So here we are. After all these years. After blog posts, relapses, self discoveries, breakdowns, rituals, and a thousand conversations with myself, we’ve finally arrived. And now I’m about to ruin the entire blog.
The whole premise. The whole quest. The hours and hours I’ve spent philosophising about the deeper meaning of quitting weed. All the existential questions. All the internal monologues. Because my eureka moment, the thing I’ve uncovered after this long and noble journey of introspection, is probably the most obvious thing ever discovered.
It was the tobacco.
That bastard.
All along.
Let me dress it up in as much ridiculousness as I can, to soften the blow of how spectacularly obvious it is. We’re not talking Indiana Jones cracking ancient riddles here. More like a bloke who just figured out water is wet.
The year was 2018. The place, Amsterdam. Of course it was.
I stroll into a coffeeshop, ready to do what one does in a coffeeshop, and I see something that stops me. No tobacco. Weed is fine. Joints? Sure. But actual tobacco? Forbidden. As if someone had walked into a pub and announced, no glasses allowed. Drink straight from the tap.
Weird, but whatever. I’m adaptable. On each table, there’s a pot. A weird little pot of something green. Not weed, not baccy. Something different. Turns out it’s herbal tobacco. Essentially dried grass dressed as a nicotine replacement. Looked a bit like weed itself, which confused my fingers for a second. It was free. That was all the reason I needed.
So I used it. Rolled it. Smoked it. And you know what? I quite enjoyed it. No nicotine. No sketchy vending machines. No wandering the streets stoned trying to buy baccy from a man named Erik with a vending code and a cold stare. Just me, a joint, and a weirdly pleasant absence of inner compulsion.
BACK IN ENDZ
Came back to the UK, and though I had dube in my drawer, plenty of it, ready to go, I just couldn’t be bothered. Couldn’t be bothered to get high. And that’s when I thought, where the hell had Smeagol gone?
This is the same Smeagol who, come 8:30PM sharp, would start whispering in my head” like a Victorian butler who also happened to be a fiend. “Master, it’s time, you must prepare the precious!” I mean, even if I was mid-orgy with ten of my favourite porn stars, proper lineup!!! I still would’ve peeled myself away just to roll a spliff. Because as powerful as their collective grip(s) may have been, weed had the stronger overall grip on me, and that’s saying something!!
Smeagol always won.
But not this time.
Like any rational man who just discovered something powerful, I went straight to eBay and bought a sack of dusty old leaves off a stranger. More herbal tobacco. Job done. I rolled with it. Permanently. I don’t smoke rollies. I don’t want baccy. I just wanted the weed.
And then it hit me, properly hit me, that the thing dragging me back night after night for years wasn’t Mary Jane. It was nicotine. That physically addictive bastard. Sneaking into every joint, every ritual, every high. All this time I blamed the weed. Gave it lectures. Wrote blog posts about how I was addicted to it.
Nah.
It was the nicotine dressed up in a joint, like a parasite in a party hat.
SPREAD THE LOVE
Naturally, I shared this groundbreaking revelation. I told my mates.
“Lads. It’s not the weed. It’s the tobacco. I’ve figured it out. I’ve cracked it. I’ve beaten the matrix.”
They mocked me. (rightfully)
One mate tried the herbal stuff and said it tasted like foot. Not a foot. Just foot. Singular. As if he was well acquainted with what one tastes like. Which raises questions I’m still not ready to ask. The name stuck. Now we all call it Foot.
Another mate still uses it to cut his tobacco, which is something. A step. But no one really followed the gospel. The church of Foot never found its congregation.
That’s fine. I didn’t preach. I just kept going.
And now here we are. Six years after launching this whole blog to understand my weed addiction, and what do I come back with?
Tobacco is addictive.
Well done, mate. You’ve rediscovered the wheel. Reinvented fire. Congratulations. Here’s a medal and a GCSE in bloody obviousness.
But here’s the real point, buried underneath all the self mockery.
Weed is fun.
Weed is tasty.
Weed is sometimes silly, sometimes spiritual.
But it’s not heroin.
You can get addicted to anything, cheese, bread, Instagram, chaos, but it’s not the same as chemical dependency. Tobacco, that’s a hook. A real one. And it had me. For years. Pretending it was the weed.
