One of my favorite quotes is the one in the photo above. It is powerful to overcome the thoughts and ideas that your enemies have, but the true enemy is yourself in regards to your own pleasures. It isn’t always okay to give into every whim or desire that you may have or sometimes your personal desires can hurt you or the ones around you.

I often try to use my coping mechanisms in order to stay away from my vices, but depending on the vice, it doesn’t always work. One of my biggest vices that I cling to is vaping. I smoke every moment of every day. I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore which is good, but I vape more now than I ever did when I was smoking cigarettes.

I started smoking on my eighteenth birthday. I was working at the grocery store at the time and I had the whole weekend off. I told my best friend, Brent to ring me up a pack of American Spirits in the dark green box and so he did. He asked if I was going to start smoking and I said no, it was just a right of passage of my new found adulthood. I went home and opened up the box. I played with the cigarette in my hand while laying in bed for hours. I contemplated lighting it with my torch lighter for a long time. I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and enjoyed the smell of the organic tobacco. I enjoyed how it felt in the crook of my mouth and how the tip balanced on my tooth gap. I felt invincible.

I didn’t end up smoking that day or the next day or even the day after. I kept feeling the sensation of the cigarette on my lip and was content with that. It wasn’t until I had a really shitty day at work that I went outside at 10 p.m. after my shift, grabbed my American Spirits and torch out from the drink holder of my 2000 Honda CR-V. I closed the truck door and leaned up against Julio (my car’s name was Julio after the little boy in Peggy’s apartment complex on the show Mad Men). I lit the cigarette, one hand held the torch and the other held the cigarette and then I plopped the cigarette upon my lip and took a huge drag. It made me cough a lot and I didn’t understand the concept of smoking. Burnt tobacco didn’t smell nearly as good as fresh, organic tobacco that I enjoyed on my birthday. I smoked about half of that cigarette before I put it out. I did feel better as the nicotine filled my lungs and coated my veins. I felt free and I could think clearly again.

That one pack of cigarettes lasted me a little over two years. I picked up smoking cigars for shits and giggles. I enjoyed the sweet ones and if I was feeling fancy, I would get the Al Capone cigars that were thin and about a couple inches long. On my senior prom night, my date (who was a sophomore because we made a deal to go together) and I smoked Swisher Sweet cigars, drank Rainier and smoked a lot of weed before and after the prom since it was so lame.

After prom, I had quit smoking altogether because I didn’t see much of a point. It wasn’t until I worked for the federal government as a mechanic at age 20 that I started smoking again. For the first five months I was there, there was no work so a group of us mechanics would sit in a hot room all day and shoot the shit for every 45 minutes and then the smokers would go down to the smoke shack to smoke or vape. Then those 15 minutes turned into an all day affair and all the mechanics would sit outside smoking and hangout out in the sunshine with the fresh Puget Sound air all around us. So if you didn’t smoke, you were left out. I borrowed my friend’s vape to try and they had watermelon vape juice and I was hooked instantly.

I bought my very first vape and coils and juice and I used that 60 mL bottle over the course of two months. Now a days, I can smoke 60 mL in about a week. So I have significantly increased my smoking habits in the two years that I have been vaping and I’m not aiming to stop anytime soon. Even when there was a flavored vape juice ban, I crossed state lines to buy my supply and before the ban took place, I spent $500 just on vape juice. That is how much I love and am committed to smoking. I love the way smoking tastes, smells, feels…. I am addicted. Now if that were my only vice, I would be in the clear but it’s not so… stay tuned for all of my other guilty pleasures and write in the comments what some of your vices are!

Til next time,

Dani