DOSE:

smoked

Cannabis

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

60 kg

My experience with weed has been a long one, many peaks and troughs. I, like most people, started around the age of fifteen (now being nineteen) when the cloaks and masks of novelty are all too seductive. It was a social engagement at first, parties and the odd smoke at someone’s house if it was free for a while.

Around year ten I moved house (one of many moves over the years) and suffered a brief exodus from my friends, it was at this point I started to smoke by myself. My replacement friends at this point were probably not the best in terms of their influence on me. I had quite a neat little ritual, one that I still romanticize about to this day. On the front porch, late at night so my parents were sound asleep, I would sit on the ottoman and smoke a small joint or pipe. I’d have a manic ten or so minutes outside alternating between smiles and giggles, and a paranoid panic that the neighbours could see me and really gave a shit what I was doing. Of course at 1am they were probably asleep. When I returned to my room, eyes glazed over and seemingly distant, I would draw ‘stoned pages’ in my journal (little drawings and scenes that made some abstract ‘weed’ sense) and lie down in my bed with my eyes shut, in awe of the colourful montages and crazy little worlds I could create.

And so I’d found my mistress. To my friends and I, having a smoke was religious, it was the one thing that we got all excited about, and it was truly a time to be savored. A lot of effort went into it back then, which I guess is what made it better. We got into the culture of it too, the music associated with it, the dress and most of all, the attitude. I think we all had that little romantic vision of what the sixties must have been, and I think we were all a little pissed off that we missed it, I was. I cannot truly remember when I started smoking alone regularly, but you count on the fact that it was because I suddenly had access to dealers. I smoked whenever I could, more often than not on weekends.

I rode this plateau for a couple years. Then in year twelve I had a particularly bad slump where I was kicked out of school and getting my certificate suddenly came under question. I was out of school for a couple of months, we had almost no money at home, and unfortunately I had a rather large immature pot plant. I ravaged that plant over those months, smoked everyday, I had to otherwise I would have gotten extremely depressed.

I don’t think I ever quite recovered. I was hooked, my numero uno priority was make for damn sure I have a some weed in my drawer. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sleep, this was the most important time in the day to smoke, bed time. I’d made an imprint that first night I lay starry eyed and blasted in bed, anything less than this aroused anxiety. I left school, luckily JUST passing, but no uni for me. I then went through a period I refer to in my journal as ‘my doldrums’. It was that long period between leaving school and getting a job, I was suddenly faced with this immense amount of time at my disposal, and for me and my friends this was ample smoking time.

There comes an inevitable time in everybody’s social career when friends go separate ways. This was my downfall, I had cherished and loved every one of my group, but we were becoming different people with different interests and our time together grew less and less. And so I found myself alone a lot of the time, which for me was depressing, of course the paranoid logic that weed had imparted to me didn’t help, I was convinced I was being silently shunned. Without a job I began to take money from almost everything, The money I was given for food was squandered on weed, as was any money I could find or siphon off trips to the supermarket. I still wonder whether my enthusiasm for these shopping trips aroused any sort of suspicion in my mother. My existence was this, wake up and smoke, wander around the house feeling down because I wasn’t doing anything (something I numbed with weed), eat, smoke, bed, smoke. Day in day out for a while, too long.

I became severely depressed and often entertained the thought of “ending it all”. But I assured myself this was all going to pass once I had an income. Wrong. I smoked much more now I had cash at my disposal, and I found myself in the same horrible doldrums. There came to time to move again, and I saw this (as I always did) as a new chapter, a chance to change. The smoking continued in my new house, though not as bad as once before, due to the fact I knew no dealers in my area. I had begun to notice changes in myself I didn’t like, I was a lot slower in terms of my ability to articulate, I had no motivation, a terrible paranoia about my personal safety in public, a susceptibility to chest infections and I had become wholly dependant on pot. But yet, I continued with this smoking, at times disgusted with myself holding my bong, but unstirred in my actions. I began entertaining the idea here and there that “This would be my last fifty”, but I was wrong again. It seemed my happiness, or my ability to be content with what I was doing, crucially involved weed. And it was time for change my fellow traveler…

A few days ago my friend said to me he was giving up for a week, it seemed as if fate had finally dealt me a card that I could play, I couldn’t do it alone. Step one was to throw out my bong, don’t give myself an inch. Luckily for me my dealer is suburbs away so it's not at all easy for me to pick up, being without a car. It’s been two days, two very long arduous days, but things are finally looking up. The secret (for me) is to break the mental cycle, I would have a cone when I was aroused by a certain feeling like “I want to relax” (or something to that effect). So now I find something to fill the void. I write. I still get my slumps of confusion and dismay, but I’m coming out of it and I’m very eager to see what the other side is like.

In short, I’m not against weed, it was not the plant that did this to me I have only myself to blame. I don’t plan on stopping, just releasing myself from its terrible grip to get to a point where I can control it, rather than vice versa. For me this means no bongs (they are far too convenient) only joints or a pipe, maybe a couple of times a week. And only at night. I can still feel that horrible edge, that gaping void, and I won’t lie, I can’t fucking sleep. But things are slowly getting better.

Exp Year: 2000-2006	ExpID: 54318
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 20, 2008	Views: 14,753
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Cannabis (1) : Depression (15), Hangover / Days After (46), Addiction & Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)