The Fairly Simple Transition from Vodka to Vaping

It’s a strange realization to see yourself transform from a verging alcoholic to a stoner … especially when you did it on accident.

My boyfriend and I tend to bond over our addictions. We met doing a musical more than a year ago, and nearly every night after, we’d stop by the liquor store for a bottle. It would be finished by the next morning.

This behavior didn’t feel destructive to me. We were making Manhattans and binge-watching vintage Jem and the Holograms episodes on Netflix. We’d sneak shooters of flavored vodka into movie theatres. Weeknight drink specials at gay bars were our reason for going out, so we could have four drinks for less than $10. Our lifestyle was frugal, but nonetheless we relied on alcohol to enjoy ourselves.

A year ago, a new job opportunity landed me a gig as a budtender, which had never been on my agenda. The first time I smoked pot was in a garage at a house party in Wyoming, where a former substitute teacher of mine showed me how to make a pipe from a Coke can. I felt like I was being such a rebel, but since then, weed wasn’t a huge deal for me. I felt like I was entering the marijuana industry as a phony.

During my first couple months, I ended up bringing home a lot of weed with no solid game plan. I tried smoking a joint on my roof deck, hoping my neighbors would flock to share this cone that had usually taken me a few nights to finish. I was basically having wet dreams about visits from my hip Congress Park building mates I hoped would be similar to this:

Them: “Yo, neighbor! I could tell you’re rad by the way that marijuana wafted through my window, so I came up to join.”

Me: “Why, yes! I sell this for a living. Would you like to hear about its THC percentage or cross-strains? I know those things now. This one’s a sativa!”

Then we would bond over their impeccable taste in non-mainstream indie tunes, and they’d come back to my apartment for pizza rolls and whatever 90s Nickelodeon cartoon we could find on Hulu.

The social aspect of weed gave me big dreams that sounded a lot more appealing than anything vodka lent me.

Since landing my budtending job, I’ve acquired several options of paraphernalia, a knack for edibles, and the ability to pronounce and understand words like “cannabidiol.” I skyrocketed out of beginner status because I finally understood this magic leaf.

And it turned out, my boyfriend, who was on the same stoner-level as me, would become the weed cohort of my dreams.

He ironically won a fancy bong from my company holiday party. I would buy discounted edibles from work to test-drive at our stay-at-home dates. Somewhere along the line, we stopped buying weekly bottles of booze, and all we’d need for the night would be some infused gummies and a few hits from our new bong, as we snickered and figured out the best way to take a perfect rip.

It complemented our lifestyle better, and alcohol slowly drifted from the picture. At one point, we realized a solid few weeks had gone by and we didn’t even care about drinking anymore.

It’s a strange feeling to swap one buzz for another. I learned mixing weed and alcohol was a terrible idea, and I have to choose one (at a time, at least). Weed typically wins now.

And why shouldn’t it? My stress levels decreased. I rarely have hangovers. I gained a little weight from munchies, but that’s a fixable rookie error. Even my lip balm is infused with THC now.

While I may not be an alcoholic, it was hella easy for me to drift from a path that was leading me there. Oddly enough, a drug that has helped millions of other people found a way to help me, too.