Is it normal to say goodbye to mary-jane... :(
I'm 20 years old and have been smoking weed on/off for three years. I went from smoking occasionally to being stoned about most of the week, as I began to feel as though getting stoned was like activating a happier, funnier and cooler part of myself. It occurred to me recently that one of the main reasons I enjoyed it in the first place was because it made me feel nostalgic. Also, because my sense of humour is important to me anyway, the fact that it was magnified by smoking weed was a huge attraction.
Despite the laziness it caused me, I managed to get myself accepted into university this summer, which is a really big deal because A) It is something my that family, certain ex-schoolteachers and even I struggled to believe I could ever do and B) No one in my family has ever been to university (upper-working-class, it's very much a leave-school-and-get-a-job attitude).
I've kept up the smoking most days of the week, even going into university whilst very stoned, despite the whole workload. Before I went to uni, I hated the idea of time-wasting students who didn't take the work seriously enough, because I knew how lucky they were whilst I was out working my crappy job and wondering about my prospects. As you can imagine, I am pretty disappointed with myself -handing in essays having written them the night before, etc. And during seminars, I find weed makes me anxious and afraid to talk, not to mention very self-conscious. I didn't speak to any of my peers properly until two weeks ago when this guy got talking to me and invited me out with some other students. Most of them find it funny when I tell them I was quiet because I'm a stoner, which brings back some of the light-heartedness of my situation to me.
However, I went out with this same guy and some friends the other night, got stoned and drunk and just couldn't help but act weird and immature - I'm so embarrassed, especially because I think this guy was unimpressed by my behaviour.
But on reflecting how much smoking weed has hindered me in my studies and social life, I feel like I should put the last joint out and leave the shit alone forever. Part of me doesn't want to NEVER get stoned again - that point will come when I get married and have kids surely. What should I do?
I've always been very neurotic even before weed - prone to long bouts of depression, always felt like a bit of an outsider - so I'm dreading coming down and the whole bleakness of reality crashing down on me.
Then there's the sentimentality connected to Mary-Jane; the part of myself who has made me laugh during and escape some of the low times in my life so far.
I know I won't find real happiness until I give it up, even if just for a while, for the fact that I'll never have the motivation to live up to my sober standards of myself and what I should be achieving from life. I guess I'm just beginning to feel that I will come to regret continuing with this whole stoner persona... IIN?