marijuana

The first time I smoked marijuana it didn’t do much. I was bored, disaffected, and didn’t really understand the appeal. But I was young, and the opportunity was sure to arrive again. The 2nd time I smoked marijuana, I got mind-blowingly high and it was horrible. My throat was burnt, my head was spinning, my mind was racing, my heart was racing, I was anxious. I was lost, and I hated it. Never again, I said.

Nevertheless, on and off, over a period of several years, I smoked a bit of weed here and there, played some video games, laughed with friends, and ate a smorgasbord of food from the local fish n chip shop. Weed gradually became a warm blanket around my mind, comforting me in ways I was unable to fulfill with family or friends. Marijuana was a quiet companion. It enabled me to function normally (unlike alcohol which was gradually inebriating) but it consoled my brain, my thinking was slowed, I was able to fully live in the moment and enjoy doing whatever I felt like doing, without concern for the wider world or the future.

marijuana was the companion I didn't have

But this isn’t a story of loneliness. Well, not yet.

Around this time I worked in a bar. Working late nights and drinking, and when I wasn’t drinking, I was smoking. Often with friends, often with colleagues. Occasionally with family. But more often, alone, in my room. All my alone time was mary jane time. All my thinking was done stoned.

Around the time I broke up with my first girlfriend, the end of an approximately 3 year relationship, was the time I began to spend more time with marijuana than I should. Several times a week, I would relish the time spent on my own, with video games, and fast food, staying up all night. I was 20 years old. Several years down the track, I knew I had a problem because I couldn’t control it. Whenever I had weed, I would feel compelled to smoke it. If I didn’t have weed, I would seek it out. Sometimes, pitifully, shamefully, sometimes weakly. It became a constant which was inevitable.

Initially, the comfort blanket of marijuana was a console on my mind, but gradually this became a fog of anxious thought. Walls built up around me about what I could and couldn’t do. What I should do. Psychological barriers that caused me to sweat profusely, ignore phone calls, stay inside the house, avoid socializing. Most of this was in my head. But everything about life is in your head, right? Your entire world is perceived through your eyes and ears and processed in your mind. I was burying myself in my own anxious thoughts.

I won’t go into the aspects of my early teenage years which were difficult, parents breaking up etc, but safe to say when my early 20s dawned on the days of heavy smoking I was depressed, lost, bored, angry and difficult. I had some therapy sessions. I queried why I was smoking weed in the first place and why I couldn’t seem to stop it. Why it was a constant pursuit and why it was so inevitable.

Ultimately, I was lonely in my own head. I needed comfort. And the double-edged-knife of mary jane was still the easiest way to find this.

I used to joke that mary jane and I needed a divorce.

Several times over the last 15 years I was able to stop smoking weed for long enough to see some of the clouds disappear. And each time, eventually, usually after only a few weeks to a month or two, it would feel ok to smoke a joint. And then the downwards spiral would begin, like a well-worn path to the same place, I would end up with weed, alone, in my room.

I alienated flatmates. I lived in my room in share accommodation, ashamed that I was stoned, as if I didn’t see my flatmates it wouldn’t be so bad. I smoked weed at 9am before going to work. I smoked weed when I got home. At some point, I even smoked weed while at work.

I had numerous friends who had gone down this path with marijuana, some of which had managed to pull themselves out of it. I longed for the will to do so myself. To no longer feel self conscious in social situations, to feel at ease with myself. To want to leave the house as opposed to wanting to stay inside with video games. I was living vicariously. How did you do it? I remember asking.

By doing other things.

This simple suggestion ties together the two basic steps of breaking an addiction. If you’re in the same place, doing the same things, you’re going to gravitate towards the same activities. If all your time was spent alone in your room with video games, you have to break the cycle, and get outside and be with people. It can be a huge challenge. The second step is believing you can do it. Changing the internal monologue from ‘I’ll do what I’ve always done’ to ‘I have the will to do what I want right now’ is fundamental.

It was a huge challenge. It took me some 8 or 9 years to finally find the will to step away. It took countless attempts to reach this place. Each time, I fell back into the same groove. But if only I had understood from an earlier age – addiction is filling a void in your life with something that’s easy. Each time I made a decision to go back because it was easy and it felt normal. Maybe I wasn’t always consciously aware of the same decision – sometimes I told myself it would be different this time around. But if I had weed at home and I didn’t want to smoke it, there was a feeling that I kind’ve knew that I would anyway, because that’s what I’d always done.

Past decisions haunting my future decisions as if I was destined to do the same thing..

But it’s not true. Alfred Adler states that one is not governed by any past decision or past event. One makes a decision in the moment every time. People choose not to change. And I would not have admitted it at the time, but looking back I can honestly say I chose the easy way to fall back into the same relationship with marijuana.

Stumbling upon the psychology and philosophy of Alfred Adler by chance was a reveling experience. I wonder what might’ve been if I’d read some of his work a decade earlier.