I think this thread is important for a few reasons:
1.) To explain, in detail, my relationship with Cannabis, both positive and negative aspects, which, based on my experiences on the Nexus, others will be able to relate to; and
2.) To dispel any myths one may personally hold about Cannabis being an all-benevolent, all-curing, magical mystery plant that has no potential for addiction, and no negative effects.
I will start by saying that I'm not attempting to convince anyone that Cannabis is objectively "bad"; it's not. I dislike blanket statements. I don't believe that any drug is objectively "good" or "bad," be it Cannabis, Psilocybin, alcohol, tobacco, heroin, meth, cocaine, whatever, (though pharmaceuticals are a different monster all in themselves). It is the responsibility of the user to partake in a substance responsibly and in moderation. Here is one way I put it in another thread discussing this same subject: if I hand you a gun, then you turn that gun to yourself and blow your brains out, did I kill you, or did you kill you?
It is also important to mention that I have never been prescribed medical marijuana for any reason, nor am I claiming that it is ineffective for treating certain conditions, both psychological and physical. Again, this is just a documentation of my own personal experiences with it. I also never researched different strains of Cannabis in depth, never have had any experience cultivating my own plants, etc; I always just smoked whatever I could get my hands on. I've heard the argument that referring to "Cannabis" as a drug is almost inaccurate, since different strains have drastically different effects on the body and mind - so maybe my experiences are completely meaningless in the eyes of those who hold that opinion. No matter.
It's been about four years since I began smoking Cannabis. Throughout those four years, the longest I've gone without it hasn't been more than a few days, except for a brief stint after my first DMT journey that lasted about three weeks (more on that later). During that period, I indulged in a number of other drugs as well - psilocybin, DMT, LSD, cocaine, alcohol, tobacco, a variety of pharmaceuticals (mostly benzodiazepines and amphetamines, as well as a variety of SSRI's, antipsychotics, tricyclics, and others that were prescribed to me by a psychiatrist), etc. At first, Cannabis was a wonder drug for me. It provided some relief from chronic anxiety and depression, and allowed me to live a functional life. In fact, I found that sometimes I was more functional with it than I was without it. At no point in time did daily Cannabis smoking ever really "ruin" my life. I'm financially independent, live alone, perform well at every job I've had in the past few years, etc., and this has all been with a daily Cannabis habit.
Slowly but surely, I cut other drugs out of my life: first tobacco, then alcohol. Shortly thereafter, I stopped using pharmaceuticals recreationally and only took them as prescribed. After the aforementioned DMT journey, I flushed all my pills down the toilet and never looked back: I haven't taken a psychopharmaceutical since. I will never lose my affection and gratitude to hallucinogens, but these drugs are in a class by themselves, because, at least for me, they were not necessarily habit forming: when I took mushrooms or smoked DMT, of course I enjoyed it, but I never had the urge to do it over and over again, for days and weeks on end.
Here is the thread I made regarding my first DMT journey, about a year and a half ago, that opened my eyes to the nature of habituation and compulsion, as in relation to drugs, specifically Cannabis:
For those who don't want to read the whole thread, it can be summarized with this excerpt:
Other users in this thread also experienced a similar change in perception after using DMT, so I know I'm not the only one that was affected this way. So after having these experiences, why did I go back to using Cannabis? I really don't know; there were many factors. One very well may have been boredom. The company I kept was another major factor: drug buddies, whose only social interaction, and only motivation to socialize with me, was to get stoned, talk for ten minutes, then go home; friends at work asking me to get stoned at lunch time; being in the midst of a miserable five-year relationship with a miserable person whose only desire was to get high all day, lay around the house, and complain about how miserable and pathetic her life was, while simultaneously taking NO action to make it any better.
To go back to my previous metaphor, no one held a gun to my head and put a pipe up to my mouth - I was not forced to smoke. It was my own choice, despite the prodding of other people. I have no delusions where I was "forced" to get high when I didn't want to. That's just silly.
