Why I quit smoking weed

Breaking Up with Mary Jane

Following my previous blog posts about quitting alcohol and cocaine, I also created a separate post focused on my struggle with weed, as it was one of my most significant challenges to overcome.

Photo by Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash

1. The creative ideas I now have are still in my mind the next day, ready to be turned into something, not just forgotten and half-formatted.
2. So that I can remember the emotions I feel as I fall in love.
3. So that I can figure out what is really important to me now, not so I can hang on to what was important to me 13 years ago.
4. I can get home after a meeting, all motivated, and ponder what has been said instead of numbing my brain.
5. It causes you to not want to do things with others because you can’t quite see the point. And, if it doesn’t fit in with what you want to do, it can get a little heated.
6. I can remember what I am supposed to be doing and, more importantly, what I am meant to do for others.
7. So that I don’t need to have bits of tobacco in everything I own, my phone, my pockets, the car, my desk, etc.
8. So that I can remember who I am and what I have done for the last 13 years.
9. My mind is starting to return to me, and I can learn again.
10. I can sensibly hold a conversation with someone, relatively confident that I haven’t had the same conversation previously.
11. Ask me what I did yesterday and even the day before, and I can tell you.
12. So I can not be paranoid.
13. I don’t have to endure the pain of smoking when I have a sore throat, which was most of the time.
14. I am not kidding when I say your memory will return to you. Not after two weeks or two months but after 6 months, you will start to notice a difference, as will everyone around you.
15. It makes it much easier to talk to people, whatever time of day.
16. Now when I am really bored, I think of things to do, like polish my shoes.
17. It made me doubt myself; there are already many people to do that for me.
18. When people get my backup in meetings, I no longer retaliate.
19. My skin looks fantastic.
20. When I used to smoke weed, I had all the dreams on the inside and nothing to show on the outside; now, I am living for all to see with little left on the inside.
21. I can remember what I said I would do for people and not argue that they are wrong when I can’t.
22. I don’t get chest pains anymore.
23. To reduce the risk of mouth cancer.
24. So I can see why I started to smoke it in the first place and then maybe think of a different way to escape the stupidity that some of humankind shows.
25. Does philosophy deepen in meaning when you are in famine, or does it lessen?
26. I can stay in the present longer so that I can get things right. I don’t need any more escapism.
27. It saves a lot of money.
28. I wanted all my stoned dreams to come true; they are starting to.
29. I don’t have to walk into a shop and order big rizzlas without the curious yet silent realisation from anyone in the near vicinity realising that I am, in fact, a weed smoker.
30. Such a thin line between a life of responsibility and one of self-enjoyment. Such a thin line between a successful and not-so-successful life; better to stack the odds in your favour.
31. It creates hostility in your mind; when you must come in from the ‘stoned’.
32. Because I was finding it really hard to speak to people when I smoked and had developed depression.
33. It is a great release; from everything you ever wanted to do.
34. It disables the magic moments where you may have a good idea, one that you actually remember.

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