Four Hundred Twenty Treatment Options
April 22, 2008
Sweet Ganja. I’m a not a drinker, hard drugs are shit, but weed…weed is my savior, my one true vice. Our relationship is complex. I smoke when I’m depressed, less when things are good, more when things are great. More effect but cause all the same. When I cannot cope, it brings me sweet escape that brings the couch along. When I’m manic, a grass fired programming spree keeps me one step ahead of psychosis. A slip of paper gives my habit California’s blessing, deserved or not.
Does it help? It isn’t that simple. It causes me to stagnate, encourages my reclusion. Though it makes few problems, it solves fewer, but I feel better, if only for a little while. As mentioned earlier, my smoking cycles with my moods, and when I decided to give it a break 23 days ago I was stoned from commencement to curtain call. As devastating as that sounds, I still did what needed to be done. I’m high functioning high. Most who know me, who live with me, can’t even tell. My biggest complaint was memory impairment. Sober, I trust my recollections as godspeak. They rarely let me down. Throw in the encoding inhibiting properties of tetrahydrocannabinol and that asset is lost. Most frustratingly because it prevents me from learning, makes reading futile. On the other side it gives me insight, a novel perspective, new applications for the knowledge I posses; for many a half baked musing has risen in sobriety.
I quit for one month and the deadline is rapidly approaching. I have a choice to make. Do I hang tight to this mental clarity or allow myself envelopment in sickly sweet fog? And if I stay clear, stay focused, when depression strikes again can I face this indurate world knowing but a puff can ease the pain? I’ll start slow, one night a week, maybe two, but in time my smoking will again be determined by mood, not choice. Only naivety would expect less. I don’t know what I’ll do.
