MEMOIR

I Smoked Too Much Weed For My Own Good

I thought I couldn’t get addicted until it became a daily habit

A hit of weed is sounding really good right now. I had a long day. Boring, mostly, sitting for six hours straight in a workshop listening, when really I wanted to be writing or working — something to make me feel productive. Then I had to spend time nagging my teens about schoolwork. To top that off, my husband and I had a spat while we walked the dogs, and we’re fine now, but still. It was a day of low grade stressors in a painfully slow progression.

I’m not depressed, at least not today, but I long to feel better. I want more than fine; I want good. If it was six months ago, I’d be writing this high. I’d have taken that toke or nibbled that edible. And I’d have regretted it almost immediately.

It didn’t always go like that. I didn’t imbibe in my first dosage of cannabis until I was thirty-five years old. Previous to that, I had been pregnant or breastfeeding for eleven years straight (I have four kids, none of whom were interested in weaning). And before that, I was young. I had ideals about what was right and what was wrong, and somehow drinking to the point of drunk was a-okay, but marijuana was sinful and wrong. A drug — shameful.

I started to grow out of that mentality along with society’s changing views on cannabis. My husband, Jack, got high for the first time almost exactly a year before my first time. He had been away on his annual “Man Trip,” and when he returned, he proclaimed that it was better than drinking — it was eye opening and mind altering in the best of ways. He proclaimed that I’d love it.

Jack wasn’t wrong. Once I had wrapped up breastfeeding my last baby shortly after her second birthday, we took a weekend getaway, just me and Jack, and I had my first hit of hash. It was everything that he said it would be.

In between pregnancies, when the babies were a little bigger and sleeping through the night, I had started letting myself have little glasses of wine here and there. It crept up on me, and shortly before I got pregnant with my fourth, I started worrying that my “here and there” had become a nightly habit. Sometimes I wonder if my accidental conception of Eloise was God’s plan to wean me away from the alcohol that kept finding its way to my lips. Or perhaps it was simply a natural consequence of the drinking; after all, it was a drunken decision to eschew contraception that night she was conceived.

I wasn’t an alcoholic by any stretch of the imagination, but I did feel the need to be careful about the wine habit after Eloise was born. I didn’t want to worry about it becoming a problem, so I reserved it strictly for the weekends. That seemed to be the responsible way to enjoy alcohol.

After my first hit of weed, I discovered that getting high was quite different from drinking wine. I felt more competent on cannabis, more awake, and yet relaxed — and I quite liked that feeling. The sex was fantastic. The introspection was even better. The colors of the world seemed brighter. I felt inspired. My anxiety seemed to dissipate; my depression was a thing of the past. I felt, for the first time ever, better.

All that, and with no hangover.

Jack and I both agreed that we wanted to replace our weekend wine with weed, no question. We were still novices, figuring out the process and elocution of our new drug habit. It was like a fun new hobby, a new thing to do and a new way to be.

We started using weed about a year before it was legalized for recreational use in our state, so the process of obtaining a batch from my brother-in-law kept us in check for some time. Even after it was legalized, it still took time for dispensaries to open, rendering cannabis still hard enough to obtain that my usage was only occasional, weekends at most.

I don’t know exactly when it crept up. I guess that’s the thing with creeping. It sneaks up on you. At first, you’re just smoking socially on the weekends, after the kids go to bed. Then you’re taking a little toke after the kids go to bed on a Thursday; it’s almost the weekend, you tell yourself.

Then you take a vacation to Jamaica, and you’re high every day. All day, for some of those days, trying out the infamous wake-and-bake. It’s a helluva lot of fun, and you barely drink anymore, so it seems to even out.

But after Jamaica, it’s still summer break, so you find yourself imbibing a little more than before. Edibles are legal now, so it seems healthier, too. Just a nibble, a little high, a controlled high, no smoke inhalation. It’s practically medicine.

Some days, you nibble that edible in the evening, when the kids are still awake. Reading them bedtime stories high is a little more fun for everyone, isn’t it? You really let yourself be silly with them this way, and they love it.

But it feels weird, being high around the kids, so you cut back a little.

Until it creeps back up again.

