Recently I experienced some consequences around my use of cannabis that made me want to take a hard look at my relationship with it and as a result have modified that relationship and my use. I don't need to get into the particulars of the consequences as it isn't really relevant to what I want to say now, but suffice to say that while it is indeed legal in the place I live, it is still not on a list of "approved medications" for some employers. Nuff said.
Cannabis has been an ally of mine for a very long time, and it has been easy for me to remain calling it that even while I misuse it. I call it "part of my recovery" because i thought that it was helping me scratch an itch that in a way helped me stay away from my drug of choice, which I DO NOT have a good relationship with. But along with a lot of other things, I was deluding myself. I was using it to give myself the feeling that I was doing inner work while in reality it was helping me avoid it. It is just psychedelic enough, even with daily use, and I often get these "aha!" moments I think are personal breakthroughs, but which I can't really put my finger on, and they vanish. Like smoke, perfectly enough.
It is also easy for me to continue misusing it because I have never "chased the dragon" with it; I still can have the same experiences, more or less, that I had when I first started using it. It seems like it is just kinda what I need it to be when I need it to be that thing for me- a mind-dulling stare at the wall drug, something to make a good time even better, a powerful entheogen capable of producing a transformative experience, and on and on. It is up to me to wield it properly for the given time in my life.
I was afraid to stop using because I did not want to experience sleepless nights, which is fear of withdrawal. I spent money on it instead of other more beneficial things that I could get through other means, like food. It was demotivating me in many ways and allowing me to avoid really doing the hard work I need to do. With this last year and being forced to take a long, horrifying look into the dead eyes of my own mortality, that work is more important to do than ever for me, and I didn't want something like weed standing in my way of being the me I want to be.
I feel like an ass saying some of these things. I am a hardcore (inactive) junky, and saying I have a problem with weed is just...ugh.
That said, while I see my misuse of it as being just that, I also now see it's potential as medicine. Maybe more beneficial to me in the same ways as a "classic" psychedelic or at least as much so. Short-acting and introspective and gentle. After clearing my system for a couple weeks- and that is clearing my 6% body fat, 112 lb system of it- I went for a meditation walk and smoked one good size puff of a nice purple strain- Mountain Girl something-or-other. Within a second I felt it impact my brain and I was hit with a wave of emotion that I was able to connect with their somatic center AND with deep seated traumatic memories. I am never able to do this, and aftermy illness it has been even harder.
I was able to finally see some deep roots of my experience that I had literally been blind to before.Things I didn't want to see. And left with a clear picture of what it all was, like a somatic memory roadmap to being OK with living. Along with this, the understanding allowed me to give myself a break, and I think it help me finally seperate the dead voices shoulding all over my life that have been trying to annihilate my personhood from day 1 from the creative one that is my own. Left with a tearful gratitude for being here, now that has been absent from my life for a very long time, I felt refreshed and the pain in my shoulders and neck that has been unrelenting, relented for the first time in literally years. I didn't even know how much pain I had been in now that it is letting up. Again, particulars are not relevant to this post. I just want to say that cannabis has revealed itself to me as the powerful medicine that it has the potential to be, and I am grateful for it.
Cannabis has been an ally of mine for a very long time, and it has been easy for me to remain calling it that even while I misuse it. I call it "part of my recovery" because i thought that it was helping me scratch an itch that in a way helped me stay away from my drug of choice, which I DO NOT have a good relationship with. But along with a lot of other things, I was deluding myself. I was using it to give myself the feeling that I was doing inner work while in reality it was helping me avoid it. It is just psychedelic enough, even with daily use, and I often get these "aha!" moments I think are personal breakthroughs, but which I can't really put my finger on, and they vanish. Like smoke, perfectly enough.
It is also easy for me to continue misusing it because I have never "chased the dragon" with it; I still can have the same experiences, more or less, that I had when I first started using it. It seems like it is just kinda what I need it to be when I need it to be that thing for me- a mind-dulling stare at the wall drug, something to make a good time even better, a powerful entheogen capable of producing a transformative experience, and on and on. It is up to me to wield it properly for the given time in my life.
I was afraid to stop using because I did not want to experience sleepless nights, which is fear of withdrawal. I spent money on it instead of other more beneficial things that I could get through other means, like food. It was demotivating me in many ways and allowing me to avoid really doing the hard work I need to do. With this last year and being forced to take a long, horrifying look into the dead eyes of my own mortality, that work is more important to do than ever for me, and I didn't want something like weed standing in my way of being the me I want to be.
I feel like an ass saying some of these things. I am a hardcore (inactive) junky, and saying I have a problem with weed is just...ugh.
That said, while I see my misuse of it as being just that, I also now see it's potential as medicine. Maybe more beneficial to me in the same ways as a "classic" psychedelic or at least as much so. Short-acting and introspective and gentle. After clearing my system for a couple weeks- and that is clearing my 6% body fat, 112 lb system of it- I went for a meditation walk and smoked one good size puff of a nice purple strain- Mountain Girl something-or-other. Within a second I felt it impact my brain and I was hit with a wave of emotion that I was able to connect with their somatic center AND with deep seated traumatic memories. I am never able to do this, and aftermy illness it has been even harder.
I was able to finally see some deep roots of my experience that I had literally been blind to before.Things I didn't want to see. And left with a clear picture of what it all was, like a somatic memory roadmap to being OK with living. Along with this, the understanding allowed me to give myself a break, and I think it help me finally seperate the dead voices shoulding all over my life that have been trying to annihilate my personhood from day 1 from the creative one that is my own. Left with a tearful gratitude for being here, now that has been absent from my life for a very long time, I felt refreshed and the pain in my shoulders and neck that has been unrelenting, relented for the first time in literally years. I didn't even know how much pain I had been in now that it is letting up. Again, particulars are not relevant to this post. I just want to say that cannabis has revealed itself to me as the powerful medicine that it has the potential to be, and I am grateful for it.