More or less the same for me, although I find it easier to enjoy in Europe where it's generally not nearly as strong as in the US, and consumed with tobacco or a tabac alternative. Incidentally, there are several shops in my European city that sell mushroom chocolates under the table.
As a therapist, I work with so many young men who got hooked on it in their teens. I can tell you it is dangerous - I've seen what happens. So many studies show its' dangers. The one thing I've really noticed is that it leads to, after more heavy usage, increased anxiety! So glad to hear the conclusions you've reached!
As a youngin’, I was both physically uncoordinated and adventurous. End result, I treated the ER as a weekend getaway for about ten years of my childhood- bashed in teeth, broken bones, pierced feet, slashes, gashes, etc etc.
There is a moment right after getting injured where your body gets flooded with feel-good chemicals, and everything gets fuzzy and buzzy. Sort of a low level hum that drowns out the fact that your arm is radiating pain.
That’s what marijuana does for me. It makes my body feel fuzzy and buzzy. I spent that evening covertly checking my body for stab wounds or broken fingers or what have you, because every other time I had felt this way I’d needed to swing by the urgent care center.
I take a hit after breakfast, and a few when I get home from work. I find any one strain "gets old" after a while and you have to change it up regardless, which is why I hesitate to buy whole ounces at a time, because once I get to the bottom of the bag the fun has worn off.
Thank you for really pointing this out! I used to get high off edibles to watch (some) TV series, because it incredibly enhanced the aesthetic experience, but then, that fixation on flaws and ridiculously self-critical inner monologue started happening. It's certainly a weird effect.
My ending was when I tried delta-8 (a ever-so-slightly different and purportedly legal substance derived from hemp). A friend had started taking it for anxiety, and everything you'll read everywhere about it says it's a very mild high, almost unnoticeable. My friend certainly didn't seem high after taking a gummy. So I took one too...and got higher than I've ever been in my life. So high I considered going to the hospital because everything felt wrong. I appear to be extremely reactive to it.
And ever since, smoking weed has just left me feeling empty. Like "this is it. this is as good as life gets. not very impressive, is it?" So I'm stopping.
I have smoked a lot of weed in my life, and known a lot of stoners. I think it's a significantly riskier and more addictive drug than it's made out to be. There is a low probability but pretty clear link with psychosis. For people who don't have dramatic negative effects, addiction can sneak up on you. It's a weird drug, it's low-risk in so many ways that it doesn't make sense for it to be illegal. But to depict it as harmless medicine seems wrong to me as well -- and I'm concerned that's the message kids are getting. I'm not completely sure what to tell my kids about it when they get older.
I smoked more and more over several years until last year it was almost every day. Which always made me wanna drink too, so I spent a lot of the year fairly buzzed. I am getting older so that may play into it, but I hit a wall and it was basically ruining everything. I was in a foul mood a lot of time because I felt foul, and getting high would make me feel better, but it was a low bar.
I quit cold turkey and it was a pretty hard first week emotionally and physically, but it got a lot better. My lungs thanked me (eventually), my stomach is WAY better without alcohol and extra food intake from the munchies. I don't get headaches nearly as much. I sleep way better (this is also due to quitting coffee, though I still drink tea).
I get tempted to partake once in a while, but when I do--and I just mean one night--it throws me for a loop and I'm able to see much more clearly how much better I function sober, especially because it takes me the better part of a week to get back to equilibrium. My sleep gets thrown off, as does my attitude. In short, I'm much nicer to myself and others because I feel so much better.
The whole concept reminds me of that scene in Contact when she travels in that sphere that they added a chair to because they thought it was an improvement in the design. I mean, where was she supposed to sit, anyway? But the whole thing shook violently until the chair finally worked itself loose and things smoothed out completely. Lesson: don't mess with the "design", at least if you are someone who has a good balance of brain chemistry to begin with. When you mess with your chemistry for a long time, it's easy to forget what your natural chemistry actually is, and you don't realize that the chemical you're ingesting creates a need for itself, so naturally you feel better when you get it. You think that maybe you really are a better person when you have it. You're not. At least not in the long term. Diet, exercise, sleep. Don't mess with the design!
