Have you ever reflected on the relationship between smoking or vaping and connecting to your breath?

After many attempts to quit, Riley finally found his way out of vaping through the power of breathwork. Developing a deep respect and appreciation for his breath is exactly what helped him get to the other side of vaping for good, completely shifting his perspective on who he is.

Riley is incredibly passionate about sharing what he learned along the way. Enjoy his story here on You Can Quit Smoking.

Jessi:
Hey everyone, what's happening? Welcome back. I'm here today with Riley. I'm so excited to talk with him. I've seen him on TikTok, and he has awesome content. So, Riley, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?


Riley:
Yeah, and thank you for having me on. Like she said, my name is Riley. I'm 31 years old. I have two kids and a wife, and they are the biggest reason that I quit.

I mean, obviously, I believe it's hard to just quit wholly for someone else. Like, you have to want it yourself, and you have to be ready to do it. But they definitely motivated me and pushed me to be in a place where I was the person who was ready to quit.


Jessi:
I think that's so powerful and motivating, that family really can be that for us. So, I want to hear more about your story. What's your story with vaping?


Riley:
I started vaping, I don't really have an exact age to put to it, but around 16 or 17 is the time when I started smoking. I'm sure you're familiar with those old Blu e-cigarettes, the first ones that came out. They were like the little cigarette things.


Jessi:
Yeah.


Riley:
I'd hit those, and then they had the Fuses. But when vaping first came out, you know, I'm a young kid. I'm a teenager at the time. I had never smoked cigarettes. I had tried one or two, but I didn't really care for them.

Vaping tasted good, right? And it was like the new cool thing. So, I had a buddy who had one. Back in the day, they were just like pens. We called them pens because they looked more like a pen. And I started doing that. I remember the first one I ever had was peach rings flavored, and I really loved that about it. I vaped peach rings for a long time.

I just thought it was this cool thing. I wasn't even worried about getting addicted to it. I was young and kind of stupid anyway. But I got more and more into it and thought it was super cool because then they came out with the mods, which are the bigger e-cigs. And I started building my own coils.
So, there was this whole culture to it. I mean, I know smokers have a culture too in their own way, but vaping became this huge cultural thing when it first came out. It was all dubstep and vapes. That was what was going on, you know?


Jessi:
Oh yeah.


Riley:
And I was all into it. I actually had a social media page dedicated to building mods, vaping, making my own juices, and stuff. And that page is still live. I like to go back and look at it sometimes because I'm a vastly different person from now compared to then.

But I got really big into that. And then over time, it just kind of turned into this addiction, you know? It was no longer a fun, cool thing for me to do. It was just my daily crutch. It was disposables all the time.

If I lost it, I had to get a new one, even if I just bought one, right? I just bought one, I can't find it. But I need one bad enough that I'm going to go buy a new one right now. That's another $25 the same day for another one. And then I'd try to make it so that my wife didn't know I spent $50 on e-cigs today. So, that was kind of where I got to.

And then I tried quitting a bunch of times, mainly just because I realized I was addicted and I didn't really care for the addiction part of it. I didn't like always having to know I could use it wherever I was going, right?

Like if I go to a movie theater, I was the type of guy who was hitting it. I would consider maybe even hitting it on an airplane. In movie theaters, wherever I am, I'm going to hit it because I'm just addicted and I'll risk it. I thought, "No one's going to say anything."

So, it was bad. I've always had jobs to where I can vape all day. So, I was a 24/7 user of this.

I think there's a significant portion of this that I missed out on sharing earlier. I had used the little e-cigs and stuff like that when I was younger. And I eventually developed an addiction to harder drugs. I was doing methamphetamine and cocaine for a while. Then when I quit doing that, that was when I got more into building the mods and replacing one addiction with another. So, vaping became my crutch for quitting the harder drugs.

I did notice over the years when I would attempt to quit using my vape, suddenly I would have urges or cravings that I hadn't had for a long time for the other stuff. I didn't expect that, but that was one of the symptoms. So, you know, I'd just get back on the vape.