Until a pandemic hits, and every day feels the same. You have nowhere to go, nothing to do — they haven’t figured out pandemic schooling yet. So you put the kids to bed, night after night, and then get high with your husband in your bedroom. You fuck like crazy and tell yourself that the weed is good for you. After all, you two feel closer than ever.

And by you…I mean me.

After the lockdowns lifted for the last time, Jack and I officially started dating other couples. We went polyamorous (yes, our minds opened really wide), and I found myself some pot smoking buddies. It was all fun and games at first, but my daily use had been cemented as habit. By 2021, I was using cannabis more days than I wasn’t.

It didn’t help that I ended up in a drama-filled situationship with a narcissist and his lovely wife, landing myself smack in the middle of their messy marriage and ultimately their divorce. It didn’t help that my beautiful girlfriend eventually betrayed me. It didn’t help that my son had his own mental health struggles that wore on me during the days. But there was always weed to calm me down — weed helped.

Or so I let myself believe. I told myself that I was self-medicating my anxiety, but I had a nagging suspicion — and throngs of recent research — that weed was actually making my anxiety worse. I had been on a self-help, wellness, fitness-and-nutrition kick all through the pandemic. I was intent on curing myself and living my best life, but when I came across that anti-cannabis research, I chose to ignore it all.

I told myself that I was different, that I was fine. I was sober during the workdays, after all. I just loved to take a toke before yoga or before sitting down to journal. I loved eating an edible and letting its effects take over as I watched a movie or spent a leisurely evening at the pool. I was officially a recreational user, but I had the idea that I could stop anytime I wanted.

I stopped enjoying weed when I started justifying my use of it. Deep down, I didn’t want to be high every night. I wanted to be able to enjoy life sober. I believed the research presented by neuroscientists like Andrew Huberman; I could feel that creeping anxiety and habitual pull, and I knew that I wasn’t doing the absolute best for my mind and body.

I told myself that I didn’t want to stop, but maybe I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t seem to quiet the refrain running through my mind that weed made me better. I couldn’t quiet the thoughts that told me it made yoga better, writing better, sex better, sleeping better, even chilling with my kids better. I had made smoking weed a part of my new identity — I was finally embracing my bohemian, academic, bisexual self — and being a touch high seemed to align with that beautifully.

Except for the nagging thoughts. The panic attacks. The high highs that seemed to go hand-in-hand with the low-lows. The guilt that exploded every time I took a toke — girl, what are you doing to your lungs, your brain, your mental health? Are you really being the best parent you can be right now? Do you seriously feel more connected when you can barely hold a conversation?

Perhaps it became a matter of impulse control. I’d get an overwhelming urge to be high to do whatever activity was next on the table— yoga, writing, sex, eating popcorn and watching a movie — and I would practically bolt into Jack’s closet, where we kept the little water bong. I’d take a toke and assume that the experience ahead of me would be enhanced because of my high.

And then I’d regret it. I’d look in the mirror and realized through my clouded thoughts that my lungs were going to suffer from that smoke inhalation. I knew that my eczema was likely to flare up on my face now that I’d smoked several days in a row yet again. I knew that, when presenting to a class the next day, my voice would grow raspy by the end of the hour.

Moments of clarity came in the mornings when the day was fresh and yet the weed hangover promised to ignite by mid-afternoon, ensuing that anxiety that caused my impulse issues. In the early mornings of early 2023, I started asking Jack to hide the bong from me.

I aimed to reach a compromise between my nagging thoughts of guilt and my weed-happy YOLO mindset. I would switch to edibles during the week, only allowing myself to smoke flower on the weekends. Edibles would be like high “lite” compared to smoking.

But edibles are slower to kick in. Some days I wouldn’t have time for the edible to kick in, and at my logical pestering, Jack would relent and produce the bong from its lame hiding spot. After all, I couldn’t go to bed sober. Let alone have sex sober. How would I ever orgasm? How would I ever fall asleep?

The bong was always quick and easy, just the high I wanted. Most edibles made me sleepy, but it was true that I was also more functional. It was a controlled high. I aimed to find that balance, and so I tried a vape pen with “meh” results. Different high, still questionable for my lungs, still putting me in a cloud of fake feelings.

