I signed up after reading a lot of entries regarding quiting smoking weed, i can say my story is very simaler.
Starting out around the age of 15 i only did it a couple of times a month, but when i would it was awesome. the biggest problem back then was finding a stable supply, seeing i was too young to get weed legally (netherlands requires you to be 18 to legally purchase and posess small quantities of weed). So after a while most of the evening was spent on phoning basicly the same people, asking the same question: where can i buy some weed :p.
Like everything that you do often enough it became much easier after a while to get it, so the frequency of doing it increased. When i was about 16 i was smoking daily, still enjoying it a lot. School had been going not so well for a while then, degrading from atheneum to havo and finally graduating on mavo. In that time my parents and a few teachers really made a big effort to get me back on track, but they just couldnt get through to me.
As i progressed into mbo things started to change. All the things that used to be so natural to me, like making friends, attracting girls, feeling confident, dreaming (etc. too long to list) started to fade away. It took me a long time to realise a lot of that can be linked to smoking weed, but thats not what i told myself back then.
Basicly i got paranoid, and believed in it fully. I couldnt go outside without feeling of people having something against me, sweaty hands, the works. This continued to go on and on, but i was still attending school and doing what needed to be done, spending most if not all of my evenings outside hanging on benches with other stoners. I had a great time and do feel it made me better person in terms of thinking about stuff, but it really was the only highlight i had.
About that time i started going to parties and dabble in speed, leading to a crazy summer in which i used it back to back for about 3 – 4 weeks. The paranoia soared into new heights, and it changed me a lot. But i did realise this was way to dangerous to keep using so i quit shortly after.
In the third year of mbo (about 17 or 18) i started getting sick in the morning if i had to go school. Still smoking weed i was still oblivious to the obviousness of the effect of it, so i even went to the doctor trying to get an explanation for the sickness in the morning. All he had to say was: “I know a guy who throws up every morning, he has to live with it”. So that didn’t really help. It came to the point where i would decide i couldnt go to school if i was sick, so i stayed at home.
Things get vague after that, i dont really remember much, just that i would hang in front of the tv all day, and smoke all evening. The joyfull feeling of past experiences with weed had all gone, it was basicly like this. If i didnt smoke, i would get the weirdest feeling ever i like to call ‘soberathomephobia’, which is best described as feeling like you are missing out on a party, without knowing what party it is. If i did smoke, i would feel good for a couple of minutes, and then either go into stare mode, or feel depressed; stare mode with people around, depressed when alone.
Things went on, i finished my mbo degree and got a job. At first the job really helped get me a bit of a future perspective, smoking stopped being a total problem and things where going ‘avarage’.
Then it hit me… with avarage being the key word… All was avarage, my job, my life, my social connections. It was a road to blandville, with stops at boringtown and depresscity.
My two best friends who i know for a long time now, who basicly started smoking weed around the same time, have never really talked about the psychological problems weed smoking can (can) bring. But i was apparent to me each of had their own little struggle with it. We did talk a lot about how hard it was to get up in the morning after a good night of toking, and how we never did anything anymore.
That was what finally drove us to a deal, which may sound silly. We agreed on the following thing:
We all quit smoking weed, no exceptions cold turkey.
If you do fail, you will have to pay dinner for everyone in an expensive restaurant (which ofcourse no one likes to pay)
Anyone can join in (we know a lot of smokers), just as long as they are serious.
So far we have ‘turned’ 3 other people… haven’t smoked myself either for a short week now, so im well on my way. Updates incoming at 2 weeks, a month, and hopefully half a year.
disclaimer: this was typed in a short amount of time, i did miss a couple of important details regarding my life, but who cares, we all know the story ;).
