I’ve quit a lot of things.
Vaping. Drinking. Sugar. Processed food. The hormonal implant. Each one was hard in its own way, but each time, staying stuck felt even harder.
This is the first of a few blogs about quitting. Not in a preachy way. Not with a perfect before-and-after story. But with honesty. Because quitting doesn’t just happen in a day. It happens in your head, again and again, until something finally clicks.
And this one’s about vaping.
The hardest thing I’ve ever quit. More than drink, more than sugar, but also the one that changed me the most.
The Love Affair
I loved my vape.The fruity flavour. The instant calm. The way it felt like something that helped. That tiny toke gave me relief I couldn’t always get elsewhere, especially with that constant tight chest of anxiety I carried around for years.
It was always with me. In my hand, in my pocket, beside the bed. I couldn’t go twenty minutes without it. And I didn’t even smoke like that when I smoked cigarettes.
I wasn’t just vaping. I was living around it. Always wondering: “Where’s my vape?”
It had a hold on me.
My Friend’s Way vs Mine (And the All-or-Nothing Thing)
I worked full-time with a friend who was also a vaper until her dentist told her to stop. Watching her quit blew my mind.
She didn’t quit all at once. She cut down. Dropped her nicotine strength. Had to have the vape with her at all times or she’d panic and start again. I thought it was strange at first, but it worked for her.
But me? I’m all or nothing.
I can’t “cut down.” That just makes me obsess over when I can have the next hit. It becomes all I think about. People say I have strong willpower, but it’s the opposite. I can’t have any because it consumes my brain. So I knew that if I was going to quit, it had to be cold turkey.
But I wasn’t quite ready.
What I was sick of wasn’t the vape itself… it was the addiction. The way this little device controlled me. That got under my skin.
The Opportunity – Surgery Day
Then I got the news. Four wisdom teeth coming out. No vaping allowed on the morning of the op.
That was my moment.
Mornings were always the worst for me. Withdrawals hit hard as soon as I woke up. I was already nervous about being put to sleep (I’d never had a general anaesthetic before), and the idea of sitting in that waiting room also in withdrawal made me feel panicky.
So I made a decision: I’d use the op as my excuse to finally quit.
Not just for the sake of quitting. But because I had to. The addiction to this tiny plastic device was getting ridiculous. I was sick of being controlled by it. Sick of my kids seeing it constantly in my hand. My teeth were starting to worry me. My physical health, my mental health. It was all too connected. It was time.
The day before the op, I took my last toke and handed my vape to my friend. I couldn’t keep it near me or I’d have caved.
Within half an hour, I felt the stress. My chest felt tight. My patience thinned. I had to warn my family I’d be irritable.
At work, I was woozy. Brain fog like I’ve never known. My vision felt off. I was fuzzy. So I made myself a fake vape out of a straw. Literally just something to breathe through to trick my brain. Weirdly, it helped.
I wanted to put someone through a wall, though. I was that tetchy.
But I got through it.
Teeth Out, Vape Out
The day of the op came. I was nervous, but distracted. New phone, surgery coming up, brain already in survival mode.
I got my teeth out, came home, and lay on the sofa drifting in and out of sleep from the anaesthetic. In a weird way, it helped. Being knocked out, off work, and out of routine gave me a strange kind of freedom. No vape. No triggers. Just rest.
The next day, still sofa-bound. Still using my straw. Still foggy. Still wanting to put someone though a wall.
It took about a week and a half for my brain to feel like mine again. That was the worst part. Not the cravings. Not the irritability. The fog. The lack of clarity. It scared me.
But this was the thing that stopped me from quitting quitting.
It was so hard I couldn’t bear to go through it again.
The Shift – Mental Clarity
Eventually the fog lifted. I started to feel… clear. Calm.
The biggest surprise? That pang of morning anxiety, the one I’d had for years, just vanished.
That chest-tightening, throat-choking, worry-before-I-even-wake-up feeling? Gone.
I still overthink. I still get anxious. But that first-thing-in-the-morning dread? No more.
It blew my mind.
Add to that the fact I’d also had my hormonal implant removed around the same time, and I can honestly say I felt like a different person.
It Was Harder Than Quitting Drink or Sugar
I’ve quit other things too.Drinking. Processed foods. Sugar.
They all affected my body and my mind. But nothing hooked me like vaping. Nothing made me feel as out of control.
Vaping was my security blanket. It was with me constantly. So quitting it felt like losing a part of myself and then realising that part was never me to begin with.
This Wasn’t Just About the Vape
Quitting was part of a bigger shift.
The grief of losing my dad cracked me open. Attending healing ceremonies with Women Wild helped me put myself back together. Removing synthetic hormones from my body changed my entire emotional baseline.
Listening to people like Mel Robbins and Allen Carr gave me little lightbulb moments (I’ll talk more about them another time). But one quote from Allen Carr stuck with me so much, it rewired my thinking:
“A smoker smokes a cigarette to feel like a non-smoker”
If you can really understand that, you’re winning. Non-smokers don’t crave. Smokers crave, and they smoke to relieve that craving, only to create it again. That hit me hard. I wasn’t vaping for pleasure, I was vaping to feel normal. The same normal that non-vapers feel every day without even thinking about it.
It all added up. Little pieces of clarity. Little reminders that I was still in there, underneath the chaos, the coping mechanisms, the habits.
Quitting Is Easier Than Not Quitting
Not at first.
At first, quitting is hell. But after a while, not quitting becomes a different kind of hell. The brain fog, the frustration, the loss of clarity, the control something else has over you. It wears you down.
Quitting is brutal for a short time.
But not quitting? That’s brutal forever.
If You’re Trying to Quit Something…
You don’t need a journal. You don’t need a perfect plan. You just need to be done. Sick of it. Ready to take the hard days so you can get to the clear ones.
I’m not an expert.
I’m not a coach.
I’m just someone who did it.
Coming next…
I’m thinking of writing next about quitting sugar and processed food, or about how the implant affected my mental health. If that’s something you relate to, stick around. This isn’t the end of the quitting stories. Just the start.