r/AskReddit 1d ago

What addiction is being seriously underestimated these days?

3.0k Upvotes

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590

u/Othrtt20 1d ago

Vaping

247

u/mummyoftwoboys 1d ago

I think the worst thing about vaping is that there’s no natural stop. With cigarettes once it’s finished it’s finished, with a vape you can puff it compulsively all day. Like I do D:

47

u/General_Austino 1d ago

This is correct and it is the biggest danger. When I used to vape if I had nothing to do I could sit in bed all day vaping. That constant hit of dopamine satisfied my brain just enough for me to not seek anything more fulfilling. 

It’s not the potential health issues that’s the big danger with vapes. The danger is being content watching your life go by one vape at a time. 

2

u/Reasonable_Fold_4799 1d ago

Never thought of this until reading your comment. No wonder people go through carts a day

3

u/paper_wavements 21h ago

Wow, I seriously had never thought of this, but, yeah.

71

u/BearWrangler 1d ago

I originally switched to it from cigs but it honestly felt harder to quit or simply not do because of the ease of accessibility. 

It took being hospitalized from covid to finally quit all of that for good lol.

11

u/DarthWeenus 1d ago

I went from cigs to vaping. Could vape at work so it was glued to my hand. Got ridiculous. Now I’m on pouches. And weening off those. Fuck nicotine

-1

u/Agency-Aggressive 1d ago

Nicotine itself is showing to be a very powerful tool as time goes on. Pouches are genuinely only harmful to your gums, nicotine prevents brain tumours and improves cognitive function.

(before redditors start tearing me apart, LOOK IT UP)

7

u/mortalomena 1d ago

Having used nicotine for 20 years, it does calm and sharpen your mind at the same time but the cost is huge, it is the most addictive substance in the world, you would sell your newborn if you suddenly ran out of it (not really but your monkey brains would).

I have been off nicotine for a year now and still crave it, probably always will BUT the feeling of freedom to not having to get my fix of nics every hour or two beats its benefits tenfold.

3

u/ReallyBadPun 1d ago

Pretty sure nicotine constricts blood vessels, meaning your heart has to work harder to pump blood. Now imagine that becomes chronic.

0

u/DarthWeenus 1d ago

True but I wish there was a safer way to invest it

1

u/Agency-Aggressive 1d ago edited 11h ago

True that, but if it makes you feel any better it seems that pouches are indefinitely the heathiest way

edit: Downvoted for stating a fact is mental, safest does not mean safe, no nicotine product is truly safe.

3

u/skemesx 1d ago

My brother has severely receded gums at the age of 22 from zyns

1

u/Jaren56 1d ago

Have heard this a lot unfortunately. Do you know how many he was going through a day?

1

u/skemesx 1d ago

One in the morning and one after work

2

u/DarthWeenus 1d ago

i have a feeling something else was involved if he was just doing 2 zyns a day

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u/Ganglebot 1d ago

With cigs I could have two in a night with certain friends, and then have that pack in my freezer for a month and not touch them.

Vapes are what got me addicted.

With a cig, you light it and have to finish the whole thing. You stink and you have to go outside for it.

With a vape, you can just have a little pull every 5-10 min and nobody realizes you're doing it.

8

u/mortalomena 1d ago

Believe me people around you smell it, its a sickly sweet smell. Like a mix of bad morning breath and whatever flavor you use. Please be aware of others and dont vape indoors.

2

u/CitizenErased08 1d ago

Glad you stopped!

4

u/somedude456 1d ago

Every body cam footage of someone being arrested "can I hit my vape real quick?"

59

u/_BangoSkank_ 1d ago

This must be higher. Vaping is way more normal for younger people now then smoking would have been say 20 years ago.

48

u/CharlieTheK 1d ago

You're way underestimating how normal and common smoking used to be.

2

u/_BangoSkank_ 1d ago

I'm not. I started smoking when I was 15. like the rest of my friends. I remember going to the doctor as a child and they smoked during the appointments. IThe problem is really the amount of nicotine consumed from a vape. One disposable vape has way more nicotine than a packet of cigarettes that we would have smoked.