The Americans don’t mix weed with tobacco. And I get it now. They dodged a bullet. A brown, crumbling, fifteen quid a pouch bullet.
So yeah. I didn’t quit weed. I just removed the bastard that was actually in charge.
And once he was gone?
I finally got my life back. Or at least, I got to choose when to light up.
Which, in the end, is all I ever really wanted.
o you went downstairs made a sandwich mulled for a bit, made your way back upstairs to your room sat down in your trusty chair, unpaused that YouTube video you were halfway through. Everything here seems fairly normal so what’s the deal right? However, beknown to yourself things couldn’t be far from the trust. For come the end of your once filled bag of weed and how much you’ve sold compared to how much you should have sold isn’t adding up? Now the person in this story has no clue what’s going on for they’d never believe their loved ones could steal from them let alone accuse them. However we know different not cos people are inherently bad but moreover, the title of this blog gives it away.
So let’s take this back to many a day when wasted. I would spend hours setting up my bedroom with fans and canned air fresher to combat the fat ass Dubey that I had rolled. I remember leaving the room after smoking one to only come back to only realise that the entire upstairs corridor stank out! MISSION FAILED. I didn’t have a balcony or a big ass window but tried none the less to work with the room and create an Amsterdamesk Smoke-Free CoffeeShop environment. Things would be great, they really would and I put that down to the great weed I’d be smoking. This was complete zen, in my place of choosing everything was perfect…. right up until my mother bursting into the room shouting obscenities at me. Occasionally, during the summer with everybodies windows open, my smoke would go around the house and enter my sister’s bedroom. I’ll never forget how she ended up screaming at the top of her voice outside the window at midnight “STOOP SMOKING CANNABIS!!, IT’s ILLEGAL, I’m CALLIN THE POLICE!!” Now I was high as fuck, but hearing her voice echoing around the neighbourhood her shouting at the high of lungs was kinda a buzzkill.
On the 19 Oct 2009 in America the U.S Justice Department announced that federal prosecutors would not go after medicinal users and distributors who complied with state laws. Back then nobody really knew what was going on, as under US Federal Law weed was still illegal even in states that legalised it hence we saw an explosion of dispensaries being stormed into my large teams of DEA. However almost a decade later, it seems that this is actually real and I watch YouTube videos with people referring to their ganja as ‘medicine’ which is a testament to how times have changed.
massive bud from his sack. This is your cue to look at the weed in the light and return back glorious compliments of how wonderful and crystaly and amazing this stuff is. You’re the best!! Sir, How much for this FANTASY weed that you possess. “It’s pretty hi-grade stuff, it’s a little bit more expensive that than the usual” At this point, you wonder “didn’t you have this same sack here last week” Alas, you stop wondering and reconnect with his speaking again, and reply as if you were listening the whole time. In which among his blurb was a price, of how much the damage will be for this WEED that has been grown by the Elves of Mordor. More expensive? but only by $10 you think,… fine! As you’ve travelled so far anyway to get here, seems pointless to care for a ten. HOld on? wasn’t it a ten more last week and the week before that?? In fact, what was once $340 an Ounces is now $490 cos apparently this new shit is “REALLY GOOD and apparently worth the amount…Grown by Elves remember!?!?!” You start to ponder on this and you wonder if you really can leave this house without buying anything?
Quite literally, one day you decide!! “I’ve had it! I will no longer be a slave to you pressure me selling weed, which in fairness was always good but not quite MORDOR level one thinks. WELCOME the Dark Markets from the DEEP WEB….HELLOOOOO!!! So one decides through a friend who happens to be adept with the deep web and knowledgeable in this area to get some stuff in, can’t hurt for a change. To begin with, it is dark very dark until you open the PACKAGE, and exposed are the beautiful buds of weed were the light bounces off the crystals blinding you and everyone else in the room. This experience is life changing and affects the core of how you see life – can you ever go back to the way it was?
