can anyone help provide me with some insight to nicotine addiction from vaping?

[RamblingRose]

I know with vaping you have no idea how much nicotine you are getting.

Our daughter (20) came home from college irrational with terrible mood swings, depression and anxiety. Her vape pen seems to always be close by though she won't vape in front of us and I find the empty juice containers in the trash. I can tell when she's in her room vaping cause I hear her coughing.

I don't know if it's just nicotine addiction or a combination of things. She refuses to talk with us or go to family therapy.

Can nicotine be so addictive where you need outpatient addiction therapy like other drugs?

[irisblue]

1. Yes nicotine is addictive

Nicotine Anonymous, google them. I know were in person meetings in the before times at the church where I went.

Hope this helps


Also, could she be depressed?

[tblue37]

2. Yes. WaPo had articles about it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/helpless-to-the-draw-of-nicotine-doctors-parents-and-schools-grapple-with-teens-addicted-to-e-cigarettes/2019/07/25/e1e8ac9c-830a-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html

[RamblingRose]

6. Thank you for the link! Sounds just like her.

She screams & yells at us that she doesn't have a problem.

From the article it sounds like maybe she needs out patient treatment?

But how do you make a 20 y/o go: Take the car - a friend will pick them up; Take the phone - we won't be able to track her location.

[tblue37]

10. Maybe print the article and ask her to just read it. nt

[TygrBright]

3. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known.

https://teen.smokefree.gov/quit-vaping/vaping-addiction-nicotine-withdrawal

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/tobacco-nicotine-e-cigarettes/nicotine-addictive

https://www.swedish.org/classes-and-resources/smoking-cessation/nicotine-dependence-how-it-happens

helpfully,
Bright

[Thyla]

4. Was she a smoker beforehand using it to quit?

Or just vaping because it´s cool type of thing.

If the latter there is no real reason to have any nicotine, if the former then quitting is hard. Vaping helps but it can be a real bummer still.

[RamblingRose]

7. she started casually vaping her freshman year of college and it slowly spiraled out of control

[Warpy]

5. Nicotine addicts in need of a drag are unpleasant

but this sounds like more to me. I'm not going to medicalize the poor kid at this point, but this very likely has more to do with extreme stress than using the coping mechanism of either nicotine or plain juice vaping.

Consider the context and how her life has been totally upended by this damned virus. I know I'm getting a little frayed around the edges and I'm at the opposite end of life and a massive introvert, less likely to be affected by isolation.

20 is a rough age for kids in good times, it's the old identity crisis combined with trying to kick their way out of the nest. That's pretty much on hold now and the frustration is intense.

If it escalates to violence, including self harm, talk of suicide, and other severe acting out, you might need to get her some help. For now, let her sort things out. If she starts to talk, listen without trying to fix her--she's a grownup and that's no longer your job, it's hers.

[RamblingRose]

8. She is definitely suffering from anxiety & depression. It seems like it's all related

Now she's complaining she thinks she may have a stomach ulcer but insists it's in no way related to vaping.

She still has her apartment at school (all expenses paid) but remains here at home though her roommate is there.

I don't think she is capable to taking care of herself. She yells and says she hates us and I try to calmly say go back to your apartment. But that would mean grocery shopping and cooking.

It is tearing my husband and I apart since we differ on how to deal with it cause she's an 'adult'

[Warpy]

13. First, find out what you can agree on with your husband.

Stop focusing on vaping, it's a coping mechanism and until she learns better ones, she needs it, whatever it is. It is highly unlikely to contribute to peptic or duodenal ulcers.

Ask her why she thinks she has an ulcer. Overwhelming stress can indeed help them to form, but generally they're due to h. pylori bacteria. Listen to the symptoms and run them by your family doctor.

You don't like her vaping, you don't have to. You do need to accept it as an adult decision, whether or not you think it's a poor one.

Right now, what she needs isn't criticism, she needs people who will listen without trying to fix her life. In my own experience, most people will tell you exactly what is wrong if you're willing to wait for it and listen with your mouth shut. Silence draws people out a lot more efficiently than questions do, and criticism shuts them right down. This is an old, battle scarred RN talking.

She came home for a reason. Give her some breathing room until she is ready to talk about it.

I worry more about kids who aren't depressed. They're more likely to be the ones out there taking really stupid chances.

[Clearly fogged in]

9. Vaping, even without nicotine, is very addictive

Having smoked cigarettes for 40+ years, and switching to vaping as a vehicle worked for me. There was one enormous problem though. Quitting vaping was much, much more difficult than quitting cigarettes.

The plan was to reduce both the tobacco flavor and nicotine levels alternatively. Each weekly purchase reduced one or the other. At the end of my planned time frame I was hooked on vaping; it took dogged determination to quit.

Good luck to your daughter, please do whatever you can to end this early.

[RamblingRose]

11. Thank you for your insight. I notice the 'juice' bottles have nicotine levels (eg. 14%) on them

I guess that's 'government regulation'

I have no idea how much that equates to.

The vape pen makes it too easy to 'smoke.' It reminds me of people smoking cigarettes in bed except you can't catch the bed on fire.

It also makes it easy to skirt the outdoor smoking bans.

[Clearly fogged in]

12. The 14% is full strength, similar to popular cigarettes

There is so much more than nicotine addiction happening - we develop habits. Smoking a pack a day for a year is 20x365 cigarettes - that's 7,300 cigarettes. If there were only 20 drags/puffs on a cigarette, then a smoking habit has been reinforced 146,000 times in just one year.
By the time something is repeated that many times it has gone far beyond the nicotine addiction.

Ask her to compare the color in juices of varying levels of nicotine - the 0% juice is clear; the more the nicotine the darker the color. Think of the color as the level of poison one takes.