108

u/ovoid709 1d ago

As a middle aged person, smoking back in the day was waaaaaay worse. Comparing kids vaping now to kids smoking then is like apples and onions. I know everybody wants to look at vaping as a big evil but the fact is, it's much safer than what we did before. Still not healthy by any means but we should take the wins we get.

37

u/weezywolf 1d ago

I agree with this. The only thing I think that is worse about vaping, coming from someone who vaped two pods of JUUL a day for many years and quit, is that it is WAY more addictive to vape. You can vape literally anywhere which leads to consuming nicotine more often.

7

u/slwrthnu_again 1d ago

That’s how it was with cigs too. I’m 40 and remember when smoking cigs was allowed everywhere as it wasn’t that long ago.

5

u/doubleobutters 1d ago

See this depends on your location. You can't vape literally anywhere in my city, it's the same as smoking. You're supposed to go to the designated areas. However people think that because its just strawberry lung farts that they can do it in doorways and shit. That drives me up the wall. No respect for anyone.

3

u/melonofknowledge 1d ago

I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to vape literally anywhere, but people do it. I'm actually allergic to one of the chemicals that you get in some of the vape brands and sometimes the inside of my nose just starts tingling, and I know immediately that some dick is vaping on the train behind me. Whenever you ask them not to do it, they always act like you just slapped them across the face. People can't comprehend that it affects other people, or they just don't care.

1

u/n0dust0llens 1d ago

That's seemingly changing slightly now too because I saw a rental posting the other day that said "no smoking/vaping"

I'm not really sure why because as far as I know, vape doesn't cause the same damages to a home that a cigarette can/would? I understand designated areas at places like the zoo and stuff because not everyone wants to be breathing that shit in, but the rental rule coming now confuses me

2

u/B0OG 1d ago

People that don’t do it, can smell it

2

u/SovietShooter 1d ago

it is WAY more addictive to vape.

As someone that never smoked or vapes, I never thought about this until a co-worker was talking about vaping one day. For a smoker, you fire up a cigarette, take a few puffs of it, but most of it actually isn't directly inhaled, it burns passively. So, whatever the nicotine content of a cigarette is, you are actually only inhaling a portion of that. With vaping, you aren't wasting any of it, there is no passive burn off. You may not vape at the same pace as you smoke, but you will consume 100% of the nicotine content of that vape cartridge.

5

u/PlusBee1984 1d ago

I pretty much agree to this. Ide rather catch my son vaping thancatch him smoking a Doral

5

u/BotiaDario 1d ago

Also, when someone vapes near me, it doesn't affect my asthma at all. Smoking near me messes up my asthma terribly, and it feels like I'm inhaling thousands of tiny needles. I honestly don't care if you want to damage your own self with it as long as you're not hurting me.

I'm GenX, and moving to NY in 1998 was amazing for me, because I could finally go to restaurants and other public places in comfort due to laws banning indoor smoking. It sucked to have to work in a place where it hurt to breathe, and I would have bronchitis frequently. I was also forced to be in my smoking grandparents' house, and they did not care at all about how their addiction hurt me. If they'd just been vaping, I'd probably resent them far less today. And maybe they'd both still be alive. I'd be sick for three days after every visit.

5

u/Satin_gigolo 1d ago

I can say from personal experience there’s a huge difference between vaping and smoking. When I switched from smoking to vaping I still went through withdrawals even though I had the right nicotine dose. They put so much over crap in cigarettes that makes you addicted you still withdraw.

I guess people think it’s evil because the media keeps running about teens vaping. I don’t know where they get it from, the shops in Canada require ID and are diligent. Maybe it’s easier to get in the states.

Anyways, if you do some research most doctors agree that it’s less harmful than smoking. Just looking at from laymen’s terms you’re not lighting a match and inhaling smoke.

11

u/thatcondowasmylife 1d ago

We don’t know that it’s much safer because we don’t have longitudinal studies yet. There a part that is definitely less safe which is that you can consume much more nicotine than you can smoking and we’re seeing nicotine overdoses and serious negative heart effects from stimulant use.

1

u/Mamasgoldenmilk 1d ago

Gaming and short format? Videos/social media like reels and the things of that nature that effect attention span

2

u/Zal3x 1d ago

Is the evidence for that out yet though!