Thanks for writing this. I got a bit into weed about two years ago at the age of twenty one, fully detaching from my puritan Christian upbringing. I had a healthy relationship with it for 6mo to a year. And as with so many things, then there was the pandemic. I didn't have reasons not to have it every night and I quickly became dependant on it to sleep, and just to feel sane (I'd find my anxieties were still there when high, but that i just didn't care about them, and of course I'd be out like a light when my head hit the pillow, so no ruminating).
Something strange started happening a couple months ago that I complained about to my pothead friends and they didn't identify with at all: I started getting to be relentlessly self critical, just as you say, when I'd get high (and to some degree, it started to be a general disposition sober too, though less intense). Honestly the best term is self-loathing. Not to the point of suicidality, but thoughts like "it'd be better if you were dead" were there. This has informed my decision lately to slow down, though this has been difficult due to its help with sleep. When I had a healthy relationship with it, I found it could quietly nudge you to examine something about yourself or your life that you may wish to change. I liked that about it, but I think it's that same quality that got corrupted to become this self-loathing experience. It's harrowing in a way, even if not a typical weed 'panic'. I, like you, still like it in many ways and want to maintain a casual, healthy relationship with it, but this last year has made me quite frustrated with lots of weed-discourse or the attitudes towards it from most people I know. It's not harmless, it's a drug. It's worth careful consideration for how you should use it. I wish that was a bigger part of the conversation, and I wish someone had said something to that effect to me.
if it's not working, it's not working, and there's no reason to force weed into your life if you don't enjoy it, but I would say that people who get self-critical all the time while high tend to blame the weed, when in actuality, they are just very self-critical people who without weed have developed strong methods of suppressing those feelings, not that the weed made those feelings appear.
"I am a big proponent of vices; I think they make us human, and life is hard enough that we sometimes need to do things that are a little bad for us but make us feel good."
I started smoking cigars a couple months ago. I've been enjoying the mild thrill of trafficking in the illicit, especially now that tobacco smokers are held in lower repute than stoners. Mostly I enjoy the flavor of the leaf and the excuse to sit on the porch with only a wind chime for company.
More or less the same for me, although I find it easier to enjoy in Europe where it's generally not nearly as strong as in the US, and consumed with tobacco or a tabac alternative. Incidentally, there are several shops in my European city that sell mushroom chocolates under the table.
As a therapist, I work with so many young men who got hooked on it in their teens. I can tell you it is dangerous - I've seen what happens. So many studies show its' dangers. The one thing I've really noticed is that it leads to, after more heavy usage, increased anxiety! So glad to hear the conclusions you've reached!
As a youngin’, I was both physically uncoordinated and adventurous. End result, I treated the ER as a weekend getaway for about ten years of my childhood- bashed in teeth, broken bones, pierced feet, slashes, gashes, etc etc.
There is a moment right after getting injured where your body gets flooded with feel-good chemicals, and everything gets fuzzy and buzzy. Sort of a low level hum that drowns out the fact that your arm is radiating pain.
That’s what marijuana does for me. It makes my body feel fuzzy and buzzy. I spent that evening covertly checking my body for stab wounds or broken fingers or what have you, because every other time I had felt this way I’d needed to swing by the urgent care center.
Not my cup of tea in the slightest, tbh.
I take a hit after breakfast, and a few when I get home from work. I find any one strain "gets old" after a while and you have to change it up regardless, which is why I hesitate to buy whole ounces at a time, because once I get to the bottom of the bag the fun has worn off.
Thank you for really pointing this out! I used to get high off edibles to watch (some) TV series, because it incredibly enhanced the aesthetic experience, but then, that fixation on flaws and ridiculously self-critical inner monologue started happening. It's certainly a weird effect.
My ending was when I tried delta-8 (a ever-so-slightly different and purportedly legal substance derived from hemp). A friend had started taking it for anxiety, and everything you'll read everywhere about it says it's a very mild high, almost unnoticeable. My friend certainly didn't seem high after taking a gummy. So I took one too...and got higher than I've ever been in my life. So high I considered going to the hospital because everything felt wrong. I appear to be extremely reactive to it.
And ever since, smoking weed has just left me feeling empty. Like "this is it. this is as good as life gets. not very impressive, is it?" So I'm stopping.
I have smoked a lot of weed in my life, and known a lot of stoners. I think it's a significantly riskier and more addictive drug than it's made out to be. There is a low probability but pretty clear link with psychosis. For people who don't have dramatic negative effects, addiction can sneak up on you. It's a weird drug, it's low-risk in so many ways that it doesn't make sense for it to be illegal. But to depict it as harmless medicine seems wrong to me as well -- and I'm concerned that's the message kids are getting. I'm not completely sure what to tell my kids about it when they get older.