NOT HAPPY? – NO SHIT SHERLOCK… HELL NO, he ain’t fucking happy about this! He broke the 2nd law of business which was ‘DO NOT BE GREEDY’. Those who flease, and extort may receive larger than usual payouts, however, that also could be the last payout. It’s unfortunate, but it’s simply a no-brainer, buying online allows you the ability to shop about, and choice weed at prices that suite you and assuming you’ve found a good vendor you can buy some absolutely insanely good weed. Now your ex-dealer lets it slide the first week, and perhaps even the second, but wait you’ll get a phone call asking you to come over as he’s got “some cheaper weed to sell if you’re interested”. You attended as requested, and on entering you realise clearly, it’s the same stuff as before as I mean let’s be honest, that 2-pound bag of weed isn’t disappearing overnight. Let’s give the guy of a break, he’s lost some big business here and some could argue it’s not his fault, others could say it was his fault as his continual racking up the prices i.e his greed led his customers to explore the potential of looking elsewhere. On doing they found better and bright deals, which actually suited them more in every way. So sure, Mr EX DEALER will be really annoyed at you, and he won’t be shy to show it.
So sure I’ve been clean before but never this long!! This must be some personal record and definitely feels like one as I’ve experienced truly new things on this trip. So back to the old question do I miss smoking weed? Occasionally yes I do- I won’t lie there are times when for that I’m feeling smoking A FATTY usually is the perfect remedy and the right fix. That said unfortunately I went there and got the T-SHIRT and crossed over into the addict zone and by doing so crossed myself off the casual user list permanently. The funny thing is I still don’t know how to roll a joint properly, unlike so many of my fellow smokers, each joint I think subconsciously I role in a different way on purpose.
Firstly and for mostly let’s just go there I have my brain back and seeing my mental horse power return has really felt just fucking AWESOME! My memory recall is accurately on point, where I can CONFIDENTLY remember I left my keys I can easily recall dates to have any numbers such as times and the thing that most stands out are numbers/details aren’t blurry in my mind anymore – I believe many describe this as brain fog. I’m a lot more active now that I was before as for the obvious reason I am not constantly using a sedative in the high-volume every single evening. I.e. I wake up much easier in the morning almost like a PC start-up time if you wanna call it is much like Linux running on the SSD(Computer science joke apologies).
My mind isn’t as any less creative than it was before, if anything being high all the time was mearly my way of putting my brain into creative mode but just being stuck there and I’ll ultimately be unable to exit that mode and actually action any of the ideas that I had conceived. I walked closer and closer to the world of being a dreamer. Unfortunately my appetite is not as bad as it was before as back in the old days even though I was full to the brim being a high meant that I was able to continuously eat into the early hours of the morning this is not the case.
Hello again, haven’t we met before. My name is COLD TURKEY, and yes we’ve definitely met before.
You’ve got enough left for one dube, shall you smoke it? OH GO ON – GET HIGH you deserve it you’ve been good. So you smoke it, it’s okay you can get some more tomorrow from the usual guy at the usual place. Alas arrives tomorrow and you text the usual guy and get ready to go the usual place but he takes his time to reply and as you know from experience this happens – so you remain ready. However, when he does reply the news it’s not quite what you expected “HE OUT”. Now this message is meant to be a police safe SMS, i.e. “I’m IN” meaning I got shitloads to sell as opposed to “I’m OUT” meaning very quite the opposite as the sentence suggests anyway. As you start to think about implications the choice to smoke or not has now been removed and as the reality sinks in and you’re left wanting it even more and more, so what to do. Time for the DUBEY TEST!
These results can be interpreted into one of many ways to mean one of many different things. It could be that all 3 / 4 people respond immediately saying “COME OVER RIGHT NOW, In fact I’ve sent an UBER round to come get you so save you the effort of driving” In which case you have the nicest friends in the world and you should remain happy that they hold you such high esteem, one day you’ll have to make the difficult choice of making one of these great men your best man or woman. LUCKY YOU as you sit there in somebody’s flat smoking copious amounts of somebody’s else weed and for a moment you feel like a kid in a candy store.