Anyway, since that first DMT experience, I have indulged maybe 15-20 more times, and have gained a much deeper understanding of my habits and compulsions, not just in relation to doing drugs, but in my life in general. Since I began using Cannabis habitually after that experience, I noticed a change: suddenly it wasn't so great anymore. Sure, I'd feel on top of the world, optimistic, loving towards all people and things around me for an hour or so after blazing, but then I crashed violently. My thoughts turned negative and self deprecating. I hated everyone and everything. I wanted to be alone all the time, sitting in my apartment, staring at a wall, thinking of how miserable and pathetic my life was. So what was the solution? Well, get high again, of course! And so the cycle repeats. Those feelings of warmth and love came back for an hour or two, then I came down hard, and so on and so forth, all day, every day, for years, during work, during school, during time off, all the time.
"But pot is great!" I told myself every time a negative thought so much as creeped to the corners of my consciousness. Why? I don't know, really. It's just an attachment I formed with the substance. In the same way that one might enjoy their morning cigarette with their coffee, then their cigarette on their way to work, then their cigarette on their lunch break, then their cigarette on their way home, etc., and, in turn, almost develop a relationship with that substance, so did I with Cannabis. You have your drug buddies that you hang out with. You have your stash box with all your papers, your roach clip, your cool butane lighter with a pot leaf on it that your friend bought you when she went on vacation to Vegas because you're a complete stoner and that's all anyone knows you for, or associates with you, you have your favorite pipe, your favorite bong, your favorite vaporizer. Soon it's basically just a hobby, and you can't stop, because if you quit smoking pot, then you suddenly realize you won't have any friends, since you surround yourself with other potheads, you're bored all the time, and you spent all this money on paraphernalia, so you really have no choice to keep on going. At least that was my mindset at the time.
So on and on went, feeding the cycle, getting high out of my mind every two or three hours, all day, every day, coming up, and then crashing violently. But it can't be pot. No way. It doesn't affect me negatively at all. I'm pretty much the same person whether I'm high or not. No decrease in cognition or mental faculties. Hell, I worked 70+ hours a week during my heaviest periods of smoking, and how could I not get high every few hours, going through a grind like that? But Cannabis is good. It's benevolent. It's a friendly plant that comes from the earth; it's not a pharmaceutical poison that turns my mind off, making me feel nothing at all instead of feeling bad, like an antidepressant. All my friends smoke. I won't have any friends if I stop. What do I do?
So one day last week, I just stopped. For two or three days, I did not feel well at all, both physically and mentally: I was very hyperactive, very anxious, pissed off at everyone and everything around me, but after that adjustment period, I began to feel "normal" again. I recently suffered a back and neck injury from a car accident and have missed weeks of work from it, putting me in a very bad financial situation, obviously causing me some stress. After my three days of sobriety, I figured what the hell, I might as well get high and forget about it. So I did, and I felt like complete and utter shit. It was the usual routine: for an hour or two, I was on top of the world. "Whatever," I thought to myself, "it's just money. Everything will work itself out in the long run." And then came the come down, pacing around for hours, being inexplicably furious at the situation I was in, at the people I surrounded myself with, hating my life, and, to be completely honest, being a complete ingrate about the things in my life that were going well, such as the fact that I only escaped the aforementioned car accident with a sore neck and back, though I very realistically could have died (I got rear ended by a car going 60mph while I was sitting still in traffic and collided with the car in front of me - all three cars were totalled, mine being the worst since it was right in the middle).
So I smoked DMT, blew my brains out of my skull, and pieced my consciousness back together. That was three days ago, and I have not smoked Cannabis since, nor do I have any desire to. I don't want to say I'm never going to again, because who knows what will happen. However, when I stop using a drug habitually, it generally follows this pattern. When I tried to quit cigarettes, I always told myself that I might have one once in a while - never say never. But then I started smoking again. The only way to completely quit was to essentially demonize tobacco - I convinced myself it's terrible for me, it has no positive effects on me, and that I have to stay as far away from it as possible. When I quit drinking, I convinced myself that it was terrible for me, has no positive effects on me, and I have to stay as far away from it as possible. When I decided to stop breaking up benzodiazepines with a razor and sending them up my nose, I convinced myself that it was terrible for me, has no positive effects on me, and I have to stay as far away from it as possible. Are you seeing a pattern here?
