I spent many years of my young adult life using Cannabis and would be “high” at some point most every day unless I was out of Cannabis, at which point I would be trying rather desperately to find Cannabis.
My father was a “functioning alcoholic” and my mother, who raised me on her own, is to this day. I hate the term “alcoholic” because of what seem to the be endless connotations associated with the word and I was lucky enough to not have those things play a role in the relationship I had with my mother nor the one I had with my father before he passed. I’m going to leave the word “alcoholic” up there as a blanket, but prefer the term “chemically dependent” which I feel targets more closely on what is important here, a dependency.
With each parent chemically dependent on the use of alcohol, it was always present. Neither parent seemed to socialize. My father would spend evenings on the patio of his single bedroom apartment in Florida reading an endless stream of books, smoking cigarettes back to back with a full cup of vodka splashed lightly with tinge orange juice, a “Screwdriver” if you could call it that.
My mother, the angel that I know she is, after a certain point in the early evening begins drinking beer and continues until it’s time to pass out. There was a time in younger years of high school that I began fearing my mother had early onset Alzheimer’s (which has occurred in our family) because it seemed like we would have long conversations later at night before bed and in the morning there would be no recollection on her end of what we had talked about. It was later that I realized this was not Alzheimer’s, she had just been drunk and did not remember of the things we spoke.
Now, I can’t stress enough that although both parents were/are chemically dependent on alcohol I was NEVER abused, beaten up, made to feel unsafe in my home environment or ANY of those things. I was lucky, as I know many out there have not had the same experience with their chemically dependent parental figures. However, I do myself work through many issues of my own that have been associated with being raised in this type of environment, specifically the “My way or the high way” approach that I very consciously try to let go of each and every day. Oh, and also, addiction. I was “addicted” to Cannabis.
Today is a day that has been identified as a “Day of Weed” of sorts. It’s April 20th (420) and I will not be smoking weed. Why?
I know very clearly to avoid the use of alcohol these days. My decisions become compromised, I NEVER drive my 35’ bus under the influence of anything, and I just don’t have any “extra” money beyond what is required to maintain the absolute basics of human survival in the modern western world (I currently operate on less than $600/mo all-inclusive). That said, weed is different.
With weed, I am not “Hungover.” Weed seems to catalyze a something in my mental process that shifts my perspective, allowing me to look through a slightly different lens. That said, I’ve come now to really enjoy only the first, say, 20 minutes after smoking that first round.
I enjoy the transformational moment when the sober logic scheme fades and new nerve connections start firing left and right (and up, out, squiggly-left etc). A million ideas flood through my head that I’ve never thought about and during this first rush many times a new association is made between seemingly random thoughts, experiences, understandings…
But then, I’m “high.”
I start to misplace things and/or cannot find things I have just put down somewhere a second ago. When I pull out my notebook to write a small journal entry or flesh out a concept, I try to write in my cursive handscript and it looks like first grade chicken-scratch. I begin thinking about a thing, then realize i’ve been staring with bloodshot eyes at another thing for several minutes. If I had a preconceived “plan” for how the time was to be spent after smoking, it is now completely gone. Most often unless I’m in a social setting, I just have to pass out and fall asleep.
Then I’m asleep. When asleep after using Cannabis, I do not dream. When I don’t smoke weed, the dreams I have are so vivid it’s as if I have not slept at all and as a lucid dreamer, I have almost full control of the “me” in this seemingly endless other world that’s always different from the sleep before.
I can nod off for a 20-minute nap and be in a dream world. I learn and find guidance in my dreams, which always seem random, but always suggest in a subtle way a something that I should be doing.
Part 2 of the why, is that I have now found myself in a place where I am listening. Anywhere I am, I listen. I go places where there is no noise but the nature around me, sit, and listen.
At this point, I consider myself to have almost completely detached myself from the consumerism that has defined our collective western society and it’s comforts. On this path and without any level of financial “security” I know that each step must be with intent, in prayer. I cannot afford myself the luxury of misstep. No “boss” tells me what to do. I do not set an “alarm” though I am frequently up and start my day shortly after 4 in the morning, long before the rays of sun reach the windows of my home on wheels.
Without weed, I feel as though my path is clear. Not clear in the sense of having a road map outlining my direction, but clear in the sense that my actions are just part of the path along which I walk. Those wonderful thoughts that I seem to have when under the influence of marijuana do not randomly form, yet I am able to write and furnish my ideas with greater precision.
During/after I smoke weed, a small voice in my head always questions my actions to some extent: “Man, i don’t know if this was a good move, dude, maybe you should get a job.” Without weed? silence. In that silence I can listen, and in listening I can assure my next step is that which I must take on my spirit journey, even if it appears at surface level that step was wrongly placed.
“Thought is the thought of the thoughtless” comes from a line in Ram Dass’s “Be Here Now.” With weed, I think. Without weed, I act.
I will continue to struggle in situations where close friends roll one up and I am not sure how these situations will play out in the future. I will always enjoy the good ole’ stoner conversation, but must it be had while stoned?
I adamantly support the legalization of all Cannabis. The fact that Hemp is illegal to grow and use is absurd. I have never heard of a death associated with Cannabis, but have heard of “cures” for cancer derived from it. Maybe that’s why it’s illegal? Anything to keep the sick… sick.
To my friends and those of you reading this who will be choosing to use Cannabis today, please do not think I am preaching that you shouldn’t in any way, shape, or form. I support your journey. Maybe take a look at it’s role, is there a dependency? That’s a whole other deal no matter what. I was dependent, heavily. I burned out. Was that a bad thing? I don’t know, if I hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have redefined my life the way I have. Who knows.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people spoke during the spring of 2017 at a conference I attended on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. He spoke about marijuana and how it has become part of the lives of many younger ones on and off their lands. He cautioned against it’s use as it was not a sacred medicine which Spirit had guided his people to use.
Today, I shall heed his words.