For the first time in a long time, I've gone a whole day without smoking.
My willpower is being tested and even as I write this now, I am still considering leaving work and going for a big fat one. But I made a deal with myself...
Before I go into the deal, it would be better to let you in on how I managed not to smoke for a whole day (and counting).
The day before yesterday, I went to my dealer and bought 6 wraps of weed (where I live, they're sold in wraps which individually cost about 50 cents). Usually, I won't smoke all of this in a sitting. My MO would be to smoke about 3 in one go and another 3 once my high starts abating.
However, this day was different. Firstly, when I bought the weed, I took a long walk far far into a site with abandoned building and I lit up and began smoking. I had smoked about 2 when I felt disgust with myself...I took stock of my life, a reasonably intelligent graduate (with two degrees), running into bushes, hiding in dirty places just to get high!. I felt like punishing myself...I was angry with myself and so I decided to smoke all the weed in one sitting. My reasoning was, if I got to be as high as I possibly could, maybe somehow, I would realise that the it wasn't worth it and I would finally stop smoking weed.
Alas, when I finished the entire six wraps (which included 3 wraps of high quality skunk), I still knew I wasn't done yet. And then that's when I made a stupidly brilliant decision. I was going to go back to my dealer and this time, buy 10 wraps of weed (6 medium grade marijuana and 4 high grade skunk) and smoke them all in one sitting.
In my entire 11 years of smoking, I have NEVER EVER smoked that much in one day talk less of in a single sitting, but I decided to punish myself and nothing was going to stop me from doing it. My rationale was that, I was going to make smoking something that wasn't pleasurable...I wanted to make smoking a chore, something I wanted to avoid instead of something I wanted to revel in.
So I bought the 10 wraps and walked down to this abandoned building in the middle of nowhere and began smoking. Half way through, I caught the fear...what if I died of an overdoes?, what if I went crazy from a sudden onset of schizoprenia...whay if, what if? NO! I told myself, I must sit down here and smoke.
It took me something like 3 hours to smoke 10 fat wraps of weed back to back and when I was done, I couldn't even move. I was so high, I lay down on the dirty floor like a hobo.
All of this added to the disgust I felt with myself and there and then I made the promise to myself...if I ever used my money to buy weed again, I would always buy it in double the amount I smoked the last time (so if I decided to smoke again, I would be buying 20 wraps and after that 40 wraps and so on) and I would punish myself by smoking it all in one sitting.
Mentally, I have reframed my relationship with marijuana. Before, it used to be something I could do quickly, leisurly. With this new promise I have made to myself, smoking weed is something that I can't do everyday because of a) the cost of buying so much at once b) the time it would take to smoke all that weed at once c) the fear I have of what would happen to me if I smoke so much.
Somehow, this is easier for me than just telling myself to quit because, I know that I can smoke whenever I choose to. However, I have placed conditions on my smoking that makes it harder for me to smoke anytime I choose.
So for the next few days when I have so much to do, I doubt I would have time to go through what I call my smoking ritual. But in the back of my mind, I think eventually I would again. But then I doubt smoking 20 wraps of weed would be a pleasurable experience, so...either way, I am mentally disengaging myself from the thought process that makes me believe that weed is something fun. I am creating an association in my mind with smoking and unpleasantness (the dirty building, the overhigness, the lonliness I feel when smoking alone etc). I am hoping that this unpleasnt association would overide the pleasant one and somehow cure me from my dependency.
If anyone wants to try this, what you need is:
1) A lot of weed (more weed than you have ever smoked in a sitting)
2) A place where you can be alone (a place of pennace)
3) A lot of time
4)An enviroment that is not fun
It might not work for everyone (I am not even sure it has worked for me) but what I know is that I have gone a whole day and a half without smoking...something I haven't done in years. I would keep you all updated on my progress.
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