At the end of the day, the problem is that I have no self control and no concept of moderation. I can't drink "once in a while," I can't have a cigarette "once in a while," and, honestly, I don't think I'm capable of smoking Cannabis "once in a while," so it's really better just to call it quits and be done with it once and for all; the only exception to this rule, as I said before, is hallucinogens, which are in a class all by themselves, in my opinion. I have no more feelings of attachments or positive connotations when I think about Cannabis. It's not the "friendly" plant I smoke when I'm down to feel better - I associate its use with feeling worse now. I don't even like the smell anymore. All my pipes are sitting in a drawer somewhere collecting dust. I'm not longer in the aforementioned relationship, and my relationships with my stoner friends are on the downward spiral, but honestly, I don't really care that much anymore, because if the only thing you have in common with another person is the desire to get high, it doesn't really make for a meaningful friendship or relationship.
So yeah, I think I'm done with it for good now. This isn't supposed to be some sort of self-glorifying, triumphant "I quit weed, and you can too!" motivational post, and I'm not trying to say that I'm better than anyone that does smoke pot every day, or smokes cigarettes, or drinks, or blows Klonopins and Ativans; I'm not trying to say Cannabis is "bad," I'm not trying to say that medical marijuana isn't a "real" solution or a "real" medicine, I'm just conveying my personal experiences, which, in essence, were a few years of delusion and attachment to something that I told myself had an overall positive effect on my life, when in reality, the positive effect had long gone, and it was now detrimental.
This was much longer than I anticipated, and if you made it all the way to the end, I sincerely thank you for reading.
edit: To whoever edited the title of the post: I didn't mean to be vulgar in my original title, but I don't believe that using the word "hate" properly conveys the message I am trying to get across in this post - I do not consider Cannabis to be "good" or "bad," nor do I "love" or "hate" it - my point is that there is no objective perspective on whether any drug is beneficial or detrimental - it's up to the user to determine that.
1.) To explain, in detail, my relationship with Cannabis, both positive and negative aspects, which, based on my experiences on the Nexus, others will be able to relate to; and
2.) To dispel any myths one may personally hold about Cannabis being an all-benevolent, all-curing, magical mystery plant that has no potential for addiction, and no negative effects.
I will start by saying that I'm not attempting to convince anyone that Cannabis is objectively "bad"; it's not. I dislike blanket statements. I don't believe that any drug is objectively "good" or "bad," be it Cannabis, Psilocybin, alcohol, tobacco, heroin, meth, cocaine, whatever, (though pharmaceuticals are a different monster all in themselves). It is the responsibility of the user to partake in a substance responsibly and in moderation. Here is one way I put it in another thread discussing this same subject: if I hand you a gun, then you turn that gun to yourself and blow your brains out, did I kill you, or did you kill you?
It is also important to mention that I have never been prescribed medical marijuana for any reason, nor am I claiming that it is ineffective for treating certain conditions, both psychological and physical. Again, this is just a documentation of my own personal experiences with it. I also never researched different strains of Cannabis in depth, never have had any experience cultivating my own plants, etc; I always just smoked whatever I could get my hands on. I've heard the argument that referring to "Cannabis" as a drug is almost inaccurate, since different strains have drastically different effects on the body and mind - so maybe my experiences are completely meaningless in the eyes of those who hold that opinion. No matter.
It's been about four years since I began smoking Cannabis. Throughout those four years, the longest I've gone without it hasn't been more than a few days, except for a brief stint after my first DMT journey that lasted about three weeks (more on that later). During that period, I indulged in a number of other drugs as well - psilocybin, DMT, LSD, cocaine, alcohol, tobacco, a variety of pharmaceuticals (mostly benzodiazepines and amphetamines, as well as a variety of SSRI's, antipsychotics, tricyclics, and others that were prescribed to me by a psychiatrist), etc. At first, Cannabis was a wonder drug for me. It provided some relief from chronic anxiety and depression, and allowed me to live a functional life. In fact, I found that sometimes I was more functional with it than I was without it. At no point in time did daily Cannabis smoking ever really "ruin" my life. I'm financially independent, live alone, perform well at every job I've had in the past few years, etc., and this has all been with a daily Cannabis habit.