Hell yea, we are long past over due to legalize mushrooms.
>I’ll go back up mushroom mountain in a heartbeat, though, if I ever get a chance. That’s a drug you should be able to buy at any grocery store.
I want to hear more about this...yes, psychedelic mushrooms are safe and non-addictive, that's cool, but what exactly is the benefit?
I smoked more and more over several years until last year it was almost every day. Which always made me wanna drink too, so I spent a lot of the year fairly buzzed. I am getting older so that may play into it, but I hit a wall and it was basically ruining everything. I was in a foul mood a lot of time because I felt foul, and getting high would make me feel better, but it was a low bar.
I quit cold turkey and it was a pretty hard first week emotionally and physically, but it got a lot better. My lungs thanked me (eventually), my stomach is WAY better without alcohol and extra food intake from the munchies. I don't get headaches nearly as much. I sleep way better (this is also due to quitting coffee, though I still drink tea).
I get tempted to partake once in a while, but when I do--and I just mean one night--it throws me for a loop and I'm able to see much more clearly how much better I function sober, especially because it takes me the better part of a week to get back to equilibrium. My sleep gets thrown off, as does my attitude. In short, I'm much nicer to myself and others because I feel so much better.
The whole concept reminds me of that scene in Contact when she travels in that sphere that they added a chair to because they thought it was an improvement in the design. I mean, where was she supposed to sit, anyway? But the whole thing shook violently until the chair finally worked itself loose and things smoothed out completely. Lesson: don't mess with the "design", at least if you are someone who has a good balance of brain chemistry to begin with. When you mess with your chemistry for a long time, it's easy to forget what your natural chemistry actually is, and you don't realize that the chemical you're ingesting creates a need for itself, so naturally you feel better when you get it. You think that maybe you really are a better person when you have it. You're not. At least not in the long term. Diet, exercise, sleep. Don't mess with the design!
Thanks for writing this. I got a bit into weed about two years ago at the age of twenty one, fully detaching from my puritan Christian upbringing. I had a healthy relationship with it for 6mo to a year. And as with so many things, then there was the pandemic. I didn't have reasons not to have it every night and I quickly became dependant on it to sleep, and just to feel sane (I'd find my anxieties were still there when high, but that i just didn't care about them, and of course I'd be out like a light when my head hit the pillow, so no ruminating).
Something strange started happening a couple months ago that I complained about to my pothead friends and they didn't identify with at all: I started getting to be relentlessly self critical, just as you say, when I'd get high (and to some degree, it started to be a general disposition sober too, though less intense). Honestly the best term is self-loathing. Not to the point of suicidality, but thoughts like "it'd be better if you were dead" were there. This has informed my decision lately to slow down, though this has been difficult due to its help with sleep. When I had a healthy relationship with it, I found it could quietly nudge you to examine something about yourself or your life that you may wish to change. I liked that about it, but I think it's that same quality that got corrupted to become this self-loathing experience. It's harrowing in a way, even if not a typical weed 'panic'. I, like you, still like it in many ways and want to maintain a casual, healthy relationship with it, but this last year has made me quite frustrated with lots of weed-discourse or the attitudes towards it from most people I know. It's not harmless, it's a drug. It's worth careful consideration for how you should use it. I wish that was a bigger part of the conversation, and I wish someone had said something to that effect to me.
if it's not working, it's not working, and there's no reason to force weed into your life if you don't enjoy it, but I would say that people who get self-critical all the time while high tend to blame the weed, when in actuality, they are just very self-critical people who without weed have developed strong methods of suppressing those feelings, not that the weed made those feelings appear.
First had weed at 15, last had it at 60. I have never not had a horrible experience with it. Hate the stuff.
In the footsteps of Thomas De Quincey today.
"I am a big proponent of vices; I think they make us human, and life is hard enough that we sometimes need to do things that are a little bad for us but make us feel good."
I started smoking cigars a couple months ago. I've been enjoying the mild thrill of trafficking in the illicit, especially now that tobacco smokers are held in lower repute than stoners. Mostly I enjoy the flavor of the leaf and the excuse to sit on the porch with only a wind chime for company.