Kildare students - 'Vaping will forever be the biggest regret and burden in my life'

Electronic vapes rose to prominence as a method for smokers to kick the habit but have now become popular in their own right with children and young people picking up vapes having never smoked a cigarette in their lives.

Two young students from Kildare have shared their personal journey of becoming heavily addicted to vaping having never picked up smoking.

A 22-year-old woman from Kildare, who has requested to remain anonymous, started sharing her story by saying:

"I properly started vaping when I was 18, in 2021, but I tried it for the first time when I was 16, during Covid....ironically I always said that I would never touch cigarettes but that all changed when vapes became a massive thing.

"It started when I was out drinking with my friends and at house parties. I would be out and would have a couple of drinks and ask my friends if I could borrow theirs, just to try it and see if I liked it.

"Then I finished my Leaving Cert and went out drinking more frequently so then started using the vapes more.

"Instead of annoying my friends asking for their vape every five minutes, the most logical thing to do was buy my own, but only to use it when I was out drinking.

"That idea didn’t last very long. I would go out, buy a vape, have an amazing night, and in the morning I would wake up hungover, realise I still had a vape and use it, because it needed to be used up. 

"That was the start of a very slippery slope that would begin my five-year period of becoming addicted to vaping. After one vape was finished, sure, I would just buy another vape to have, just in case, and then another, and another.

"I wanted to try the different flavours and different brands started to pop up in the shops, IVG, Lost Marys. Around the same time, all my friends started to vape too and we were doing it every time we met," the young woman said.

She admits to never questioning the impact: "None of us really understood the lasting effects this little habit would have. We were young and naive and, God forbid, thought we were cool! Before I knew it, I was spending a ridiculous amount of money, so I swapped to a reusable vape where you just buy the pods and I was 'saving so much money! This is great'.

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"Collectively, I would say that I have spent into the thousands on feeding this addiction. I am a college student and only work part time on the weekends. I have noticed that when I get my wages, I will budget for my vape liquid, as the idea of going without a vape makes me anxious and nervous at the thought," she continued.

The woman said that she started out spending nearly €60 a week on disposable vapes until she switched to rechargeable vapes.

"Before the new tax on vapes came into effect at the end of October, I was spending on average €20 a week. Now, since the new tax, for a pack of two pods, it is costing me €25, or nearly €50 a week. As a college student, this is an insane amount of money to spend, but, that unfortunately is the reality of being addicted."

The young student said that vaping now makes her concerned for her health and that she notices herself getting out of breath very easily. She also finds herself coughing more often and after an extensive amount of vaping her chest feels like it's tightening.

"During health appointments, I get the disappointing stares from doctors and nurses when they ask the question, 'Do you smoke?' and I embarrassingly answer 'Yes, well I vape.'”

The woman said that recently she went on a long haul flight and decided to wear compression socks due to the known risk of blood clots when you vape.

"The fact that I had to take this precautionary measure to protect my health from the side effects of vaping is honestly depressing. 

"The anxiety, stress, and being overall agitation takes its toll when I do not have a vape or if I have had to go an extended period of time without it," she told us.

The woman said that she 1000% regrets vaping and if she could go back and slap her younger self, she "would in a heartbeat."

She added: "I would shake her and tell her to throw it away and never look back. Every time I vape, I regret that first pull of a vape I had so many years ago, all because I was curious.

"I have to lie to my family still and I try to sneak outside for a vape so none of my family can see. Vaping will forever be my biggest regret and burden of my life.

"Every day, it slowly starts to consume more and more of my life and starts to become attached to me just like my limbs."

While trying to quit in the past, the young student said that she managed to go max 3-5 days without falling back down the slippery slope that is vaping.

Another young student from Kildare (22) named Chloe started vaping when she was 16 years old in secondary school.

"I was especially influenced by the visually appealing “tricks” you could do, like “blowing o’s” and “ghost inhale”, and I didn’t think about the fact that it contains nicotine."

The young woman said she smokes nearly 24/7 and gets cravings after about an hour of not using it, and would start to feel irritable without it.

"It’s embarrassing and no one’s fault but my own. I got highly addicted after I started using disposable vapes which mainly only come in the highest legal strength in Ireland – 20MG. It worries me a lot about how much I vape and I know I need to find an alternative to quit."

Chloe spends about €22 a week on vapes and said she has cut down a good bit recently with being occupied in college and work. 

She said that now she is in college and working part-time, it’s been more difficult to afford it and said she would leave herself with nothing sometimes to buy a new vape.

When asked if she has noticed any health problems, Chloe referenced a time she was sent to A&E with a bad lung infection after a party holiday, and the doctor warned her to quit vaping.

"About three years ago I suffered from a really bad lung infection after being on a party holiday. I ended up having to go to A&E. I had a cough that wouldn’t go away and it got more intense after a couple of days with lung pain.

"I didn’t vape during this time because I physically couldn’t and this led me to quitting for three weeks after being on medication.

"Unfortunately my cravings got the better of me and someone offered me some of their vape and I started using disposable vapes again.

"I’ll always regret starting again, especially after being so sick. Even the doctor told me to stop vaping and I didn’t. I worry about the effects it will have on me in a few years to come. I just wish I never started because it feels impossible to quit, especially when I’m constantly surrounded by it."

Chloe said that it has also affected her fitness levels and she can't run very far or walk very fast without losing her breath.

"The worst thing is that I have always despised the idea of smoking and still would never smoke, so I don’t know why I thought it’d be a good idea to start vaping when it’s probably going to be worse in the long-term.

"The addiction side of it really creeps up on you and you don’t realise how addicted you actually are until you don’t have a vape within your reach.

"To anyone who has just started or is thinking of trying it: don’t be fooled by the colours, the flavours, the smell or the “cool” tricks. It’s inevitable that it will have an effect on everything from your mood to your physical health.

"I’ve tried to quit many times. When I was younger my mam would catch me with it, but even the fear of her catching me again wouldn’t stop me from quitting.

"I’ve tried going cold turkey and it simply doesn’t work for me because the cravings I get are too strong. I’ve tried cutting down my usage but it just makes me crave it more as well as trying to throw it away, I’ll just buy another one.

"It’s especially hard to quit when it has become so normalised to vape everywhere and anywhere. When you’re constantly in that sort of environment it makes it so difficult to quit. I think the next step I should take is getting a nicotine alternative to vaping."

Mark Murphy from the Irish Heart Foundation told Kildare Live: "We would be quite concerned with the emergence and the rise of youth vaping over the past few years and now what we're seeing is there's an explosion of youth use of nicotine like nicotine pouches and we know from research that nearly one in three teenagers aged 15 to 16 have vaped and about 15% of them vape regularly and the most common age of initiation of vaping among young people is 14 years of age.

"This is really concerning because while we know that vapes are safer than cigarettes, they are not harm-free and we don't know what the long-term impact of vaping is and there have been studies such as a 2019 study published in the European Heart Journal, it showed that e-cigarette use can actually damage the brain, the heart, blood vessels and lungs and we know from a lot of research that adolescents who use vapes are up to five times more likely to move on to smoking.

"Vapes contain nicotine. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on the planet and we know from research, from US research, from the FDA, that nicotine use among adolescents can actually affect adolescent brain development.