Slowly but surely, I cut other drugs out of my life: first tobacco, then alcohol. Shortly thereafter, I stopped using pharmaceuticals recreationally and only took them as prescribed. After the aforementioned DMT journey, I flushed all my pills down the toilet and never looked back: I haven't taken a psychopharmaceutical since. I will never lose my affection and gratitude to hallucinogens, but these drugs are in a class by themselves, because, at least for me, they were not necessarily habit forming: when I took mushrooms or smoked DMT, of course I enjoyed it, but I never had the urge to do it over and over again, for days and weeks on end.
Here is the thread I made regarding my first DMT journey, about a year and a half ago, that opened my eyes to the nature of habituation and compulsion, as in relation to drugs, specifically Cannabis:
For those who don't want to read the whole thread, it can be summarized with this excerpt:
Other users in this thread also experienced a similar change in perception after using DMT, so I know I'm not the only one that was affected this way. So after having these experiences, why did I go back to using Cannabis? I really don't know; there were many factors. One very well may have been boredom. The company I kept was another major factor: drug buddies, whose only social interaction, and only motivation to socialize with me, was to get stoned, talk for ten minutes, then go home; friends at work asking me to get stoned at lunch time; being in the midst of a miserable five-year relationship with a miserable person whose only desire was to get high all day, lay around the house, and complain about how miserable and pathetic her life was, while simultaneously taking NO action to make it any better.
To go back to my previous metaphor, no one held a gun to my head and put a pipe up to my mouth - I was not forced to smoke. It was my own choice, despite the prodding of other people. I have no delusions where I was "forced" to get high when I didn't want to. That's just silly.
Anyway, since that first DMT experience, I have indulged maybe 15-20 more times, and have gained a much deeper understanding of my habits and compulsions, not just in relation to doing drugs, but in my life in general. Since I began using Cannabis habitually after that experience, I noticed a change: suddenly it wasn't so great anymore. Sure, I'd feel on top of the world, optimistic, loving towards all people and things around me for an hour or so after blazing, but then I crashed violently. My thoughts turned negative and self deprecating. I hated everyone and everything. I wanted to be alone all the time, sitting in my apartment, staring at a wall, thinking of how miserable and pathetic my life was. So what was the solution? Well, get high again, of course! And so the cycle repeats. Those feelings of warmth and love came back for an hour or two, then I came down hard, and so on and so forth, all day, every day, for years, during work, during school, during time off, all the time.
"But pot is great!" I told myself every time a negative thought so much as creeped to the corners of my consciousness. Why? I don't know, really. It's just an attachment I formed with the substance. In the same way that one might enjoy their morning cigarette with their coffee, then their cigarette on their way to work, then their cigarette on their lunch break, then their cigarette on their way home, etc., and, in turn, almost develop a relationship with that substance, so did I with Cannabis. You have your drug buddies that you hang out with. You have your stash box with all your papers, your roach clip, your cool butane lighter with a pot leaf on it that your friend bought you when she went on vacation to Vegas because you're a complete stoner and that's all anyone knows you for, or associates with you, you have your favorite pipe, your favorite bong, your favorite vaporizer. Soon it's basically just a hobby, and you can't stop, because if you quit smoking pot, then you suddenly realize you won't have any friends, since you surround yourself with other potheads, you're bored all the time, and you spent all this money on paraphernalia, so you really have no choice to keep on going. At least that was my mindset at the time.
So on and on went, feeding the cycle, getting high out of my mind every two or three hours, all day, every day, coming up, and then crashing violently. But it can't be pot. No way. It doesn't affect me negatively at all. I'm pretty much the same person whether I'm high or not. No decrease in cognition or mental faculties. Hell, I worked 70+ hours a week during my heaviest periods of smoking, and how could I not get high every few hours, going through a grind like that? But Cannabis is good. It's benevolent. It's a friendly plant that comes from the earth; it's not a pharmaceutical poison that turns my mind off, making me feel nothing at all instead of feeling bad, like an antidepressant. All my friends smoke. I won't have any friends if I stop. What do I do?