It wasn't a huge physical health thing for me. Even now, I do think it is unhealthy, and I don't think we know everything that it does to you, but I see a lot of stuff about popcorn lung. People send that to me and I'm like, "I don't know," because there's a big difference. I can feel it when I smoke a cigarette. You know what I mean? I feel that in my lungs.

Physical sensation-wise, I feel like vaping is sneaky in the sense where it doesn't feel like it's doing anything to you. And maybe it's not doing as much. But regardless, I feel like the addiction part of it is the bigger thing versus the health.

I've never seen myself as an anxious person. Maybe I was in denial about that for a long time. I don't like to say, "Oh, I have anxiety." And I don't think I did, but I would have anxiety surrounding my vape, right?

I'd be tearing the house apart looking for it. My wife would ask, "What are you looking for?" And I was just embarrassed to admit that I'm an adult throwing my room apart looking for an e-cig. It's just embarrassing. So, I mean, I can talk for a very long time about my addiction. I think that's kind of a good overview.

When I found out my wife was pregnant with our son, I quit. She had told me, "Yeah, when I get pregnant, you need to quit." So, I did quit. And I had quit for four months. That was my longest quit besides my final one.

Because I had a bunch of two-day, three-day, one-week, and two-week attempts in there. But I think I made it a month one other time just for fun, like a kind of thing just to prove I'm not addicted, you know? "I'm going to quit for a month." And I did it. Then I went back, and then I was like, "Oh, man. Why'd I ever go back? I should have just stayed quit."

So, I quit for four months. I was feeling good. I thought I was over it. I went on a motorcycle ride with my brother and a buddy. And my buddy whips one out. I was just feeling good, so I hit it.

I didn't like it. It did not feel good. It made me feel sick and terrible. But then it created this frustration in me where I wanted to hit it until it felt good because I wanted to get that old good feeling back. I felt cheated. So, I kept hitting it. Then it started feeling good, and then I'm buying my own again, you know?

So, I got back on it, and that only lasted a little while until my son was born. That was when I found the breathwork stuff, because I had gotten into Wim Hof during that first four-month quit. I paired that and started veering more into free diving, which is funny because where I live, there's nowhere to free dive.

I just wanted to do the breathwork to go free diving because my wife's from the Philippines. We visit there. And I actually had the pleasure of being there for three months this year. So I did a lot of free diving when I was there. That was extremely nice.

But now I'm back to just doing the breathwork. The breathwork helps immensely, though. I was ready, but the breathwork made it so much easier, surprisingly easier compared to previous attempts.


Jessi:
How did you hear about breathwork? What kind of drove you into that? Because that's not something that people commonly talk about.


Riley:
For me, I call myself a hobby hopper. Like, I'll do archery. I love art. I just do everything. Jiu-jitsu, archery, watercolor, oils, you know. I just love art. I'm a hobby hopper. And that's another thing, I land on certain things, right?

And the breathwork was one that stayed. Jiu-jitsu was one that stayed. I love those things. Some of my hobbies stay, and usually, it's the ones that don't cost that much money, you know? And breathwork is free. It's crazy. Breathwork is completely free.

So, I just got into Wim Hof. My brothers and I, we just liked doing the cold exposure thing. We thought Wim Hof was pretty cool. Once you see what breathwork can do, it's crazy. For me, I'm just the type of person who's been interested in doing things like yoga. I like to explore anything I can. But yeah, Wim Hof got me big into it.

And then, the long breath holds for me just seemed like such next-level meditation for some reason. When you start holding your breath, and you hit like the three-minute mark, you're like, "Dang." You are tuned in for a minute and it feels really good.

So, then I wanted to push that limit, and that's when I started seeing things about free divers. These guys are holding their breath for five to seven minutes. And I was like, "I want to do that."

So, I got more into that. That brought me to things like the Buteyko method.

