My 150th Article
Time to reveal something...
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Recently, I have been thinking about how long it has been since I started at JoeUser. I went to check out my account details and saw I have been here since the 27th of September, 2005. I also saw I have a whole lot more points than I thought I would (currently 68728). For someone who has never been concerned with the points system, this came as a real pleasant surprise. The other big piece of information I found while trawling around is my current ranking. I’m currently at Number 38. I don’t know if this is as high as I’ve ever got, but it certainly was another big surprise. I’m not quite sure how many active users JoeUser currently has, but I’m very pleased to think I’m up there with some of the big names and some of my favourites on JoeUser.
All this thinking I was doing, unusually, was because I saw the this article would be my 150th. I decided I didn’t want to let the moment slip by with a rant or a story or a ramble. I didn’t want it to be something about the band or about Toni or about Pumpkin. I wanted it to be regarding something significant (not that any of the previous aren’t significant, of course). But I’m sure you get my drift. I wanted it to be very personal. I wanted to share something I hadn’t shared before.
I feel so close to a number of you, which is why I started to feel like I’ve not been completely honest. Okay, I’ve not lied about anything but I’ve chosen not to reveal something about me for fear of having a number of you think less of me because of it. I think so much of a number of my JU friends, I refer to them as my online family and I would hate to let down or disappoint a good number of you. Let me offer this caveat before I go any further: not all of you are in my sidebar favourites list, mainly because I haven’t updated it. I think if I did, it would be considerably larger.
Earlier this year, I posted a rambling blog which included a rather cryptic mention about me undertaking to change a habit I’d had for the last 13 odd years. I am pleased to say I feel I’m clear of this bad habit now and am feeling much better for it.
Here goes: I had been smoking marijuana every single day, without fail, for the last 13 years. There, my big secret is out. I think I might have surprised a few of you and I’m sure others are probably saying ‘yeah, so, what is he going on about?” I decided at the end of last year I was going to clean up my act. And I have. It wasn’t a money issue, it wasn’t a health issue but rather a stuckedness, to use a phrase one of my closest JU friends introduced to me (thanks Shovel). I have never been one for not moving forward but I felt my habit had been one of the very few things I’d started not liking about myself yet was loathe to stop because there were moments when I really like being stoned.
Over the previous years as a smoker, I've also been a grower and a dealer. I'm not telling you because I'm proud, I'm just filling in the details for you. None of these activities have been in huge quantities and it was mainly to feed my own habit. But I didn't have the temperament to be a dealer nor the patience to be a grower. I was a smoker, pure and simple. I saw pot as ‘the alcohol for those who don’t drink’. But it was a bad daily habit. To use the alcohol analogy again, if I was drinking everyday for the last 13 years, I would definitely be considered and alcoholic. And despite what anyone thinks, it is as bad as smoking cigarettes, which I’ve been doing for longer and particularly when I used cigarettes to ‘mull’ up the pot. Cigarettes will be next to go, believe me, but I decided I could only do one at a time.
The thing about it is I don’t feel any different. I started smoking pot when I was an adult (by this I mean I was in my late 20’s). And I believe it is this one thing that has probably saved me from a lot of the symptomatic behaviour of a typical long-term smoker. My memory is still fine, I don’t have any problems sleeping, I don’t suffer paranoid delusions and I certainly don’t feel depressed because I’m no longer smoking. The bottom line is I feeling fine, I’m doing fine and I can’t understand now why I was stuck in the abuse cycle for so long. As I said earlier, I enjoyed getting stoned but after so long as a daily habit, I just started to wonder what it was all about.
In giving it away, I employed no tricks, no replacement therapies, no stand-ins or navel-gazing axioms to quit. I simply rolled the last spliff’s worth of pot in my stash, smoked it and didn’t buy any more. That was a nearly a month ago now. Sure, it has only been a month, but I already feel confident in saying the daily habit has gone for good.
I’ve been completely honest with myself about this. I am not going to say I will never smoke pot again. In fact, I’ll go even further to say I probably will smoke it again at some point in the future. To use the alcohol analogy for the third time, I have a drink maybe once every couple of weeks. Sometimes I go for weeks without a drop of alcohol passing my lips. Most times when I drink, I only have a few before I’ve had enough. Sure, there are the very rare occasions when I tie one on. I really enjoy these times too, but I never go overboard. Hell, I’m a responsible adult who is very aware of his limits. This is how I’d like to treat my use of pot. An occasional spliff with friends or a nice smoke before a quiet evening watching a good DVD. These are the moments when I enjoy having a smoke, moments when I'm not expected to do anything but chill out.
