My Journey
Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll.
The issue I have is that I can't handle weed and it took me a long time to realize it.
I had previously given up my work and left London to explore the world, discover a new place out of the rat race, and perhaps a wife in a sunny fruitful environment.
My journey took me to Australia where I started work as a Divemaster on a boat in Cairns.
For the first time I had found an environment where I could live completely on my terms and I had found a dream job that really was something I would pay to do.
I found a very healthy balance of working hard 6 days a week and chilling out in the evening on my balcony with a joint and watching the sun set over the mountains.
Once I had found Byron Bay and Nimbin, where marijuana and their cookies are totally legal, my life would change forever.
My initial thinking was if I went public or come out so to speak as a weed smoker I would be able to debate and hopefully end my personal prohibition.
The thinking being that prohibition of any activity starts with oneself then the next person who says No.
I felt that if I was as open as possible and polite and considerate in my smoking habits that I could redefine the social tolerances and reclassify it as healthier alternative to a tobacco.
The seduction went a lot further in that I felt that the global championing of this cause could be the legacy and higher calling that I'd been searching for.
The cancer research aspect of my personal justification was potent and dangerous in the sense that I felt quite noble in opening the path for cancer sufferers to self medicate when needed.
It could potentially justify that I was primitively doing my own research but this was hardly scientific and probably a weak justification for bad behavior.
The very real and good news that Marijuana has been found to help cure breast cancer by the University of Madrid is undeniably the positive news that all stoners love to hear to support a change in legislation. It was heart-warming optimism rather than the oppressive criminal sanctions and punitive threats that weed smokers have faced for so long.
I felt drug users and addicts had been very misunderstood and unfairly treated historically and could potentially be the last group of heavily persecuted minorities undefined by sex, race or age.
What actually followed was two years of destroying my reputation as a normal functioning self-sustaining adult, which threw me into intervention after intervention with little result due to a deep twisted logic so hard to unwind.
The difficulty was that smoking cigarettes has permeated every aspect of my day from morning ritual with a coffee, post meals to night outs socially smoking, which inevitably meant that weed quickly crept into my every day. Once the floodgate once opened it was hard to close.
I quickly gained confidence with smoking everywhere, anytime and justifying it as a healthier alternative to cigarettes.
This meant that my identity as a slightly high constant stoner who clearly had a dependence issue was quickly established.
In retrospect had I done this with alcohol or any other stimulant I would have been easily able to see the potential for concern, it had almost become a personal challenge to see if I could operate in this cloudy haze.
The inevitable paranoia or at least sensitivity to being the law breaker in any circumstance brought about unwanted whispers if not unneeded attention all for the wrong reasons and undeniable changed my social status.
I probably enjoyed the initial rebellious protagonist role playing with a slightly naughty school boy type attention seeking or even worse someone who was leveraging his social status and relationships to justify a self indulgent / self destructive habit. It was clearly not socially accepted behavior.
Even in the face of homelessness and no work prospects I was still struggling to historically justify my self-destruction and warrant future support for the change in legislation and perhaps even relapse of my own bad habit.
It was the adolescent chest beating and arrogant flagrant disrespect for the law that was likely my undoing.
A potentially harsh analogy but like alcoholics people don't like being around people that are drunk or high.
Similar to the principle of the rule of law social behavior is fundamentally dictated by the individuals in said situation and for the most part people don't object too heavily and tolerate pot smokers. The truth is there are rarely legal ramifications to smoking in public but the commercial viability of being stoned in any work situation is distinctly different.
Like George and the dragon here I was trying to take a stand on the legal and social stigma attached to weed smokers by attempting to be a fresh face of rehabilitation whilst shooting myself in the foot socially and commercially.
I was doing my best to advance my life and self sustain a life in a competitive rat race and trying to carve a piece of the pie.
When I found that my job prospects and money quickly dried up the chicken and egg debate of whether the drug habit was now pacifying my daily depression or if my habit was worsening it?
The truth is that I still don't fully understand whether Marijuana was the problem or whether I was facing the hard reality that I had not found a job or vocation so tried to make it Marijuana.
To stoners the world is bright and wonderful if prohibition is over and an attempt to be a part of the momentum that brings that day closer is so attractive or such a fantasy that it partly justified the self-sabotage.
This martyr mentality is dangerous and appeals to a self-sacrifice that is not noble or required.
If pot is one day legal it will never be socially acceptable to be high everyday and my association with tobacco replacement was false and flawed in logic.
When I had to return to smoking normal cigarettes due to social circumstance I felt quite put out and sentenced to cancer by that imposing force.
It didn't occur to me that I could just not smoke anything and save the self-destruction.