guess what

[alwayslean]

"I am going to stop smoking tomorrow"

How many times have I thought that? Probably more often than not, before going to bed, over the last few years. Every day is the last day. I have conducted a decade long phycological experiment on addiction using my own brain as the test subject. I constantly analyse and consider my motivations, and I have constructed an elaborate philosophy in an attempt to justify smoking.

Basically everything starts from desire. Why do birds sing?, lions rip antelope to pieces? Rabbits dig holes? Because they want something. For most animals this is food, shelter, mates, and social status. Humans however have invented all manner of material, social, mental, and phycological aspirations. We want cars, jobs, degrees, recognition from our peers, to feature in the media, a cool social life, Ipod Iphone oh and money.

What does all this have to do with dope? Well, when you succeed at something, pass an exam get a job, kiss a girl, get paid..... Your brain produces a chemical (or neurotransmitter) called dopamine, which gives you a warm thrill of confusion. That is the same thing produced by dope. Therefor to feel fulfillment, you don't need to bother spending all your time earning money, chasing women, cleaning the bathroom..... When you can just roll a joint. Once you are freed from desire, your mind can take on a new assessment of what is genuinely important to you. This is how stoners like myself justify ourselves, by criticizing regular people for being "uptight" "stressed out" or "controlled by society, man"

This is the decision that you make when you stop smoking, to try to find meaningful ways to challenge yourself and succeed at those challenges. It can be boring frustrating and pointless at first, but in the long run I believe the benefits of genuine achievements will be preferable to the blissful minimalist lifestyle of stonerism.

So here are my top 5 pieces of advice for quitting. these are aimed purely at my future self reading this, and should disregarded by everyone.

1) You will not automatically have a better life, you will automatically have the same life, but it will feel much more boring. You must challenge yourself.

2) Smoking cigarettes is ridiculous they have no discernable effect

3)Don't avoid your friends who are smoking. If you have to lose friends it will seem that its not worth it.

4)Drinking is a bad idea. When your drunk, your likely to smoke. Also it replaces one drug with another.

And the golden rule..............

5)You cannot smoke occasionally. I have quit for a few weeks, felt that I had got it out my system, and then decided that I could just have a smoke once a week or so. This has happened at least 10 times. The rule must be NEVER.

I notice alot of people only post here early in the process, then dissappear. will return with updates.

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

You have a valid point, material gain seems to be everyones goal nowadays, smoking the drug kind of takes you away from that, makes you introvert, its a shame that we cant all handle it though physically mentally. It is a shortcut to feeling a great sense of achievement, if everyone had smoked from the beginning of time maybe humans wouldnt have evolved so much, although whether humans are on the right path is another debate

[Detoxer]

well as the od saying goes 'everything in moderation'... but with drugs there are very few users who can control themselves to only use in moderation,

cigarrettes have helped me so far, I am on day 9 without weed... i have smoked 5 cigarettes in those 9 days... at the times when i was ready to break..... it depends if u use tobacco in your joints because if u do then ur quitting two drugs at once


everyone has to find there own way of quitting, there is no set way to beating your addiction because everyones addiction is unique

i think u raise some good points tho and i hope it works for you

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi alwayslean and welcome to the forum.

You make some very interesting points, drugs are the ultimate short cut to short term pleasure all you have to do is smoke, snort, shoot or swallow, although once tolerance sets in the high isn’t as fun as it used to be and sometimes you can end up having to use just to feel normal. You also lose out on so much living when all you have to do is take a drug to get your kick, which in its self can lead to feeling unfulfilled, especially when you get tolerant to the drug and it no longer gives you quite the same buzz that it once was, there’s no substitute for good living that should give most people all the fulfilment they need. It’s funny how we sometimes sell drugs to our self as the antidote to modern day materialism/consumerism/shallowness or whatever it is we don’t like about modern day society, or as some kind as instant spirituality in a box, but again this is another trick that they play on our mind, if you want to be less materialistic, more “spiritual” or whatever it is you want to be, drugs are not the only way to go about achieving that, in fact I don’t think they are a way of achieving them at all. Those things are not about using drugs and using drugs is not about those things, using drugs is the ultimate form of self-serving hedonistic instant gratification, some people buy a designer label to feel it others inhale smoke, I don’t really see that much of a difference, I think they are probably equally self indulgent, equally shallow, equally hedonistic. If you want to live a less materialistic life then live a less materialistic life, but I don’t really see the point in swapping a material dependency for a chemical one, I don’t see how it makes you any better, your still just as reliant on something for short term instant gratification. Same goes for the spiritual thing, real spirituality is not about using drugs every day, you may feel like it is but at the end of the day you are cheating, anybody can feel content and at peace with the world by taking a chemical, that’s not growth, it’s artificial, real growth comes from learning to feel that way without the need of a chemical to do so. Like I say more often than not good living, whatever that happens to be for you usually provides us with all that we need.

Anyway I am going to shut up there as I could talk about this sort of thing until the cows come home, but you do make some very good points, the only point I would maybe disagree on but maybe it depends on the individual case, is the bit about not cutting yourself off from your stoner mates, most people find that does make it a lot harder to detox and may not be able to do so unless they do. But like you say hummer whatever works for you.

Take care, thanks for that post it really was very interesting, good luck with quitting, please keep us posted on how it goes and happy new year!