I just don’t need it daily in my life anymore.
I hope I haven’t shocked any one here enough that they won’t talk to me again. But as I said earlier, I think of some of you as my family. You have earned the right to know this about me. For anyone who can’t deal with it, well I’m sorry. No hard feelings.
All this thinking I was doing, unusually, was because I saw the this article would be my 150th. I decided I didn’t want to let the moment slip by with a rant or a story or a ramble. I didn’t want it to be something about the band or about Toni or about Pumpkin. I wanted it to be regarding something significant (not that any of the previous aren’t significant, of course). But I’m sure you get my drift. I wanted it to be very personal. I wanted to share something I hadn’t shared before.
I feel so close to a number of you, which is why I started to feel like I’ve not been completely honest. Okay, I’ve not lied about anything but I’ve chosen not to reveal something about me for fear of having a number of you think less of me because of it. I think so much of a number of my JU friends, I refer to them as my online family and I would hate to let down or disappoint a good number of you. Let me offer this caveat before I go any further: not all of you are in my sidebar favourites list, mainly because I haven’t updated it. I think if I did, it would be considerably larger.
Earlier this year, I posted a rambling blog which included a rather cryptic mention about me undertaking to change a habit I’d had for the last 13 odd years. I am pleased to say I feel I’m clear of this bad habit now and am feeling much better for it.
Here goes: I had been smoking marijuana every single day, without fail, for the last 13 years. There, my big secret is out. I think I might have surprised a few of you and I’m sure others are probably saying ‘yeah, so, what is he going on about?” I decided at the end of last year I was going to clean up my act. And I have. It wasn’t a money issue, it wasn’t a health issue but rather a stuckedness, to use a phrase one of my closest JU friends introduced to me (thanks Shovel). I have never been one for not moving forward but I felt my habit had been one of the very few things I’d started not liking about myself yet was loathe to stop because there were moments when I really like being stoned.
Over the previous years as a smoker, I've also been a grower and a dealer. I'm not telling you because I'm proud, I'm just filling in the details for you. None of these activities have been in huge quantities and it was mainly to feed my own habit. But I didn't have the temperament to be a dealer nor the patience to be a grower. I was a smoker, pure and simple. I saw pot as ‘the alcohol for those who don’t drink’. But it was a bad daily habit. To use the alcohol analogy again, if I was drinking everyday for the last 13 years, I would definitely be considered and alcoholic. And despite what anyone thinks, it is as bad as smoking cigarettes, which I’ve been doing for longer and particularly when I used cigarettes to ‘mull’ up the pot. Cigarettes will be next to go, believe me, but I decided I could only do one at a time.
The thing about it is I don’t feel any different. I started smoking pot when I was an adult (by this I mean I was in my late 20’s). And I believe it is this one thing that has probably saved me from a lot of the symptomatic behaviour of a typical long-term smoker. My memory is still fine, I don’t have any problems sleeping, I don’t suffer paranoid delusions and I certainly don’t feel depressed because I’m no longer smoking. The bottom line is I feeling fine, I’m doing fine and I can’t understand now why I was stuck in the abuse cycle for so long. As I said earlier, I enjoyed getting stoned but after so long as a daily habit, I just started to wonder what it was all about.
In giving it away, I employed no tricks, no replacement therapies, no stand-ins or navel-gazing axioms to quit. I simply rolled the last spliff’s worth of pot in my stash, smoked it and didn’t buy any more. That was a nearly a month ago now. Sure, it has only been a month, but I already feel confident in saying the daily habit has gone for good.
I’ve been completely honest with myself about this. I am not going to say I will never smoke pot again. In fact, I’ll go even further to say I probably will smoke it again at some point in the future. To use the alcohol analogy for the third time, I have a drink maybe once every couple of weeks. Sometimes I go for weeks without a drop of alcohol passing my lips. Most times when I drink, I only have a few before I’ve had enough. Sure, there are the very rare occasions when I tie one on. I really enjoy these times too, but I never go overboard. Hell, I’m a responsible adult who is very aware of his limits. This is how I’d like to treat my use of pot. An occasional spliff with friends or a nice smoke before a quiet evening watching a good DVD. These are the moments when I enjoy having a smoke, moments when I'm not expected to do anything but chill out.
I just don’t need it daily in my life anymore.
I hope I haven’t shocked any one here enough that they won’t talk to me again. But as I said earlier, I think of some of you as my family. You have earned the right to know this about me. For anyone who can’t deal with it, well I’m sorry. No hard feelings.
Or maybe I just like steers, beers and... long horizons. 