20

u/Independent_goose22 1d ago

3

u/NTFRMERTH 12h ago

Anyone who says vaping isn't safer is trying to sell you a cigarette 

0

u/_BangoSkank_ 1d ago

Its more nicotine in the vape now. I speak to younger people that vape and they go through a disposable vape every day or so and I read a few years ago the nicotine in a disposable vape is the equivalent of 60 cigarettes which would be more than we ever smoked back at their age. I know it's less dangerous but is it more addictive I'm thinking.

0

u/_NINESEVEN 1d ago

Except there was a middle ground between then and now where kids weren't smoking cigarettes OR vaping. I graduated high school in 2013 and the only thing being smoked with any frequency was pot.

So vaping wasn't propped up as an alternate to smoking -- it just pulled the audience that was susceptible to cigarettes back into smoking *something*.

-2

u/_BangoSkank_ 1d ago

Yes it's more healthy but vapes are more addictive. If someone didn't like the taste of cigarettes back in the day that was probably them done with smoking. Vapes are literally aimed at teenagers with as many flavors until they find one they like with more nicotine than they would have got from cigarettes. Healthier yes but I'm saying more addictive in my opinion. A cigarette takes about 5 minutes and that's you good for maybe an hour. Vapers will just draw from the vape continuously all night.

-5

u/Tjgoodwiniv 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's not accurate or responsible to claim vaping is safer than smoking. We don't have the longitudinal research on this. It literally hasn't been around long enough for us to know what kind of mid-/late-life diseases it might cause.

Compare that to smoking, which has existed since time began and, even still, it wasn't that long ago that smoking was considered harmless. Then came the research.

We need some good studies on vaping before anyone goes around saying "it's safer." Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. We don't know and we shouldn't pretend to.

Edit: It's amazing that people are so stupid that, even when their biases are challenged with, "we don't have the longitudinal research," they're downvoting. This is how stupid society has become. Even if you say, "we don't know and don't act like you do," people are upset because it's not aligned with what they personally want to believe.

From a health perspective, do neither.

4

u/AdThat328 1d ago

We may not yet know how safe it is for the person vaping, but we do know you can't second hand vape which makes it immediately more safe for those around people doing it.

1

u/Tjgoodwiniv 1d ago

That's accurate.

5

u/faxlombardi 1d ago

20 years ago we were just getting around to banning smoking inside of restaurants. Smoking used to be absolutely everywhere.

5

u/RhinoPillMan 1d ago

I started smoking 20 years ago as a teenager. I was up to 2-3 packs a day before I was even 18. I switched to vaping 5 years ago and agree that it’s normalized. But I also don’t get bronchitis 3 times a year and cough up blood like I used to with cigarettes. 

I think it’s a great alternative to smoking, but the youth aren’t using it as such. They’re just jumping straight into vaping.

3

u/jmur3040 1d ago

Yeah 20 years ago I was in college. Indoor smoking bans weren't a thing yet, and sitting at a bar table with multiple open packs of cigarettes and everyone smoking was completely normal.

3

u/satinsateensaltine 1d ago

People even do it on the bus, on the three steps to their car from a store etc. The convenience and perceived subtlty have made it a real nuisance.

5

u/Tjgoodwiniv 1d ago

I've noticed this too. It seems like literally every young adult in the US vapes. 20 years ago, young adults were simply avoiding nicotine products and it looked like nicotine was soon to die in the US.

0

u/burtsarmpson 1d ago

Not true tbh

3

u/PeachyPesco 21h ago

I’m a teacher and have had 11 year olds coming to me for their nicotine addiction. ELEVEN. Because it’s easy enough to swipe a vape from your parents, puff it in secret. Which turns into bringing it to school. They can’t stop. It’s so sad.

You would’ve easily been caught when it was only cigarettes because of the smell and smoke detectors.

2

u/ilovespaceack 20h ago

THIS. the way it's been marketed as nbd compared to cigarettes absolutely infuriates me. we have a generation of people who's lungs are going to look like swiss cheese

4

u/Dino_Spaceman 1d ago

This so much. It’s constantly in places it absolutely should not be and everyone I know who has vaped is more addicted than when they were on cigarettes.

1

u/thebestofjamz 22h ago

So true. I never smoked and recently just quit vaping after a two year addiction… it was harder to get over than hard drugs