Jim, I want to thank you so much for this post. Actually, words cannot really describe how grateful I am to read these words.
People - this is not your grandparents mexishwag anymore with 1-2% thc tops. Today's mega herb breaks 20% in thc easy. During the 60s I imagine weed was not very addictive because it was not very potent, but times have changes.
Today's megaweed has created a new kind of addiction 'cannabis state dependence', and I know because I am currently suffering from it.
CSD is caused by THC's extremely long half life in the body. Frequent users of cannabis have large concentrations of thc and its metabolites in their blood for weeks even months after using. These metabolites dull the stoner's thinking, and pretty soon the only time they can think normally is in the 1-2 hour phase of acute thc intoxication, the rest of the day they are in a cloud.
Quitting naturally becomes terrifying, as Jim so eloquently stated above. The stoner starts to come out of the cloud, but they are immediately beset by a lengthy and uncomfortable withdrawal phase(You can imagine this 'through the looking glass' effect of feeling MORE SOBER while high than while suffering from withdrawal is the root cause of CSD.)
As for me, I have been a pothead for over 11 years. During that time I have had two periods of sobriety > 6 months. For the last 6 years I have smoked daily, often more than once per day.
Before November, I had been sober for 8 months, I had just found a job which I love, and life was looking up. The elections were so stressful, I stopped meditating, and started to drown out my anxiety with alcohol. Why not go back to weed?
The beast inside asked. Weed is safer than alcohol right? In that moment I forgot the past 10 years of struggling to be sober. I forgot waking up after a binge, praying through a foggy brain for some sobriety, the gradual sobering of the mind over the course of the day, the attendant anxiety as my blood pressure - no longer artificially being lowered - crept up.
I forgot the 'one more time's, days turning to weeks turning to months turning to years, I forgot desperately wanting to quit, but literally not being able to. I mean, waking up, throwing out my pieces, my weed, my grinder, hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of drug paraphernalia, and then finding myself back at the dealer's in the evening.
An old friend of mine likened it to going to the carnival with your parents when you were a kid. There is that funhouse right, and you just can't get enough of it. Ooohh the bright lights ooh the distorted mirrors.
So you keep going back again and again and again, and soon the sun is setting and your dad is exhausted. He wants to go home, but you cant get enough of the funhouse. Soon everyone has moved on, and you keep going back again.
Or perhaps you can think of it as lotus isle from the Odyssey. People just spend their whole lives their, eating lotuses, sleeping their lives away, a kind of living death.
Marijuana never gives you a real bottom, it just wears you down, year after year, decade after decade, until you are just a shell where once there was a fully realized human being. Your old friends start to move on, your own self image is in tatters, you become the fool ready to accept your own buffoonery and incompetence as innate and unchangeable.
Marijuana is tempting because it is easy. Our field is so mentally demanding, we come home from the office, often after hours, completely wired up in problem solving mode.
We return home from the office a bundle of distracted energy, ready to unplug, but unable to power down our mental faculties. Drink and drug are the most readily available solutions, they require no skill to use and are guaranteed to provide some level of chemically assisted detachment. Better options might be meditation, a nap, exercise, or sex.
Pretty soon a habit becomes a crutch, and pretty soon a crutch becomes a necessity.
After 8 months sober, I said I would ease myself back into it. I could see myself smoking just once or twice a week, what would be the harm in that? Surely, after 8 months completely stone cold sober I could moderate my habit...
One last point, abstinence is much easier than moderation. Abstinence means making a clear choice and sticking to it. Abstinence means there are no drugs in the house, everything is black and white, so I have a sanctuary from a world obsessed with the easy way out.
Moderation means making lots of gray choices, often while already intoxicated.
The point of this rant is basically to say Cannabis State Dependence sucks. It has been 5 months since I decided to smoke only occasionally. Can you guess how many days I have been sober since that first toke? 1, I have been sober 1 day in 5 months, and that heroic effort was immediately followed by a relapse.
This is not a joke, marijuana can ruin people's lives(just like mmos, gambling, and heroin).
Just like those other things, MJ can be just fine for some people. Please be careful, "Know Thyself" and seek a real lasting peace, because there has "got to be more to life than chasing down every temporary high."