Keep at quitting the vapes – Kedea’s story

I initially used to just vape on the weekends and so I picked up the habit and it just became an everyday thing.

I would vape first thing in the morning, I'd vape like the last thing before I go to bed.

It was just like a 24/7 thing for me.

My name is Kedea.

I was born and raised on the South side of Brisbane.

I'm 32 years old and I quit vaping about five months ago.

I was a smoker in my late 20s, had that habit for about four or five years and then I decided to quit smoking and found vaping as an alternative.

I think once I relied on that in stressful situations or used it as a coping mechanism, that's when I started realising that I was addicted to vaping.

I found myself with shortness of breath all the time when I was training, playing football at the gym and going for runs.

I had to give up vaping because it had a massive impact on my health.

The first time I tried to quit vaping, I found it a bit hard due to the life choices I was making.

So socially I was out every weekend, which turned into like seven days a week picking up a vape.

The second time I tried to quit vaping, I lasted just over a month for about six weeks.

There was an unfortunate incident that had happened in that period of life, and I didn't really have the tools to stay off the vaping.

So I just resorted back to vaping as like a, a coping mechanism so to speak.

And then it started this year, I really wanted to focus on my health, so I just went cold turkey.

I decided to make healthier choices like by going out fishing, going on adventures, playing football again, having that healthy social life, and that was sort of my road to quitting completely.

I felt on top of the world when I quit vaping.

I just felt so many changes with like my breathing, my fitness levels, even mentally as well learning to deal with certain things on my own as opposed to resorting to vaping when I'm stressed out or if things weren't going my way.

I guess a lot of self-growth and just health wise I feel a massive difference.

If I were to encourage family or friends to quit vaping, I would just speak highly on the fact that the health benefits behind it contribute to a longer lifestyle, and everyone wants to live longer right?

Another hot tip I would give is just finding healthy alternatives as opposed to vaping.

So potentially picking up a piece of fruit when you have the urge to vape.

Another thing I did personally was go for a run whenever I had the urge to vape and that contributed to my health journey as well.

I don't think people realise how addictive vaping can be at times.

It could just be like a, a social habit. A one-off thing without realising that they're doing it constantly which leads to addiction without them even being aware of it.

I am aware now that there's support services around for people wanting to quit vaping.

We have the My QuitBuddy app, you have the Quitline that you can ring up and have a chat to someone who can help you put a plan in place to quit vaping.

And you can also head to your local health worker and ask for a plan that they can put in place for you to help with your journey.

I haven't looked back since.