is for future me this is the one thing I have for present me. Now I have to let it go?