With that being said, let us walk down this road together and view the journey I’ve been on so far.

I wanted to save this post for the one-year mark, but I’ve also been itching to write this for some time now so I figure about 8 months should work out fine! This is the full journey of my smoking experience so far. I hope you enjoy this walk we’re about to go and thanks for coming it really means a lot.

          First, we’ve got to go all the way back to late 2014 after I graduated high school and was quite uncertain of where I wanted to go. I was 18, in love, and still getting over the high of graduating! I was so ready to hop into my idealized version of adulthood and show the naysayers that I, Ricardo Psungo, could thrive in the world under my own guidance and direction…unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. I had been asked to join a Beta Missionary Group to spread the Word and Love of God The Almighty in India, but between the pushback of a family member and the fallout of the church in Texas I was unable to fulfil this need to teach others which left me lost for a while. During those summer months I kept up with my running and ended up in a 5K to raise awareness on epilepsy which also landed me a job at literally the best place to work ever: 9Round Jackson! I loved that job and while I had this amazing turnaround experience, I also faced insecurities at home both with myself and my dad. I had felt like a stranger wasting resources in someone else’s home for along (probably since I was 15 or so) and this feeling only grew as I lost my 8-hour distraction after graduating high school. My mental health was at an all-time low, and I felt like I was faking my emotions at the time: I never really felt like I was on solid ground and as the days passed on, I found myself more paranoid and distrusting of everyone I knew, including myself. And then…Jackson State happened.

     I didn’t want to go to college because I didn’t really see a point of going since I didn’t get to go on my mission trip which, at the time, was my passion and purpose so instead of a four year institution of education I opted for the two year local gem so I could “get the fluff” out of the way and hop back into ministry once I was through. My stress worsened and my self-confidence was diminishing, but I had to do what I had to do to get back into my passion. I did end up meeting some amazing people and reinforced some friendships I didn’t know where going to be so pivotal moving forward…but that didn’t stop one of my friends from trying to convince me to vape. Now, they knew I wasn’t a fan of smoking cigarettes, but made it clear that what they had in their tank didn’t even contain nicotine. “You can enjoy the benefits of smoking without the kickback! Plus, you end up saving money with a juice bottle verses a carton of cancer sticks!” 

***Quick Pause here! I do want to be CRYSTAL CLEAR that I was not strong armed into vaping nor was I shamed for not vaping if I didn’t want to. The final decision was (and still is) mine to make on whether I was going to indulge or not. Not that I believe many people would get the wrong idea, but I do like to make certain things clear to keep the narrative on track. Now…back to the post!***

It really wasn’t as bad as I thought so I ended up buying my first mod and began the long journey of vaping. At first, I was buying 0% nicotine juices for the flavor and to try out tricks like blowing Os, making twisters, hotboxing, etcetera. It was a fun ride, but I eyed the 3% (0.3 mgs) ...y’know, for the flavor..., so I ended up getting my first 3% juice a few months after I started and it was the rush I was missing! I started giving less and less of a shit about what my home problems were because I could always take a hot bath, play some music, and hotbox the bathroom until I about passed out in the tub. This became a routine thing for me which distorted my mind state and dulled my emotional sensitivity. I was less effective at my favorite job and started having terrible headaches that wouldn’t go away with the recommended dose medication, but I didn’t care; I had what I needed to get me through the next day in a tank and bottle. 

Not too long after I got well into vaping (Year 2 of JState so 2016) I purposely failed two classes at Jackson State and forced myself to be on Academic Probation which was another block that I simply didn’t care about. I also started my job at Domino’s and lost my position at 9Round Jackson which hurt, but I could smoke that despair away and push forward. Things kept on like this way for a long time and many of my friends knew me as the guy with Deep Lungs because I could hit the highest setting on my updated mod without choking (180 watts). I was working, drinking, and vaping as often as possible and when I hung out with friends, they had to experience the hotbox sessions in any vehicle were in and, I’ll admit, those moments were legendary! I could out smoke anyone and I could blind you in a minivan within three minutes! But my body knew it was past a threshold and it wasn’t sure how long it could keep Ricardo Psungo alive.

