Once again, thank you all for your kind and supportive words. They go for miles.
Secondly, I don't think it's fair to all of you that I ask for encouragement when so many of you don't even know what happened to me. There may be one or two things I am not ready to share with the DTF world yet, but I'm sure in time I can come to let you all know. In the meantime, here's my story. All the names and places have been erased to bring home the core of the story, so no one will be implicated. I also apologize if anything in here sounds preachy, elevated or in some way dramatic; it's just how I felt about it.
2009, senior year at college.
I was dating a rather attractive junior for about a year and a half. She has cervical cancer and ovarian cyst formations on a monthly basis. I didn't care, I loved her. For a time she was in the hospital for chemo. While there, the doctors gave her medical grade marijuana. She liked it. While we were together though she never smoked with me until one fall day. She rolled a fatty, and we went outside near the beach. Here is what happened the first time I smoked:
I had a panic attack for 45 minutes, passed out and when I woke up I legitimately thought I was on Mars, or some planet that looked oddly enough like Earth. Yes, this is true. No, I'm not lying. Yes, Mars. A couple of other firsts happened that day but that's besides the point.
The second time I tried I had another panic attack, but this time she walked me through it in 2 minutes. After that, I thought it was the most ethereal feeling in the world. Words don't describe feelings like these; they ruin them. There were many times after then that I would smoke with her. After she was expelled from campus due to missed homework, multiple doctor visits and emotional problems, I had to rely on friends; not all of them smoked.
As my senior thesis picked up I used it as a way to decompress from the stress of constant creation. I found myself buying more and more, but I wasn't paying any bills, so I had nothing to lose.
Fast forward to 2010.
I graduated from college. Everyone from college scattered to the far edges of America. I dumped my girlfriend for kissing her ex. I was left with nothing; this was good. It gave me time to look for a job, get my shit together and hopefully pay off bills. The first job I got was in sales. Nothing earth shattering; part time, decent pay, long shifts. 1/4 of my paycheck went towards marijuana. As the months went on, I was not getting any art done. I felt more and more inclined to hang with friends and relax. I started to hang out with my brother again. We had been on unspeaking terms, and I found out he smoked too; all the more reason to hang out.
2011
I left my job in sales to work in a restaurant. Everybody here smokes. It felt so good to be around people my age as well. As I kept getting bank in tips, the more and more I would spend on smoking items like bowls and a bong. The bad part was third shift work. I stopped seeing a lot of my friends when I started this job. I found myself in my room, nowhere to go, and smoking up.
You know that dark hole they say everyone who's in a depression falls into? Well I fell hard. It was even the only way I could deal with seeing my brother and his bitch of a girlfriend. I would pass up opportunities to hang with people from college. My family would rarely see me. Whatever art I could have been making was never even reaching paper. I even stopped trying to find a girlfriend. I just didn't care. Whatever good vibes I had at the beginning when I could smoke, they were long gone...maybe even dead.
For a few weeks, I was considering quitting. Not for health, not for money, not for peace of mind, not even for art's sake; but for my sister. She has told me on multiple occasions that she does not want me to smoke. She's always been afraid that I would get arrested, get addicted, or worse. However, she never told me to do it, she would only mention that she wished I would stop. She never acted like my mother and told me to do anything.
This is the part of the story that twists and turns for the worse.
One day, my brother calls me while I'm hanging with FTBD7. He wants to smoke and he wants me to pay. I ask if the bitch can pay cause she owes me anyway (I covered her twice in the past). He says that that's bullshit. A huge argument rises out of this and then they start threatening to call the cops. I have my opinions on police involvement with this situation, but I'll leave them for later.
The next day, he tells my dad that I smoke pot.
I had no choice. I confessed. Everything was thrown out and my dad was disappointed in me; not as much as he was proud that I told the truth though. The funny thing of it was that when everything was thrown out, I never stopped to say, "hey! look what he is doing with your shit! STOP HIM!". When I threw it out it felt like I was just waiting for the right opportunity to do this. I just needed a good reason to do it. After everything was in the trash, I felt one of the biggest burdens lifted from my shoulders. It felt like I didn't have to lie about what was going on anymore, and it finally hit me that I had a problem stopping.
it may sound stupid, but I'm really glad my brother did what he did.
Curiosity, however, gets the better of me. Sometime after, I decided to test this shaking feeling I've had in the back of my head: Was marijuana the cause of me being so apathetic? And I tested it the only way I knew how; smoking one last time. I assure you, this time I would do it with friends. If I still felt the need to be copacetic around people, then I knew this wasn't meant to be.
I can safely say the entire time I was high I was beyond copacetic; I was comatose. I only remember sitting there, for hours. I didn't talk to anyone. I rarely acknowledged another's presence. I stopped being myself. I stopped being alive. I was more vegetable than any cucumber on the planet. it hurt a lot to know that something I found to be so much fun was being a leech on my life.
Maybe in time I can come back years from now and try once more in moderation, but until then, ce la vie.
Topic: My dramatic turn of events (Read 1323 times)