So one day last week, I just stopped. For two or three days, I did not feel well at all, both physically and mentally: I was very hyperactive, very anxious, pissed off at everyone and everything around me, but after that adjustment period, I began to feel "normal" again. I recently suffered a back and neck injury from a car accident and have missed weeks of work from it, putting me in a very bad financial situation, obviously causing me some stress. After my three days of sobriety, I figured what the hell, I might as well get high and forget about it. So I did, and I felt like complete and utter shit. It was the usual routine: for an hour or two, I was on top of the world. "Whatever," I thought to myself, "it's just money. Everything will work itself out in the long run." And then came the come down, pacing around for hours, being inexplicably furious at the situation I was in, at the people I surrounded myself with, hating my life, and, to be completely honest, being a complete ingrate about the things in my life that were going well, such as the fact that I only escaped the aforementioned car accident with a sore neck and back, though I very realistically could have died (I got rear ended by a car going 60mph while I was sitting still in traffic and collided with the car in front of me - all three cars were totalled, mine being the worst since it was right in the middle).
So I smoked DMT, blew my brains out of my skull, and pieced my consciousness back together. That was three days ago, and I have not smoked Cannabis since, nor do I have any desire to. I don't want to say I'm never going to again, because who knows what will happen. However, when I stop using a drug habitually, it generally follows this pattern. When I tried to quit cigarettes, I always told myself that I might have one once in a while - never say never. But then I started smoking again. The only way to completely quit was to essentially demonize tobacco - I convinced myself it's terrible for me, it has no positive effects on me, and that I have to stay as far away from it as possible. When I quit drinking, I convinced myself that it was terrible for me, has no positive effects on me, and I have to stay as far away from it as possible. When I decided to stop breaking up benzodiazepines with a razor and sending them up my nose, I convinced myself that it was terrible for me, has no positive effects on me, and I have to stay as far away from it as possible. Are you seeing a pattern here?
At the end of the day, the problem is that I have no self control and no concept of moderation. I can't drink "once in a while," I can't have a cigarette "once in a while," and, honestly, I don't think I'm capable of smoking Cannabis "once in a while," so it's really better just to call it quits and be done with it once and for all; the only exception to this rule, as I said before, is hallucinogens, which are in a class all by themselves, in my opinion. I have no more feelings of attachments or positive connotations when I think about Cannabis. It's not the "friendly" plant I smoke when I'm down to feel better - I associate its use with feeling worse now. I don't even like the smell anymore. All my pipes are sitting in a drawer somewhere collecting dust. I'm not longer in the aforementioned relationship, and my relationships with my stoner friends are on the downward spiral, but honestly, I don't really care that much anymore, because if the only thing you have in common with another person is the desire to get high, it doesn't really make for a meaningful friendship or relationship.
So yeah, I think I'm done with it for good now. This isn't supposed to be some sort of self-glorifying, triumphant "I quit weed, and you can too!" motivational post, and I'm not trying to say that I'm better than anyone that does smoke pot every day, or smokes cigarettes, or drinks, or blows Klonopins and Ativans; I'm not trying to say Cannabis is "bad," I'm not trying to say that medical marijuana isn't a "real" solution or a "real" medicine, I'm just conveying my personal experiences, which, in essence, were a few years of delusion and attachment to something that I told myself had an overall positive effect on my life, when in reality, the positive effect had long gone, and it was now detrimental.
This was much longer than I anticipated, and if you made it all the way to the end, I sincerely thank you for reading.
edit: To whoever edited the title of the post: I didn't mean to be vulgar in my original title, but I don't believe that using the word "hate" properly conveys the message I am trying to get across in this post - I do not consider Cannabis to be "good" or "bad," nor do I "love" or "hate" it - my point is that there is no objective perspective on whether any drug is beneficial or detrimental - it's up to the user to determine that.
