Consider this a confessional of sorts.
Initially, I didn’t intend for this blog to be a diary. I created it to give deeper insights into certain aspects of culture, entertainment, life, and the world that I couldn’t fit into a paragraph on Facebook. While not exclusively for family and friends, I feel that you readers are most likely connected to me in some way, so I think a semi-deep reflection might be a good thing up front. I promise it won’t be like this every time, but I feel it must be said. This is personal, and a reflection on myself that not everyone will agree with, but I think everyone can learn from differing perspectives.
About six months ago, I started getting into drugs. It was just the ganja- marijuana, weed, pot. Mary Jane. I loved every second of it. I wasn’t driven to it out of depression and I wasn’t rebelling against anyone- I had already been out of college for almost a year. I had no need for it other than I was stone cold bored with my life and my job. I wanted an adventure, and I wanted to belong in some way to a group that could understand me, especially after I left the church 3 years prior (which is another story altogether). Of course, this is a clean Shane speaking now, one with some experience behind him, and back then I didn’t quite know what would happen.
Now, I don’t have anything morally against marijuana. I don’t judge anybody who actively uses it. I think it’s a very misjudged plant by society. But as time went on, gradually I began to hear from various family members, even those who also smoked, about the negatives instead of the positives I had been hearing. They weren’t health problems, but rather warnings about how psychologically dependant one can get. I know not everyone becomes dependent on weed when they smoke it. For some people, they can stop smoking whenever they want to- it isn’t physically addictive. But for me, personally, it led to a downward spiral, mostly because it caused an internal conflict within me that I’m still not quite over. Though I don’t profess any particular faith anymore, I still hold my family and my morality very dear to my heart, and after a while it became clear to me that the people I held close to me would rather me not smoke it- I wasn’t the same person anymore. I virtually stopped watching movies and quit writing the screenplay I was working on. People who know me know that those are things I love, and I had left them.
I thought it wasn’t a big deal, it’s just weed after all. Everyone smokes it. It’s unbelievably easy to find. But what it does to the mind- increase dopamine levels in the brain- can cause psychological withdrawal symptoms when one stops after continuous use over a long period of time. Eventually, my financial situation worsened, and I came into conflict with my family enough that I had to quit. It should have been over then. Hey, it was fun while it lasted, but it’s just weed.
Unfortunately, I don’t have very good self-control. Without it, I couldn’t sleep. I gave myself all these reasons why I should keep smoking instead of move on with my life. I thought I could manage it. I switched to “legal” herb- K2 or incense as they call it. It’s basically non-toxic herbs like mint, lion’s tail, and chamomile sprayed with noxious psychoactive chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in weed. The problem? It’s been known to be addictive as crack, and is twice as potent as weed for beginning users, often caused psychotic hallucinations and paralyzing fear. I experienced that in a minor form. I’m lucky I caught it when I did. I ended up spending over 1,000 dollars on drugs over that time, draining my entire savings and blowing my entire tax refund on it. It was all I smoked, which is insidiously unhealthy, and eventually not even that could get me high anymore. I broke down.
It took the people I love to get me to stop. The next step would be cocaine, I knew it. I knew someone who had it, or could get it. I told myself I’d never touch that, that “gateway drug” nonsense was just that. But you see, the problem wasn’t with the drug.
It was ME.
I was the one letting it control me. I was the one allowing it to dictate my happiness. It became my existence, my whole reason to live outside of work. I was deeply unhappy and depressed without it. Eventually, it took a few choice words from family for me to think “Is this really worth it?” Is it worth not being able to find a better job? Is it worth causing your family distress? Is wallowing in substance abuse my future? No, it isn’t. I finally realized, thanks to family support, that I can rise above it (pardon the hideous wordplay).
Everyone is looking to fill that heart-shaped whole. I have great respect for those who find it in religion or faith, and pour their souls genuinely into it (and yes, I do believe in an abstract idea of a soul). I don’t have that. I was born with genes that predisposed me to have a dependent, addictive personality. I didn’t know it until I let something that wasn’t me, become me. Some will say “You just grew out of it, don’t make it more than it needs to be.” That may be oversimplifying it. Sure, that describes what happened to me, but doesn’t explain it. I’ve always been one to examine closely the reasons behind something, whether it be in film criticism or everyday life, and I know that my “heart-shaped hole” was still empty.
God didn’t give me what I wanted inside me. I didn’t feel fulfilled by drugs. In the end, I discovered that I, not the things around me, determine my happiness. I don’t need to fill my life with some kind of fix. I make my own joy in life. I control my own destiny. I look around at the sadness of life, but I also see an insane amount of beauty and optimism. In the near future, I’m sure marijuana will be legal. And then, I may come back around a wiser person, with more self control, and I might be able to handle it. But for now, the right thing for me personally to do is let it be. I need to lose weight, and get a better job, and neither of those will happen on weed. I value my family enough to listen to them as well. I felt like I was fooling myself.
There are tons of people who, culturally, don’t view this as seriously as I do. That’s perfectly fine. But I think everyone who uses any kind of mind-altering substance should at the very least look at the why and see if it’s a healthy why. Examine yourself, look at your life, and see if it’d be better or worse. A wise person told me I was selling myself short, and that I would never be truly happy dependent on drugs. He was right. Maybe you’re struggling with substance abuse, maybe you aren’t. Maybe you just ritually smoke once or twice a week. Maybe you already have a great job that never drug tests you. Maybe you have chronic migraines or IBS, and weed relieves your symptoms. Maybe you’re just a stoner who never developed a dependency. You’re damn lucky if so.
This doesn’t mean I’m a goody two-shoes. It means I finally know what’s good for me right now in my life, and struck another x off my list of “things I tried to feel better about myself that utterly failed.” Because I don’t need something or someone else to feel better about myself. I’m my own person, with my own mind, and I don’t know ultimately where I’ll find myself in life in a few years, but I know I’ll be happier knowing where I stand.
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