I got obsessed with breathwork after I started reading about it. Wim Hof got me started, and I did that for quite a while. Then I looked into free diving, and then I found James Nestor's book, Breath. It is such a good book that I got obsessed after reading that one. I just wanted more breathwork stuff, more of that, you know?

So, I read James Nestor's other book called Deep, which was a free diving one. And I think I actually liked that book more because I was already interested. I didn't know he had made that one, but that was a good one.

Then I started looking into more and more breathwork from there, from holotropic breathing and beyond. Some of it jives with me, some of it not so much. I'm not super into the woo-woo crowd, you know? I'm a blue-collar guy. But the breathwork works, so I love it.

I think it's not restrictive. It's for anyone who breathes. You don't have to be a yogi to get into breathwork. It's meant for everyone. Like, pregnant women giving birth have to learn breathwork real quick. You know what I mean?

It's like daily life. You are breathing a certain way, so you're better off being in control of it. Or at least understanding how it's affecting you, the sensations it's giving your body, and what the effects are.

You might feel, "Oh, I'm anxious for no reason." Well, a lot of people don't even think to consider looking at their breath, like, "How am I breathing right now?" Yeah, just something simple like that can be a huge thing. But yes, I think that works wonders for addiction.


Jessi:
How does the breathwork relate to vaping? Is that why you were interested in vaping, because you kind of had that pull towards the breath? It was a way to connect to your breath? I know it can seem kind of backwards, like an oxymoron almost, but yeah.


Riley:
What's crazy to me that you bring that up is no, I did not think that at all at the time, but a lot of people in the comments on my TikTok videos say that exact same thing. They say they were only into smoking cigarettes or into vaping because it was like a form of regulating your breath, of consciously breathing. I had never even connected that, funny enough. But I'm like, “Okay, that makes sense.”

But I did connect it in a way of thinking like breathing can give you these sensations, right? And originally, what I thought about doing with breathwork was seeing, "Hey, how can I recreate that sensation of vaping?"

So, I would do some breath holds that would make me lightheaded, which I don't think are good for you. And I don't encourage some of the things that I tried. I might be liable for that if I tell you to do something crazy.

Some things I would try, for instance, sitting down or laying down somewhere safe. I would do some crazy long, torture-myself breath holds when I was trying to quit if it felt hard. You know when you're going to fail, right? You start to accept that you're going to hit the vape, and then I would just kind of punish myself for getting that close to doing it by holding my breath for a very long time to a point where it was super uncomfortable.

I'd do max breath holds and then start breathing again, and you're not even thinking about the vape anymore at that point, right? Because your body is just like, "I want oxygen." As soon as you start breathing again, you're just happy to have oxygen. And you want to protect your lungs because you realize how important they are and how important the breath is.

But also, my hypothesis was, "Hey, anytime my body or my nervous system tries to sabotage me and make me quit, I'm going to punish it by making it suffocate for a second." It was almost like a Pavlovian trick, like when the bell rings, the dog salivates. It was like, "If you give me a vape craving, we're going to be uncomfortable and hold our breath."

The reason I wouldn't recommend that now is because I do think that ultimately, using breathwork to quit vaping or smoking is a great entry and proof of concept for breathwork as a lifestyle. Everyone should do it.

But when you're trying to push your max breath-hold time, doing max breath holds too often actually hinders your progress. It shows your body that high CO2 means panic, like, "We should panic about that, right?" So, it's actually training your system to have a lower CO2 tolerance. My goal ultimately is to have a higher one, so that's why I don't recommend it.

I don't think it's healthy. I don't think it was smart for me to do that. And it just shows the unhinged things people can try when we're desperate for a solution because we want to quit.

Deep down, we want to quit. We're ready. That's how I knew I was ready because I was like, "I'm not doing it."


Jessi:
Yeah. Now, I think it's interesting, that dynamic between pleasure and pain that so many of us who go into addiction have, where it's a very thin line.

I am more curious because you said that you didn't feel any physical side effects of vaping at the time, but then when you had that instance where you went back, it didn't feel good.Do you think that you just kind of had a baseline of not feeling your best?

