I was a daily pot smoker for over thirty-six years. Having recently quit (cold turkey) I can now attest to the fact that I think I have always had much more intensity in my emotional register than most folks.

Part of the reason I smoked so consistently was that I had no way of coping with, dealing with, or even naming my emotions. Perhaps because I was raised by a loving and caring mother whose main concern was how we behaved. Behavior was everything, and I learned to be a good faker. I can act right, above all.

“Momma, I am being have!”

What I said as a child when my mother would tell me to Behave.

I grew up on various military bases, where everyone is in uniform, and at sunset, when the flag is lowered, folks are supposed to stop walking and face the flag, placing their hand over their heart, while the flag is properly folded and the bugle plays “To The Color,” or the National Anthem. This daily ritual is known as Retreat. For a teenager with no interest in joining the military, this was an awful lot of conformity. As a senior in high school, I had easy access to Turkish hash, and I began my own retreat rituals when living on Patch Barracks. (Headquarters for US European Command.)

While my shrink will tell you I am a high functioning person with anxiety, she never considered me an addict, even though I’d smoke during all my waking hours and even in the middle of the night. Her definition of addiction has more to do with if a person is stealing, or obtaining a substance by illegal means, and the risks involved with that. (but that’s for another post!)

Now that I am sober, I am surprised by the fact that I do not feel the desire to constantly be getting high, like I thought I would. LL Kirchner, (a writer I recently discovered,) hasn’t had a drink in twenty-seven years and calls herself sober-precarious; meaning: if she could be drunk right now, she would be. That’s not been my experience with quitting the weed. Instead, I feel my outrage, my empathy, my bleeding heart all the more intensely, and it’s felt okay. Kind of good, actually.

I’ve learned that by using cannabis to regulate my emotions, to stop over-thinking and just get high, to quell any upset with what I’ve always called my panacea, it created a very powerful side effect of apathy. Not necessarily numbness, but Apathy, with a capital A. I just didn’t give a care, because I always had the ability to tune it out, to turn it off, to drop in and just feel silky smooth and soothed. Cannabis was my pacifier, but I think I’ve outgrown it.

Thanks for the image “APATHY WILL NOT SAVE THE WORLD…” by Simon Lieschke is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.