Why I Quit Smoking Weed
Why I smoked weed to begin with
When I was a teenager, in the late 90s/early 2000s, I smoked weed occasionally. Pot, ganja, mary jane, chronic, skunk, marijuana... whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't say I was addicted, I didn't even really have enough time to form an addiction. I mostly only smoked with friends- if they were smoking, and they were sharing, I wouldn't turn it down. I didn't really seek it out, and I only actually bought my own once- and I got ripped off.
Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I am a giggling fool even without any help from chemicals... but when I got high- I laughed the entire time, so hard that no sound would come out any more and I usually didn't even know why. Laughing produces hormones and neurotransmitters- I think I was even higher on that than the pot a lot of the time. I loved the happy feeling that pot gave me. I have to admit, I still look back at that feeling fondly.
And the hobbyist aspect of it- all the bowls, and rollers, and different papers or blunt wrappers, and ice bongs, water bongs, gravity bongs, vaporizers... not to mention cooking with cannabis. I mean, it is a really rich, time consuming, and interesting hobby. I was always more of a bystander to my more involved friends, but it's almost like "car guys" that spend the whole day in the garage and collect every tool and part and have opinions about brands and models and dealers, and can go on talking about cars all day. From a strictly social standpoint, it was an effective way to bond with that group of people.
The last time I smoked marijuana
I believe I was 19, if memory serves me- I was living in a 3 bedroom apartment with anywhere from 8-10 people living in it depending on the week. It was a really decent place- not in a bad part of town at all, and a well-maintained building. It was sort of our own little Bohemia. There was never a dull moment there. One of the roommates was an ex of mine that I was still close to, and I was close to his entire family. His parents were hardcore drug addicts, and sadly, in that time when I was taking few things seriously, they were often the butt of jokes because of their abnormal behavior. For some reason, they left me and his younger sister alone in the apartment with a bag of weed. We went and got a gravity bong that another roommate had made, which we weren't supposed to be touching, and proceeded to get high. And higher.
And then it got weird...
...OK, it was already weird- but that was a weird that I was accustomed to at the time. That weed, and the way we smoked it, and how much we smoked, got me higher than I have ever been. I remember walking around in circles through the kitchen, down the hallway, and back in the other side of the kitchen, over and over and over again- and time made no sense to me anymore. I could have just started walking in that circle, or I could have been doing it for days (turns out it was an hour or more). Everything real melted away and there was no more of me left. I started freaking out, and the ICP album that she was playing was freaking me out more too. I felt like I was on fire and I couldn't tell what I was actually doing and what was in my head, and then I started having terrible chest pains. It was like I had gotten hit in the chest with a thousand ton wrecking ball. Next thing I knew, she was freaking out about hiding the drugs and then there were paramedics at the door. I think I may or may not have been sexually inappropriate with the guy trying to save my life too. Then I opened my eyes and I was in the ambulance and they had used defibrillator paddles on me. Just before I was taken from the ambulance to the ER, I told the EMT that I just want my best friend Kit to know I love her.
What had happened was-
The next thing I remember was being woken up by a nurse and all of the high was gone, and I just felt like I had been hit by a bus. All she said was, "Do you need to call someone to take you home?" and pointed to the phone. No one else talked to me. I feel like I was written off because I had "done it to myself". No one was going to tell me what had happened or if I needed any follow-up care. I made a few phone calls and got someone to pick me up and give me a place to sleep off the rest of the night.
In the height of embarrassment, I actually found out more about my "incident" from my sister who was in medical records at another medical facility where the ER doctor's home office apparently was. I come from a very conservative Catholic family, who would have found me drinking a beer shocking at that point. Apparently there had been a blood and urine tox screen done in the ER and everything they tested for was positive. Apparently this bag of weed was all the dust and crumbs of every other drug their parents were doing. I had gone into cardiac arrest and they had detected damage to a valve in my heart. Sure would have been nice to know this- to be told this by a doctor, or sent home with some paperwork that at least said to follow-up. Anything. Instead, luckily, but very embarrassingly, I had to find out all of this from my sister.
Quitting
Like I said, I hadn't smoked for long or that often, so it wasn't like I needed drug rehab and counseling to quit. That traumatic event pretty much just shook it all out of me, and I changed my entire life from that day forward.
I personally believe that the marijuana that's out there today is so far removed from nature and the pot that they had in the 70s- even the 90s. It is genetically engineered, bred, and grown for potency now. With every generation it gets more and more hardcore. I am for legalization and heavy regulation to ensure that it is relatively weak and completely safe. If it had been legal, I wouldn't have gotten every drug known to man into my bloodstream.
Especially with how potent it is today, it can be very addicting. I've heard arguments about whether it's a chemical or psychological addiction, and I can't speak on that, but I do know that it is addicting. I've seen friends who were "wake and bakers" go through hell to quit smoking even for a short period so that they could pass a drug test. You can't tell me that wasn't addiction. They needed it to get through the day. They needed it to get to "normal".
Help Quitting Marijuana
I wish I had known about this one sooner, but I had taken things like St. John's Wort, Valerian root, Siberian Ginseng and 5-HTP, before. I recently stumbled on this site for Cannitrol- an herbal blend that reduces anxiety, and improves mood and concentration. Because I've tried several of the ingredients this product, I can almost certainly say this would be effective. These are good herbs that do exactly what they claim. And other product I've seen for this before, actually contain legal derivatives of the cannabis plant which may show up in drug tests.
As you know from my other hubs, I'm very interested in nutrition and supplements. I would love to hear from anyone who has used herbals like this to quit smoking.
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