I have two vaporizers. A Pax3 handheld vape and an Arizer desktop tower vape.
I am currently vaping Oakland store-bought "shake" weed which says it is 12.79% THC, so its on the low potency side. I use a pure sativa so it does not make me feel sluggish (an "indica" will provide "couch-lock" which is an all body effect that makes you want to sit down and not move - so I avoid those). Be warned that sativa is the type that can cause high anxiety. It varies by strain, and you can look up reviews of different strains on leafly.com or weedmaps.com
Both vape devices I own have a "bowl" for filling with ground flower. I tend to replace the bowl in each approximately once every three days right now with low potency flower. The dosage of drug falls off exponentially with the freshness of the bowl so the first hit on a newly packed bowl will be MUCH stronger than the last hit of the old bowl - something to be very careful with as you can get yourself trying to take a big draw off an old bowl, then you replace it, and suddenly if you're not careful to re-adjust your dosage it will be too much. So be careful there.
I basically have a small dose when I wake up with my morning coffee, then puff on my handheld vape during the day being careful to regulate so that I can still write software (and puffing a bit more if I have an hour of mechanical robot assembly to work on or something mindless). And then I have a bit more than those lower doses in the evening after I've gotten home and settled in.
I have roommates that vape using weed-concentrate on a torch-heated quartz crystal which is why I say my dose is small. I go through way less product than them. Because potency builds over time, even my conservative hits are probably larger than what you would want.
I highly recommend the vape for long term use. But a pipe or whatever you have on hand is fine to try for now. If you want to experiment with marijuana without having too much, here is what I would recommend:
Get some low potency hybrid (mixed indica sativa) weed. Look up reviews of the strain on leafly.com or weedmaps.com and make sure it is not one that will trigger paranoia.
Then, take the TEENYIEST amount you can imagine (the size of a pea or less), and smoke it. Then have no more the rest of the night. It is not necessary to combust the entire sample. Just take one hit. You will feel it, but I believe one small hit of low potency marijuana will not cause the anxiety effects I have known.
I suspect that would be okay for you. You may want to have a friend or loved one around to monitor you, although marijuana is relatively safe.
It is worth it to quit alcohol. In my original story I did not mention that I continued to drink recreationally for a long time, but marijuana did help me break my binge drinking. However for 2020 I decided to quit drinking for at least one year. That started in March 2020 and it has been 10 months without alcohol. I am VERY happy for it. I feel so much better. I do not want alcohol and I am not planning to try it when one year is up.
You can do this. My email is in my profile if you'd like to follow up with me in a month or two. I am curious if this helps you.
I wish you the best, and I love you.