I’m a vape addict like 1 in 10 adults in the UK

When I walk into my local off-licence, the man behind the till recognises me and immediately reaches for a peach-flavoured Elf Bar vape. What’s disturbing is how quickly this shop learnt my order — within weeks of me moving into my new house. Every time this happens I feel embarrassed, especially if I’m with someone, because it proves my vaping addiction.
More than one in ten adults in Britain vape, the highest level recorded, according to a YouGov study published this week. Among my 28-year-old friends that number is even higher. Over half of them vape. At the end of a pub session the table we have been drinking at will be littered with discarded colourful plastic sticks: Elf Bars and Lost Marys.
It’s a running joke among my friends that I’m the worst of all of them. When one of them asks to grab something out of my handbag, I panic, knowing they will see the vape graveyard rattling around at the bottom of it, along with my keys and lipstick.
• Vaping rises to record levels in Britain
The study found that only 8 per cent of the vapers are people who have never smoked cigarettes. More than half of them (three million) are former smokers. Like them, I used to be a smoker, but ditched roll-up cigarettes in favour of Juul, the first “It vape”, five years ago.
I moved on to Elf Bars because they tasted fruitier and didn’t need to be refilled with vape liquid. That convenience — they’re sold in almost every corner shop in London, are cheaper than cigarettes (about £6 a pop) and don’t need to be recharged — used to be a big plus, but I now resent it because it makes it so much harder to stop. Unlike a cigarette, which you stub out, there is no natural end to a vape. It just goes on and on, and when it runs out of battery you just buy another one.
One of the things I hate most about vaping, and which makes it feel like such a dirty habit, is the dependency I have on it. Every morning I wake up with one stashed under my pillow, ready for that morning puff. I secretly vape everywhere: on train journeys I sneak to the loo with a vape stashed in my sock.
Like any addict, I feel panicky, irritable and sweaty when I run out, and will go to extreme lengths to get my fix. My vape died the other day when I was at a party. It was 2am, so all the nearby shops were shut. Rather than just accepting I’d have to dance for another hour without a vape like a normal person, I ordered one on Deliveroo for £17.
On some level I must be in denial about how hooked I am, because I always underestimate how many vapes I will need to bring with me on holiday (seven vapes for seven days). So the final few days of relaxing trips away are marred by me frantically trying to find a shop that sells them.
I know it’s an unattractive habit. When my boyfriend reaches out to hold my hand, he often has to curl his fingers around the vape I’m clutching. When one of my friends saw this, they jokingly quoted Princess Diana’s BBC interview with Martin Bashir, and said, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage …” I know he constantly worries about what it’s doing to my insides too.
• Is vaping bad for you? The benefits and risks explained
Recently the downsides of my addiction have become too hard to ignore. There’s the cost — I spend about £150 a month on it — which I can’t really afford since my rent has gone up. But my main worry is my health. I used to breezily brush off people who said I vaped too much by saying I was being healthier by vaping than smoking. But now I’m not so sure. Every month I see a new study being published about the health risks of vaping. When I read them I flinch.
I’m not the only one worrying. Half of adults now believe vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking tobacco, up from 8 per cent a decade ago, according to the study. I’m sure vaping had a hand in my bout of bronchitis in April, and in the upper respiratory tract infection I had earlier this month. I lost my voice at Glastonbury Festival in June, and it only came back when I didn’t vape on the final day there. I rinse with Corsodyl mouthwash every morning to ward off vape-induced gum disease, but the answer is staring me in the face.
I am desperate to quit and I have tried. The survey found that it typically takes two years to fully quit using e-cigarettes, which doesn’t fill me with much hope. But it is doable. I did temporarily manage to kick the habit for a few weeks last summer after I visited an Allen Carr stop vaping clinic, a method that has helped everyone from Richard Branson to David Cameron quit cigarettes. But then I fell off the wagon on a night out.
• Generation Vape: how children got hooked on e-cigarettes
I have managed to wean myself off the vapes a bit in the past few weeks, since I’ve discovered Snus. They are under-the-gum nicotine pouches that have become more and more popular among my friends. I reckon I’ll be able to fully switch to Snus soon, but even then that’s still a nicotine addiction.
It runs in the family. My dad was a heavy smoker, until he switched to the healthier option — nicotine gum — when I was ten. Although the gum helped him to completely quit smoking, he has been hooked on chewing mountains of it ever since. He sounded so excited and proud when he rang me last week to say he has given them up, and is now ten days clean from the nicotine. It has spurred me on. I’d love to be able to ring him and say the same thing soon. If my dad is able to kick a habit he has had for 30 years, I should be too.