I’ve never been one for fads, especially when I have a hard time breaking them. The second everyone around me started wearing high waisted pants, I was dying to run home, take them off, and lock them in my storage box labeled for reevaluation in the next ten years.

When the juul came my way (roughly two years ago), though, I was interested. Not a lot of people I knew had it, and while I didn’t smoke cigarettes, I was obsessed with vaping.

The downside was that it didn’t have very many flavors. From the typical toothpaste mint to the off-putting, sweet creme brulee (with two flavors in between), there wasn’t much to do with it. Still, I carried it with me everywhere I went. Soon enough, I was hooked on the nicotine; craving it in the middle of class, on the way to the subway, when making dinner, etc. It became a non-stop habit.

I’ve purchased three juuls since it entered my life (because I lost the previous two galavanting around Manhattan), multiple packs of pods, and even a new iPhone charger for that one time I lost my juul charger and found out (thanks to the interwebs) that you can fashion one out of an old iPhone charger (which I then had to do because it was geeky, useful, and made me feel like a tech wiz).

However, I’ve recently had some health issues. Due to the change of season, all of the connectivity from my nose to my chest has gotten quite wonky, and juuling throughout the struggle didn’t make it any better. So in the spirit of winter health, and doing my best to keep my lungs working functionally and freely, I put my baby down.

Over the next week I noticed that yes, the nicotine cravings had irrationally spiked, but also that I was breathing better, focusing more, and this nervous fidget that I’d developed no longer remained. My dependency on it was a little frightening, mainly because I hadn’t seen it coming.

If there’s anything to take from this existential juulers anonymous (excluding me) meeting, it’s this: if it’s easy for you to do and harmful to your health, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it, because then you can do it anywhere.

If you don’t want to quit then live your life, honeybee, but if you want to, and you feel like you can’t, then don’t let that future vape (see what I did there) control you. It’s basically like smoking a candle wrapped in tin foil, like if the Tinman had a bad heart because he drank too many sodas and we just went in there, scooped it up, and smoked it out of his right pinky.

Joiethor’s Note:

Also, think of that moment when you juul too quickly (after you just had a pull) and then you cough on AIR? Someone tell me what that is.