The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
8 — Wednesday, September 21, 2022

I must confess: I am on the 
verge of buying a vape right 
now.
Even after five months of 
sobriety, I still love everything 
about vaping: the soft crackling 
sound when I inhale, the sharp, 
euphoric feeling that penetrates 
my cerebrum, the subtle thrill 
of hiding in a bathroom stall to 
carry out the deed discreetly 
and, of course, the ability to hit 
it at social gatherings to avoid 
awkward silences. It delivers 
just the right level of sensory 
impairment that brought forth 
temporary pleasures without 
compromising my busy sched-
ule. A brief stroll around cam-
pus will tell you that I am not 
alone in my love for vaping. 
Vaping devices can take on 
any shape and function: there 
are colorful, slick, cylindrical 
ones; rounded rectangular ones; 
Juuls, and other bulkier refill-
able vapes for the cloud-chasing 
nerds who are obsessively dedi-
cated to performing vape tricks. 
They’re 
everywhere-littered 
on the ground, stored neatly 
next to the cashier at your local 
7-Eleven and in the hands and 
pockets of your closest friends.
For me, vaping started early, 
and old habits certainly die 
hard. It was 2017, the winter 
of my sophomore year in high 
school, when Vans, Fjällräven 
Kånken, Instax Minis and Juuls 
were in. Out of the blue, my 
best friend sent me a link to 
purchase a Juul. It was a small, 
sleek silver gadget with a small 
bulb, charger and slot for refill-
able pods with vaping liquid. 
She told me that Juuls were all 
the rage right now and asked 
that I pay the steep $50 so that 

we could share it together. A 
week later, I received the Juul 
in discreet packaging. 
Four weeks later, I was 
hooked. There were four fla-
vored 
pods 
in 
2017: 
mint, 
mango, tobacco and menthol. 
Our favorites were the mango 
ones, so sweet and potent that 
they almost acted as gum. I 
would purchase flavored pods 
from my classmates through 
Snapchat and leave the $30 they 
had demanded inside my mail-
box, where they would deliver 
the goods.
From those days on, my best 
friend and I would vape in 
every bathroom we encoun-
tered. From school libraries to 
malls and even at our pediatri-
cians’ offices, nowhere was off 
limits. This was also around the 
time my brain had started to 
rely on nicotine to stay produc-
tive. Rewarding myself every 
now and then for hard work and 
focus had rewired my brain to 
seek the sweet release of dopa-
mine triggered by nicotine and 
I was utterly unable to focus 
without it. Vaping became a 
feedback loop for my brain, ner-
vous system and muscles.
This feedback loop would 
start when I was confronted 
with an especially difficult or 
boring class. Upon staring at 
the clock for a perfect time to 
take off, I would pick a time 
to go for a “vape break” in the 
bathroom to reward my concen-
tration and hard work, carefully 
retrieving my Juul during my 
AP classes. When the perfect 
timing strikes, usually during 
group work, I would tilt my 
torso and slide my hand into my 
backpack to grab my Juul from 
its own compartment inside my 
backpack, acting as if I were 
shyly inserting a tampon into 
my sleeve to avoid the mocking 

laughter from my male peers. 
Skipping 
ever 
so 
slightly 
from the anticipation, I would 
then take a brisk walk to the 
bathroom, and enjoy my head-
rush there while praying the 
other girls didn’t hear the small 
crackle of the pod liquid vapor-
izing or notice a faint trace of 
said vapor rise above the stall 
door. After the effects of vaping 
had mostly subsided, I would 
then finally walk back all dazed 
and confused, trying my best to 
act as if nothing had happened. 
Sitting back into my seat, I 
usually felt a renewed burst of 
motivation to finish up my class 
work.
During these secret vape 
breaks, I felt a brief escape from 
the hefty pressure that is earn-
ing back the money my parents 
had invested in a Texas hospital 
in exchange for four temporary 
green cards for the entire fam-
ily. 
Whenever my best friend and 
I vaped, for that brief, mind-
numbing moment, she and I, 
both of Chinese immigrant 
backgrounds, escaped the con-
fines of expectations for perfec-
tion. The behavior was revolting 
and despicable to school admin-
istrators and parents, rumored 
to cause brain damage in devel-
oping brains, but it equalized 
with the bland rigidity of the 
law-abiding, 
extracurricular-
attending, sport-playing life-
style we had in our adolescence. 
Every week was the exact same 
during the school year in Bos-
ton, the same milky-white sky 
and freezing weather. The only 
thing that didn’t seem constant 
was the consequence of vaping. 
Sixteen-year-old me felt almost 
like an international spy, hiding 
the money in the dead of night, 
retrieving the pods inside the 
sleeves of my hoodie and slid-

ing it quickly inside my cup of 
makeup brushes whenever my 
mother would visit my bedroom 
to ensure my productivity.
During high school, I would 
have periods of sobriety from 
time 
to 
time. 
I 
oscillated 
between vaping and sobriety, 
prompted by the intensification 
of the side effects of vaping, 
signified by sudden headaches 
and chest pains. There would 
then be subsequent periods of 
intense worry for my health. I 
was no fool and knew that there 
were health consequences. In 
a twisted preservation of my 
own sanity, I refused to look 
up these potential ailments as 
vaping had become my coping 
mechanism for heartbreak and 
laziness. 
Fast forward to college, I 
remember being involved in an 
undefined relationship with a 
classmate shortly after we were 
permitted to return to campus 
after the lockdown. I coped by 
vaping whenever I dipped into 
the lows of said emotional roll-
ercoaster. Whenever my dispos-
able vape died, I would drag my 
feet across the street to-sur-
prise surprise-7-Eleven to pur-
chase a new one at 3 a.m., often 
after yet another failed attempt 
to quit. In the cooling morning 
breeze, I would unwrap it there 
on the street and take in deep 
inhales, momentarily forget-
ting about my less-than-satis-
factory grades and inability to 
end things with him once and 
for all. 
As the chaos of freshman and 
sophomore years subsided, I 
found myself working toward 
a degree that likely wouldn’t 
grant me my desired level of 
success post-graduation with 
few extracurriculars to discuss 
on my resume and knew that 
it was now or never: I needed 