Because when I look back at my own story, I just kind of accepted things that I would never accept now. Like waking up and coughing for long periods of time and not being able to fully breathe when I'm walking or hiking. I just got so used to feeling like that, that I didn't even really notice until I had quit how much better I felt.

So, I'm kind of wondering if maybe that's more of what was going on with you? Did you see a big difference when you ultimately quit? Did you feel healthier?


Riley:
Yeah, and that's why this is a fun conversation. Because you are very in tune with understanding this as well. You have all these insights that in hindsight I realize are totally true. I did not realize it at the time.

Because once I started quitting, I started doing these apnea walks. If anyone's interested in this, you can look up the Buteyko method. It's a way to naturally raise our CO2 tolerance.

What happened was my sleep cycle got thrown off really badly when I quit vaping. When I quit using nicotine, I had no problem going to sleep, right? A lot of people have a hard time going to sleep. I went to sleep fine.

But the problem was I would wake up at crazy hours, like 2:00 AM.. Then maybe go back to sleep. Then I'm back up at 3:30 or 4:00 or 4:30. I found after one or two days of that happening, I was like, "Okay, this is going to pass," and I just tried to go back to sleep.

But then I'm waking up late, right? And now I don't want to get out of bed because I'm feeling depressed or down.So, what I started doing is I was like, “Well, you have to find ways to work with all of these side effects, when I would wake up at 4:30.”

You know what? One of my biggest complaints about myself used to be that I'm not a morning person. I had a hard time getting out of bed. That has completely changed since I quit vaping, by the way. So, I thought, "Hey, I guess I'm just going to be thankful that I'm waking up early and take advantage of this. I'm going to start doing morning walks when it's peaceful." I'm usually not up that early, and I told myself, "You know what? I'm getting past the 'I'm a vaper' identity, and if I'm going to be waking up, I'm going to do something productive with it."

So, I went and started doing these apnea walks. And during those walks, I started noticing that I would have a runny nose quite a bit, and I was coughing all the time. My lungs felt tight. I would get a lot of phlegm, spitting up stuff, right? And I never had this before, but it felt like my lungs were starting to heal and kick all that stuff out. I don't know the scientific details, maybe you do, but I felt the sensations.

Then I started noticing, even before I tried quitting, when I would just cut down a little bit. Like, "I'm going to ease into it and wean off," which never works for me, but I would try repeatedly anyway. Even just starting to lessen my use, I would notice a tightness in my lungs, specifically on my right side. I would always wonder, "What is going on?" It worried me.

After I quit for a while, it felt like that for about two weeks. I was concerned about how tight my chest felt, But it ultimately went away. And yeah, you're right. I don't think I realized the damage it was really doing.

But was it the same for you when you were smoking? Because I felt like if I was smoking, I could feel it. But I didn't smoke for a long time.


Jessi:
Yeah, you just learn to accept it. I really like that point in your story when you explain, "I wanted it to feel good," because I resonate with that so much. I remember that feeling when you take a break and you go back to it. And it feels awful, and you just keep smoking until you get hooked again so that it feels good. It's kind of backwards, but we're just so dependent on something that we're used to, to feel good.

I want to talk about the anxiety. I think I already have an idea, but how has the anxiety shifted since you quit? I know that you have breathwork as an amazing tool. Are there any other tips that you have or things that you've noticed with your anxiety?


Riley:
I don't think I get it anymore. Like, I don't get anxiety anymore. I will feel stress, and I'm not a psychologist or whatever, but the way I differentiate them in my own mind is if I can identify a specific cause to it, it's not anxiety.

I call it stress. You know, you get a stressful email, something's wrong, or a bill comes in the mail, and you think, "Great, now I've got stress." You know that's not anxiety.

But to me, the anxiety was the panic feeling of something being wrong, something missing, needing something. I don't have that anymore, you know? I feel more confident in myself, and I just don't need that thing. I'm not reliant on it.