I realized that I was chasing something I might never catch. Calm, presence, better, good. I was annoyed with my neverending search for that next high. I was annoyed by my lack of impulse control, getting high only to feel guilty, not ever feeling all that much better in the moment after all. I didn’t want to forever rely on a substance to feel my best — especially if that substance really wasn’t living up to its promise.

I knew I needed to get my shit together and get over the hurdle. I needed to sober up. So I did what I always do when the nagging thoughts get too loud. I accept them by admitting them to Jack. I divulge everything, and he helps me sort through it with his questions and conversation.

I told Jack that I was feeling like I was getting high too often, and that I wanted both of us to get high less often. It was a big ask; Jack too has struggled with the habitual pull of weed’s promises. He wasn’t into smoking like I was, but he ate an edible every night “to help him sleep.”

I could tell when he’d had that edible, and it triggered me when I was sober. I wanted to be high when he was, especially during sex. I’d see that he’d indulged, and then I’d cave into the cannabis myself. I realized that I needed more than his support to curb my own cannabis use — I needed him to get on the same train. I couldn’t stop getting high if he didn’t.

Jack is an amazing partner. We’re an amazing team. I know that most people aren’t so lucky. Together, in the fall of 2023, we set intentions and supported each other as we slowed our smoking and eschewed our edibles for a more sober school year.

I’ve heard so many people say that cannabis isn’t addictive, but I can attest that it’s habit-forming. I tried to quit cold turkey for five weeknights in a row and found myself irritable and groggy, often with headaches. It reminded me of the four times I had to quit coffee, once for each pregnancy. Jack experienced similar symptoms, and it was his idea to go slower so that our quasi-sobriety would stick.

I’ve weaned four babies from their beloved habit of breastfeeding. Holden and Catherine each weaned around age one, but my milk must get better with age. It took until age two to wean both Sylvia and Eloise. Now, weaning myself from cannabis, I took the same approach as I had with weaning my babies off my boobs. Little by little, until you suddenly realize that it’s been over for awhile…you just went on with life and forgot about it.

I allowed myself a small edible every other night, until the itch went away. Each nibble was smaller than the last, sometimes with only a tinge of an effect. Then I’d go two nights without, now three, now four…and finally, my goal had been achieved. Weeknights without weed.

I can see it so clearly now. I’d taken the fun out of my recreational drug — I’d made it a medication. Getting high had practically become a chore, something to rush home from the kids’ band concerts “to do” before bed.

In fact, as I started sleeping sober again, I realized that it hadn’t been helping me sleep at all. Sure, it was weird those first few nights, falling asleep so clearheaded, so awake and alive. But I can’t deny that I sleep more soundly when sober, prompting me to wake up at 5am as refreshed as I’ll ever be at that time of the day.

I enjoying writing more when I’m sober. Yoga, too. I can read books and remember more if I’m not constantly wiping my short-term memory clean with cannabis. I’m a better parent; I can participate more thoughtfully in my children’s lives when I’m not overly-chilled out on marijuana. I’m not numb to the woman I am inside, bisexual and bipolar and conflicted. I’m learning to enjoy the ride of real life.

With each good night’s sleep, each morning without the dizzying after effects, each day without that pop of weed-hangover anxiety, each afternoon of writing with a clear mind, each emotion-filled evening…I developed a new habit. A new normal.

I admit that I still imbibe on the weekends. I’m not totally sober; I just cut back and reserve my substance use for more appropriate times. Namely, sex with Jack on a Friday and/or Saturday night. It makes it special for us, practically ceremonial. Now that I don’t use weed all the time, I feel it more when I do use it. It’s more pleasurable, but I feel the side effects more, too. I’m reminded that, just as I don’t want a nightly wine habit, I don’t want a nightly weed habit either.

It’s been six months since I began cutting back, but I don’t remember exactly how long it took me to feel normal while sober again. Like my cannabis use, it went from one day to the next, creeping up on me. I know I’m prone to habit-forming behaviors, and this here is a good habit. Or at least, a better habit than before.

I feel balanced, even if I’m not perfect. I enjoy my new normal. I enjoy feeling good enough in my body and brain as it is, without the near-constant use of substances. There’s a clarity to it that feels fresh. A crispness. I quite like it.

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