#or anyone really. recommending any treatment to a stranger on the internet is kinda bad tbh

[barghest-land]

I highly recommend weed, if you have access to it. I personally like edibles

i don't, it's illegal here; plus i don't think it's a good thing to recommend to someone, because the effect depends on the person and i don't think it's a good idea to prescribe it yourself without the supervision. just as any medicine you never know what someone is already taking and how it goes with weed/edibles, what condition someone has, etc

[hitstreetsmakebeats]

Quitting

Today is my third day sober.

I never wanted to admit to myself, but I am addicted to weed.

I mean, sure I would admit to myself jokingly. “Ha, I smoke way too much,” I’d tell my friends, without them realizing I was high at that moment. “I spend so much money on it,” I’d complain to my coworker, without him realizing I’d already smoked that morning before I got to work.

Or maybe they knew. I am not good at hiding things.

Except, it seems, from myself. I know everyone’s heard the rationalizations a million times: I thought I could handle it, I thought it was helping me...I used it to motivate myself to leave the house, to handle social and professional situations alike. I used it to help my road rage and to stop my panic attacks. I used it to pull me out of depression and to get me creative, get me to start doing the things I love again after 3.5 years of school robbed me of motivation and joy.

But...fuck, it did the exact opposite. I don’t know how I didn’t realize it. I suppose just because I never stopped. This is the longest I’ve gone without it since my vacation to New York last month, and I was itching for it like a meth-head by the end of that. This time is different.

Saturday I took my last hit, sick as a dog. My throat hurt and I suspected the smoke would make it worse. I sat back and handed Jacob the bong, held it in, and wondered what the fuck I was doing. The smoke poured out my mouth and I wondered what I was trying to achieve. The high hit me and I realized it wasn’t helping me at all anymore.

In the last two or three years, a lot has changed in my life. I’ve been blessed and privileged enough to make it through school, land a lucrative job, and buy a freaking house. That’s supposed to be impossible for a millennial, and I thank my lucky stars, my friends, my family, and Jacob every day. I’ve always stood on the shoulders of giants.

But now that I have all of this, the driving towards goals has shifted into a desperate desire for the things I don’t have. I’ve got everything a happy person could want, but I never could feel satisfied or happy for long. My life was 100% better than in school, but I was just as sad. I was still having panic attacks. I was still freaking out, yelling, crying, having screaming fits because of the pain I felt in my mind and heart, but couldn’t see or understand.

That’s because I have a mental illness. I know that now. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with me, but I’m guessing some lovely anxiety-style diagnosis is in my future...if I ever make it to the doctor.

I actually remember the moment I realized this was a problem. I was sitting at a red light, one car next to me. In the wrong lane, cause the one I was in had been open, and I refused to be behind someone.

The light had been red for a little bit and I was ready for the green, my car already in gear. I looked down and saw my hand was white-knuckling the shifter. I realized my heart was racing. My chest ached. All I was thinking about was how I had to beat this guy next to me and get in his lane. Why? So no one would be in front of me. Because when someone is in front of me, I start freaking out about how slow I’m going. Because I feel like every second behind a slow driver is a second of my life that I’ve wasted. And I could die any second, and what if I’d wasted all those seconds behind slow drivers? The idea terrified me so much, my heartbeat went nuts at every red, every time someone turned right in front of me, every time I was stuck in traffic.

And that’s not normal. At all.

That day I realized that this thing that’s always been wrong with me, the thing my parents called my weakness, my overboard emotion, is not just some chronic flaw that lives inside my personality. It’s not evidence of my inferiority as a human being. It’s something I can take control of and solve. It’s something I can get a diagnosis and a treatment for.

I still haven’t done that. It’s kinda funny how if you need help with anxiety, the first thing you have to do is immediately trigger it: talking on the phone to find a stranger who you will tell all your biggest insecurities to. It’s...it’s hard.

But at least I’ve quit weed. For now. And it’s really, really helping. And now I feel so fucking stupid for continuing to use it, pour my money into it, tell myself it was helping when it was hurting me. I don’t know if it was just covering up the problem by giving me that shot of serotonin whenever I felt pain, and that leading to things festering...or maybe it’s completely fucked up my brain and made it harder for me to be happy. I’ve read theories to that extent. Similar to how other drugs produce the happy neurotransmitters, so your brain stops bothering.

It’s pretty much like how I’ve treated my life since I started smoking so heavily. The weed made me happy enough, happy to do nothing but watch TV or read Reddit posts, while convincing myself I’m still as creative and interesting as I ever was. It gave me great ideas, gave me creativity and opened my mind, but made me too lazy to work on any of those ideas. A common memory of being high is me laying in bed, browsing the internet on my phone, and thinking “man, I should go play guitar...man, I could go read a book...hm, maybe I could work on my drawing...” But I wouldn’t move an inch.

So, I’m done with it, for now. I can’t say I’ll quit forever, but I won’t smoke today. And tomorrow, I will tell myself again, “I won’t smoke today.” And by the time it’s hard to resist, hopefully I’ll have told myself that so often it’ll just be second nature.

This is kind of scary for me. Being such a heavy smoker, it was part of my personality. A throwaway username I had once was “thejaneinmaryjane”...kinda shows how inextricably linked to it I felt. I still love it, I can still see the upsides, and I won’t stop anyone else or even recommend anyone else quit (unless you’re reading this and nodding animatedly because you relate so hard). It’s weird to give it up and think I might be giving it up for a long time, but it’s also a huge relief.

At my peak, AKA, three days ago, my days would go like this: wake up. Feel depressed about having to go to work. Smoke an entire bowl to get my motivation up. The eight hours at work were the longest awake time I wouldn’t smoke. Once I got home it’d be a hit or two every couple hours, and definitely always a hit before leaving the house. Even to see my parents. Even to go to a mentoring event. Even just to walk my dogs down the fucking street. I couldn’t handle it alone. I needed the weed to be a person.

But...that’s not true. That’s just a stupid lie I told myself because it was easier than breaking a bad habit.

Now, I kinda feel like I have my life back.

So, here’s to quitting. But also, to not giving up, because this is just the start. I won’t smoke today. But today I should also do more for myself. Today I should find a therapist. Today I should make a dentist’s appointment, even though I am very anxious about talking on the phone. Today I should keep my road rage and death consciousness in check since I am technically piloting a weapon. Today I should take care to treat my friends well, to live with my eyes open, and to feed my soul by doing the things I love. Maybe I’ll write a song. Maybe I’ll draw something. Maybe I’ll write a blog post.

:)