Once I got into 2017 – 2018 I was on 6% juice (0.6 mgs) solidly but would hit as far as 12% (1.2mgs) and 24% (2.4 mgs) if a friend of mine had that juice in their mod. Some of you that know your levels might think “bro, 0.6 mgs isn’t that much: Marlboro Menthols have 1.3 mgs at the bare minimum,” but when you take into consideration I was finishing 30 mL bottles within a two week timespan (if not sooner) and constantly filling up my 5mL tank due to how hard I was dragging a puff you might change your tune a bit. My headaches had turned into full blown migraines and Tylenol Extra Strength wasn’t cutting it. Aleve Liquid Gels wasn’t cutting it. Advil, Bayer, AC, nothing was working to quell the pain in my head. My poor eating habits were catching up as well and lack of exercise began to wear at me even more. Each puff I was pushing myself closer to death’s door and I knew I’d be knocking on it soon, begging to be released. I was depressed more often than not and not much excited me. My passion for writing slowly fell to the wayside and my connection towards my emotions and people was virtually nonexistent: I still felt things, but it always felt like someone else was experiencing the feeling and telling me how it felt to be in that state rather than me actually feeling the emotion itself. I was always paranoid until I hit my vape and believed I was clearing my head to think when I was really organizing a mess with…more mess. I never really slept well, especially when my son was born, and my body temperature always felt off due to me being either hot or cold and never quite warm. I came to learn it was because my blood pressure had reached 170/120-140 on a regular basis which is Hypertension Stage 3 and needs to be looked at by a medical professional immediately which I did not know at the time. I was also prescribed Rizatriptan by my doctor who gave me a lower Mg dose because I wasn’t honest about my vaping habit (which yes, it still counts as smoking and yes, you should ALWAYS be honest with your doctor so they can care for you fully otherwise they can’t be as effective in your treatment). I bailed on the prescription and went to generic migraine medicine. The bottle held 200 caplets in it. How many caplets do you think I took within a week?

20?

30?

60?

How many do you think I took in a week?

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The answer...I could go through half a bottle within a week (sometimes less). I started buying 2 bottles at a time because I didn’t want to run out and be left with “basic” Tylenol. I would later learn that this was damaging my stomach lining from my doctor to who I was, once again, not honest with when it came to how much off-brand Excedrin I was taking. These migraines would greatly hinder me at work/home and leave me in the fetal position for several minutes before getting to “manageable” levels. Further into my journey I had two separate instances where I had an intense migraine from Monday to Sunday with no relief until the following Monday. I could go through a bottle and a half during those two instances (that’s roughly 300 caplets in a week/600 for the TOTAL two instances). Even with the recommended max, my consumption of these pills was WAY OVER THE NECESSARY LIMIT! 

To frame how fatal my situation was at the time, I had (and still have) a mild (innocent) heart murmur which isn’t bad on its own but could become a problem if my heart isn’t properly taken care of. I was experiencing poor circulation constantly, tingling around my eyes, “random” pain in my chest and joints, mind fog and slight memory loss, frequently passing out while driving out of nowhere, and the list could go on. To sum it up…there is extraordinarily little reason for me to medically be alive right now! I was killing myself in the slowest way possible and most of this came from vaping that 6% nicotine. I knew I had to stop, I told myself I had to stop but I couldn’t give it up…not when I had come so far with it. I’d rather my heart give up on me than put down this one joy in life…this one thing that made me whole. I did put down the tanks and go for disposables with limited puffs, but it wasn’t what my body was crying for: it was a patsy so I could keep vaping and justifying why I hadn’t quit yet. The migraines decreased slightly, and my blood pressure did go down some, but I was still in the red zone…at least until I met my friend/mentor McKynna. Over a year ago, I started my dōTERRA journey and began asking myself the tough questions. I began to crack the shells I had put over myself almost 7 years ago at the time so I could understand why I was in the state I was in. I learned so much about myself and dōTERRA during that time period and I slowly began to make the necessary changes to myself and my life so I could not only live longer, but connect with people in deeper, more meaningful ways than I had been. With this encouragement and the nonjudgmental environment, I found less excuses to continue with vaping and stay in this growing pool of depression: I was learning to float again! Sometime after that I reached out to Todd, my newest brother and magical spiritualist. We walked together on a beautiful sound bath journey where I could confront myself on a deeper level and understand more of the man I could be. It was at that time Ricardo Armando was realized!