Now we come to you, unfortunately yes this happened where you waited eagerly staring at your phone. Made sure the ringer was on, incase you missed their call or text and you checked the ringer further again twice more… it definitely was on. An hour went by and still nothing and now it was no longer about smoking weed with anyone but your pride and ego is under threat. Does nobody care?? REALLY?? the reality sinks once more – this was massive, you know they’ve all recieved and read the message and rather than replying being honest they’ve opted to concoct a story the following day. You go to bed feeling nothing but bitterness and spite towards these people for one day they’ll ask you for something and that day you’ll remember this one!!! and like that you cry yourself to sleep…..zZZZ
So you do your usual thing, go pick up some weed from your dealer, go home and smoke that shit up! However it’s happened again hasn’t it, ie sure you’re high but are you really enjoying this one? (If you are read on no further) however if even after a couple of joints a vaping session you’re still feeling like you’re in plateau land i.e. you’re not sure if you’re stoned, or find yourself questioning “Why does this feel like just being totally normal” or “maybe this weed isn’t the chronic, this is some low grade shit” then it’s that time again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s quite possible that you are smoking some low grade weed and you bumped by your dealer and you’re smoking some inferior yak.
Lets not forget how much money you been blowing on this addiction. i.e If I could give back your clean healthy lungs with a pretty fat pay cheque being the sum of the honest cost of how much you spent of smoking cannabis would you take it? You know you always see on television and online scary adverts of what your lungs and inner linings will look like if you’re a weed/ smoker but you probably always do what I do and just ignore them thinking it won’t be you. Well I recently had my checked with one of those pinhole cameras which the doctor very unpleasantly stuck up my nose and pushed it down my throat and guess what – just like the TV adverts there was white tar bullshit lining my gut. Fuck!
It’s that time of night, and your friend picks up his phone and dials a number. “Hey man you around?” he asks. “Great, that sounds awesome I’ll see you in a bit” and like that he suddenly ends the call. Within no time at all a random guy is standing at the door asking for my friend. I leave them talking, and as my buddy leaves the guy and re-enters the room he’s got a big ass bag of weed in his hand! “Your dealer delivers?” you ask politely. “oh he’s not really a dealer, he’s like just a friend that sorts us out from time to time” he tells you. You’re fine with that and you move on to rolling a joint and eventually spark up and start smoking. As you puff rings of glory in the air, you undoubtedly conclude that this is the best weed you’ve ever smoked. You ask your friend, “So how much did this stuff cost you?”, and he replies back with a figure that’s so low your brain can’t properly comprehend the information. At that moment you weigh up that, your friend can get orgasmic weed, at discount prices, DELIVERED TO HIS DOOR, and all times of day and night!! whHaT????? Overload… your brain starts buckling under extreme pressure, for you must acquire this SUPER DEALER’S number and services IMMEDIATELY.
Ok you hesitate a little but with no further ado you just come out and ask him “ermm hey man, can I get your guy’s number from you?”. He squirms around a little and shrugs his shoulders and eventually says “errr dude, I can’t man, he’s not really a dealer, he wouldn’t like it”. “HE’S NOT REALLY A DEALER?!?!?!?” his words loudly echo in your mind, “You call him, you buy weed from him, how’s he not a frickin’ dealer? Is my money different to yours?” Regardless your friend has made his mind up, apparently even if you did take his number, he will not serve to you. Well isn’t that fucking great!
Are you afraid of sleeping? I ask as why else would you smoke yourself into the night watching rubbish on Netflix just to pass the time, only to avoid the day time and light. You should be eating good food, but the only thing you have available at 5am is usually McDonalds or some other greasy substitute. I’d like to think there’s another reason why you delay the inevitable or choose to slump to this from time to time. It’s weird so many other people who just constantly live in this world 24/7 and have done for so many years.
Clean the hELL UP! it’s that simple… People say Weed isn’t addictive and my infamous clash on twitter with @******** “boi weed ain’t addictive, you aints got no discipline fool” I tell that idiot he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, fucking anything can be addictive, and for any reason. I could bust a “You aint got no discipline” easily on most likely many other areas of his life, but there’s me pretending I’m talking to an intelligent person. The problem with social media is you often do talk to some really interesting inspiring people, but then without warning or notice, Ged the farmer will wanna have his 10 cents, and really it’s money that should be rebated asap!
Another really simple answer : FEAR! We destroy ourselves so that we can’t fail and have other reasons to fault and YES HERE WE GO AGAIN , OVERRR COMPLICATE the problem. It’s the reason we hold onto HATE, we know it’s like keeping that knife still stabbed into your chest there, bleeding away but it’s that life, yes it might require something EXTREME and crazy to effect an emotional change, but sometimes it’s just for comfort, or more specially cos we can. Understanding your dark sides are very important, as you’ll only ever draw power from truly mastering yourself.