Something funny happened to me when I stopped getting high:
I went through withdrawal.
And I’m not talking about crack or blow or something hard. I’m talking about happy old mary jane, the green friend to millions of people worldwide. She gave me so much fun and so many good times, but I started to get paranoid and not enjoy things when I was high anymore – which was everyday, and most of each day, in which I was high to one degree or another.
So I decided that this wasn’t for me anymore. Why continue something you don’t enjoy right? I finished the bag I had and didn’t buy anymore. I even took things a step further, probably to prove my resolve to myself because I tried to quit once before and it didn’t work. So this time I gave away my pipes and pieces to friends who I knew would be cool with me quitting and wouldn’t give me crap for it.
But I never thought it would be like quitting for real. For people wanting to learn how to quit smoking marijuana – if you’ve been enjoying the green ganja for years and years, you might be in a for a shocker when you quit.
For me it was truly something that could only be called detox or withdrawal. “Withdrawal from marijuana?” you say. Yep – that’s exactly what it was. I’m talking it sucked trying to go to sleep, it sucked trying to wake up, it sucked trying to get stuff done at work, or god forbid, deal with other people who I had to be around to get my job done. It’s not like I was foaming at the mouth, but I was mad for no reason and everything was just off. This feeling was strongest at first and subsided after 3-4 days almost entirely.
It’s not the worst thing in the world but it wasn’t at all what I expected. I guess I naively assumed there was nothing addictive going on between my body and my marijuana usage, and quitting would be like if I stopped chewing gum after doing that every day.
Nope!
The reality was that it was a mini addiction in and of itself, and my body missed getting high, as did my brain too.
So while DARE class was something fun to mock and I don’t disrespect others who choose to smoke, it’s not as harmless as we all think it is when we light up and tell ourselves that addiction to marijuana is some kind of myth.