This new energy ignited a fire in me I thought long gone: the fire to create and support those who had the creative mindset, but I had to get rid of the toxic breath I had grown accustomed to. Fast forward to August 2021. I was finally getting my wisdom teeth removed (another reason I was suffering from intense migraines) and one of the criteria for me to have surgery was “no smoking 48 hours before the procedure.” Another was “You cannot smoke or suck anything 5 days after surgery” (pause). With these two rules in mind, I stopped vaping on August 20^th, 2021, and I haven’t smoked anything since. It’ll be 8 months since I put down the nicotine and I can honestly say I have never felt better! My lungs feel lighter, my head no longer experiences migraines of any kind, headaches can be dealt with plenty of water and the recommended dose of Tylenol or Excedrin if the pain is a little too intense, my blood pressure is closer to 120/80 (I’ll have to check this again when I get another blood pressure monitor), and I don’t always feel like my chest is going to cave in on itself. There’s still so much more work for me to do on myself, but I finally feel like Ricardo Armando! I’m learning how to feel and connect with my emotions again, I’m gaining my passion for creating again, and I’m falling in love with myself again which translates into my love for others! I am so grateful I’m no longer connected to nicotine and built a system of friends and tools to support me on my journey so far! It’s been a wild ride, but what I can say from my experience is vaping was detrimental to my health and I would advise others to stop while they’re out of the red zone. I do understand each person is different and their experiences will vary from mine, but I personally don’t think vaping is any safer smoking cigarettes in the long run because you can end up in a similar position as me from 2017 where you need immediate medical attention and don’t know it. However, you are old enough to make this decision on your own and I will not judge you one way or the other because I have now experienced both sides of the spectrum and know how difficult it truly is to give up smoking/vaping altogether.

My personal challenge for you is:

- if you know someone who vapes or smokes, don’t try to make them feel like the bad guy in order to get them to stop something unhealthy. Provide a safe space for them to open up and support them on their journey if they do decide to quit smoking. Respect them if they choose not to stop unless it’s an immediate medical emergency.

- if you smoke/vape and you want to stop for ANY reason, please see your doctor to help you get started and/or start with building your support group of friends and tools (I am happy to be your friend and provide you tools through dōTERRA) so you can set yourself up for success. Eliminate excuses slowly, but surely and substitute a cigarette or a 15 minute vape break with gum, fruit, meditation, or something else healthy to help build consistency within your final days of toxic breathing.

This is my journey so far and I can’t wait to celebrate the year milestone with you all come August 20^th, 2022! You've got this and I've got this and together we can move forward in good health and positivity!

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This is a long read so if you made it this far you are the real MVP! Thank you for sharing your time with me and walking on my path for a bit! If you liked this post, please share it, and comment a new topic for me in the section down below!

If you’re interested in dōTERRA and you wanna learn more or want to get back into this beautiful system, please feel free to message me on Facebook (Ricardo Armando) or email me at dantevega@pointofvisiontm.com and I would be more than happy to start walking with you on your journey towards a healthier, more fulfilled you!

As always, thank you so so much for reading and Until Next Time Visionaries…

Go Forth in Peace and Love!