Back to your point of wanting it to feel good, it's that point to where once you smoke or hit your vape after a period of time and it doesn't feel good, for me, it almost was a scary feeling like, "I don't have that option anymore. That relief is no longer available to me." And that's why it's kind of a panic to claw that back and then get trapped in it again. It's better off just not to go back.


Jessi:
I know it's your body saying, "Hey, this isn't good," but your mind can override it because you can use logic to make anything make sense to you.

And so I'm wondering, we spoke on the anxiety, but has there been any other emotional change that you've noticed since quitting?


Riley:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Patience. I'm a lot more patient. I'm less irritable in general. When I first quit, that was another major reason I failed to quit so many times before. I wasn't successful because anytime I would try, I'd get extremely irritable.

I'd start getting into arguments with my wife, because she doesn't deal with irritable. Once I'm irritable, she gets irritable. Then we get into an argument, and now I have stress and a perfect excuse to go get another vape. So, the irritability was a huge thing for me.

But even just in daily life, even when I had the vape, I was a little more irritable, especially on the edge of the status of it. “How's the battery on it? Oh, it just died. Now I'm going to be irritable for a bit. And I'm going to be tense until I can hit it again.”

So, those kinds of things have changed, and I'm just more present with my family, not having to worry about it. I can be more present in moments and more engaged.


Jessi:
Yeah, that's the stuff you don't really think about either. Like you said, you can't really see it until you get to the other side where you're like, "Wow, I'm a lot more relaxed. Things are easier now." But yeah, when you're living in it, it's just the normal. So, I think that's really powerful to speak on that.

You've shared so much great stuff throughout this conversation, but I'm wondering about someone who is in it right now. They've tried to quit vaping. They've gone back to it. They're on and off again with it, and they can't seem to find a way to get through to the other side. They're stuck in the cycle. What words of advice would you have for them?


Riley:
I have a lot. My problem is I need to find a starting point, right? So, if someone is listening to this right now and they can't see themselves being on the other side of it. If they're listening and they think, "Well, that could never be me." Or I think the biggest one, and it's kind of a call-out thing, but it's like: your addiction wasn't worse than mine or isn't worse than mine. That's the realness of it.

The only reason I say that is because that's what I told myself all the time. I'd say, "No, I have ADHD," or "This is because it was a crutch from harder drugs," or "I've been doing this since I was this age, people don't understand, I can do this 24/7, and they just don't know my personality." I used to say, "I am a vaper. I have an addictive personality." First of all, those are all things that we tell ourselves to identify with the habit.

I was that guy. I believed I had an addictive personality.I've kind of reframed that though, in my own mind. Instead of saying I have an addictive personality, I like to say, “I'm passionate about things.” I just try to make sure those are the right things.

So, it's just about catching yourself when you tell yourself, "I am this, I am that." Get over it. You can change. I've been there. I've been you. You can do it. It can be hard, but it's also easy.

It's hard to do it when you don't know what to do, and it's kind of hard to figure out what to do. I can tell you all kinds of advice, but it's really going to take you experimenting and finding out what works best for you. The breathwork is great, and it will make it easier ultimately. Identifying your triggers, seeing them coming in advance, and being dedicated to the point where you're actually looking for resources and learning is huge.

To me, I always thought quitting meant I just had to stop all by myself, that I'm on my own on this. And no one can help me because they don't understand me or they don't understand my specific addiction. But people have been there. People have been in it. They've learned things to get to the other side, and you should let them share it with you.

For me, I really want to share it with people because I just feel like it's hard to do that sometimes. Because our addictions kind of make us feel like we're totally alone in it. But yeah, that's my initial advice.

If you're listening to this right now, then you're in the right place to do it. If you weren't ready, you wouldn't be listening to this. So, if you tell yourself that you can't do it, but you're listening to this, then you're in a much better space than you think.


Jessi:
Absolutely. Listening to that call. I'm just wondering, speaking more on the self-talk, do you feel like your self-talk has changed comparing back to when you were vaping? Do you talk to yourself differently?


