Awakenings
My dad is in recovery. He'll have ten years this St. Patrick's Day. He said something to me one time that was a moment of awakening. It was difficult for me to quit because it was difficult for me to see the consequences of using. You can't OD from weed. I've never been arrested for using or possession or got a DUI from driving while stoned. I've never blacked out from smoking weed (though there were times where I was completely blitzed) or got in a fight or woke up in the morning next to someone I didn't know. I spent some money, but no more than what people spend on various "hobbies". As long as I could pay the bills and all, who cares what I do? I thought the only problem was that pot was illegal. I had taken some risks at times, but nothing too risky. Not like I was running a meth lab or something. I could always come up with a rationale that weed was not the real problem.
But as life went on, I could see a correlation between smoking weed and other issues. My emotions were all over the place and this often caused me problems in my relationships. I couldn't keep a job or a girlfriend for more than a year. Something f***ed up always seemed to happen due to my lack of attention. I couldn't think clearly; my mind was always 'rotating' about something. I could tell that I just wasn't living up to my potential. I could see it in my friends, too. They were just like me: doing the bare minimum in order to get stoned that day.
When I was considering quitting and told my dad about my misgivings he said, "Yea, you might not die from smoking weed, but maybe you'll just live a looong miserable life." And, to be honest with you, that scared me more than anything else. I was tired of getting my happiness one eighth at a time and at the expense of everything else going wrong in my life. It just wasn't worth it any more.