to fill up that resume. If not, I 
could risk wasting hundreds of 
thousands of dollars on a use-
less piece of diploma. I was 
ready for all-nighters, Red Bull 
binges and countless leadership 
positions, and it took me right 
back to the comforts of my feed-
back loop.
Between all the all-nighters 
spent at the UGLI, midterm 
cramming at Duderstadt and 
anxious moments meeting new 
people, I vaped. The feedback 
loop was back with full poten-
cy: I would again reward myself 
with vaping after concentrat-
ing on my work for a while, 
like how parents would reward 
their children with playtime 
or a candy bar after success-
fully finishing their homework. 
Except this time, I could vape 
anywhere I wanted in broad 
daylight as an adult, erasing 
the secrecy element that I have 
always associated with vaping. 
Periodically, I would attempt to 
quit yet again. Still, the mood 
swings, cravings and brain fog 
that came after would prompt 
me into vaping again. I couldn’t 
risk enduring these side effects 
in the midst of raising my GPA 
and searching for a big tech 
internship.
Nicotine, 
the 
stimulant, 
bonded with nicotine receptors 
in my brain, which regenerated 
every time I vaped and were 
nearly impossible to satisfy. 
The vapor penetrated into my 
lungs and bloodstream, raising 
my heart rates and constricting 
my blood vessels. These effects 
helped me concentrate on tasks 
for a few minutes or so. It wasn’t 
until this summer that I learned 
from therapists at my summer 
internship that I had created a 
system of physiological and psy-
chological coping mechanisms 
for stress and anxiety with vap-

ing. 
As I sat in the dimly-lit ther-
apist’s office, it all clicked: 
a major part of my endless 
addiction to vaping had been a 
response to the immense stress 
and emphasis on conventional 
success by my family and envi-
ronment. From the very begin-
ning, since the creation of my 
feedback loop, I had always 
viewed my vape as a coping 
mechanism for the copious 
amounts of stress I was under 
and as a small reward for my 
developing brain when it lacked 
external affirmation from the 
people around me. It delivered 
pleasurable neurotransmitters 
to my brain when the things and 
people in my life that were sup-
posed to give me real happiness 
didn’t. 
In the age of “quiet quit-
ting,” inflation, hustle culture 
and rising student loans, it is 
no wonder Gen Z uses nicotine 
to cope with the overwhelming 
pressures of life. The looming 
pressure of entering into a pro-
fessional world with very little 
to offer young people, and all 
the necessary steps to take in 
your childhood and adolescent 
years to ensure conventional 
success measured by wealth, 
certainly call for unhealthy 
coping mechanisms as well. 
For what seemed like forever, I 
fought the urge to rely on this 
addiction once more for the 
sake of productivity. Five years, 
121 Juul pods and 45 disposable 
vapes later, I am just now start-
ing to understand why I adored 
vaping. As long as these stress-
ors are still present, I will not 
be able to escape that itching 
desire to stop by 7-Eleven and 
pick up a brand new vape.
MiC Columnist Zoe Zhang can 
be reached at zoezhang@umich.
edu.

Five years, 121 juul pods, and 45 disposable vapes

ZOE ZHANG/MiC

This is why you will have to lie 
on the bathroom floor a while
after peeling 
away layers of your skin and 
finding only more skin underneath.
Or maybe it’s after you realize
that whatever name your father 
called you,
he now asks where (baby, sweet-
heart, honey, princess) has gone.
I can’t remember which comes 
first but just know

the stepdad and the mailman 
and the soccer coach won’t look at 
you
that way once you start shaving 
your legs and oh god, 
sweetie please don’t cut your 
hair that short
because mine
won’t stop coming out in clumps 
in the shower.
I don’t want to die, but I’m enjoy-
ing the process of rotting,
and my pee is coming out acidic, 
but I’m sick
of drinking water every morn-

ing. This is a bummer,
I know — knowing that you will 
still
be scratchable and fuckable 
when you were supposed
to become the smoke from a 
snuffed-out candle.

I was named the youngest per-
son to go senile today.
I think it’s because there’s some-
one
in your window, and he followed 
you
to mine, but it might be because 
I want to be a kitchen appliance
for Halloween, but not an oven
or a microwave. I know I’ll be 
spooky
because blood is sticking my 
knees together
from a sink I can’t seem to plug. 

When it starts getting hard for 
you
to get out of bed, I’ll know it’s 
time to tell you
that he’s peeking through the 
crack
in your closet and tomorrow he’ll 
be
on the rug hugging your stuffed 

bear. 
You will dry his feet with your 
hair,
hoping not to end up Mary or 
Madonna, but something holy
nonetheless.

This is how you enjoy your youth.

This is when you will squeeze
your legs shut
so someone else can pry
them open. This is how you will 
sing
yourself to sleep at night.
This is why you will stare at the 
smudge
on the wall.
This is how you will chastise 
yourself.
This is how you will know you’re 
ovulating
without an app.
This is why you will speak in 
nouns
and not verbs.
This is why all you will ever be 
found
is wanting.
MiC Columnist Claire Gallagher 
can be reached at gclaire@umich.
edu.

You can’t figure out how to enjoy your youth

CLAIRE GALLAGHER/MiC

ZOE ZHANG
MiC Columnist

CLAIRE GALLAGHER
MiC Columnist