Riley:
Oh yeah.


Jessi:
What's that like?


Riley:
This is the biggest benefit to me with quitting vaping. This was the single biggest benefit. Maybe this doesn't jive for all people, so I'm not trying to sell you on this. But for me, this was the best thing that happened to me out of vaping, and this is how it completely changed my life.

I saw myself subconsciously as a failure for a long time because I'd try to quit and I'd fail. I'd try to quit and fail, try to quit and fail, and I felt like a prisoner to this thing that I was choosing to have. Every single one of those failures reinforces this idea that you're a failure, you're weak, you're not strong, and you can't do it.

But I personally like the philosophy that quitting isn't a long, drawn-out process. You quit. You're not actively "quitting" forever; you have quit. Like I said, cold turkey was the way for me. I don't poo poo on the way anyone else wants to do it, because a lot of people find a lot of benefits in different methods. But for me, it had to be cold turkey.

The biggest benefit was when you finally quit, you just shake off all of those past failures. They are gone. And now you feel like a success. You've replaced all of those failures with a big success, and it feels great. Now it completely changes not just your self-talk, but the way you view yourself.

You think, "I am strong enough to quit this. Whatever else may be going on, at least I did this right. I overcame that." It's a win. You use that win and you collect more wins. You see what success feels like when you struggle and fight through something and you stick with it even though it was so hard. You succeeded.

And now those other past failures are not failures anymore; they're just a part of the process that led to your success, right? You realize, "Hey, one failure isn't the end of me, and I can be successful." You take that whole mentality and you level up in a way mentally. I want that feeling for everybody who's stuck in it.


Jessi:
Oh, it's the best feeling. It's the best feeling. You've said it so beautifully.


Riley:
I love talking about this, if you didn't notice! It's something that a lot of people don't want to just sit down and talk about. So, it's so cool that you do, because it is a huge thing.

People who haven't been there don't realize that. But those who have realize that it is a massive accomplishment. Even though it's just a stupid little pink, plastic device. And that was the other thing, I was embarrassed about that a lot.


Jessi:
Yeah, there's such a resilience to it, a wisdom to it. It really helps us reconnect with ourselves and connect with others. There are a lot of gains that can come from the troubles of addiction, but it's about moving through that to the other side.

I just really appreciate you coming on here and sharing your journey with us. How can people get in touch with you?


Riley:
They can follow me on TikTok, that's my main platform right now. My handle is @Rydoo.real, or….. I put my name as Rydoo, but it was kind of funny because I thought it was funny to be Rydoo Ki.


Jessi:
[laughter] You tricked me with that one! You tricked me, it took me a minute.


Riley:
No, it was like, "Oh, Rydoo Ki." That's funny. So, I don't know, I thought it was funny, but yeah. You can find me on TikTok there. I'm pretty responsive to people.


Jessi:
And you're putting content out there all the time, it's great stuff. You're really honest with it. You've got a couple of skits in there that made me laugh. I just really appreciate you doing that work and speaking out about it.

Because people do feel alone, and it's so encouraging to see someone who went through what you are going through, see them succeed, and then be able to have that vision for yourself.
So, thank you so much for coming on here and talking with us, sharing vulnerably, and speaking from your heart with us. It means everything to me, and I know it means a lot to the audience, too.


Riley:
Cool. Yeah, thank you so much, and thank you for doing this, too. This is super cool. This is a lot of fun.


Jessi:
Thank you, everyone. Take care. I'll see you next week.



End of Interview

Riley opened up today about using nicotine as a crutch to replace other habits. If you know exactly what that feels like, you will definitely want to check out Episode 6.

Our guest Kathleen speaks about how she clung tightly to smoking after she quit drinking, eventually reaching up to three packs a day. Today, her life looks completely different, with a prominent focus on nutrition and fitness.

Hear exactly how she broke that reliance and made the pivot on Episode 6 of You Can Quit Smoking.