I started smoking pot in early high school. There was plenty in Kentucky. The climate is conducive, and much of the land in the central and eastern parts of the state is rural and not easily accessible by car, making it well-suited for illicit crops.
I lived in dry country-not dry as in arid, but as in no liquor stores-and pot was the drug of choice, especially for the crowd under 16.
My experience might have been different had I picked up smoking at parties. From the very beginning, though, it was just me and one good friend who'd sneak off at odd times and get stoned.
I imagine it was painfully obvious to teachers and classmates when I'd get stoned before school. Between my drooping eyelids and awkward behavior, none but the most naive would think anything else. Rage built inside me from feeling so frequently ill-at-ease. Rage at teachers, rage at friends who found pot-smoking distasteful, rage at anyone whose concern or questions made it clear they felt I had a problem. Rage turned to furious apathy, and I limited my social circle and more or less stopped doing schoolwork.
Giving up the habit didn't seem like a possibility after a year of building my life around it. The recreation I chose-hiking, mountain biking, hunting squirrels in nearby woods-was to my liking because it was fun to do while stoned, or I could get stoned while doing it.
I remember once getting high before playing dodgeball at a Wednesday night Baptist youth group. I came in the side door of the church after smoking, and three kids I knew casually were right there. I tried to sneak around them with my back against the wall, as though their presence pressed me to the edge of the corridor.
I hoped it would be funny, but the wishing they weren't there was real, as was the desire to avoid conversation. No one laughed. Colors were intensified but outlines were fuzzy, and I felt that's how I must look to them with my red-rimmed, watery eyes.
I moved to Minnesota at the beginning of the summer after my sophomore year of high school. Not knowing anybody, I spent most of the two-and-a-half month break reading and fishing. There was no sudden realization or newfound joy for a sober life that led to me stopping smoking. Procuring the dope simply became impossible.
I've heard many people talk about noticing a difference after stopping. Some say they have more energy, or feel smarter after a few THC-free weeks. I do recall feeling more alert, but mainly I just found myself with a wealth of time to devote to other things. That was enough motivation not to start again.
I still feel a strange mix of admiration and jealousy for functional stoners. And dreams I dreamt years ago color my imagination. Say I daydream about a wilderness adventure or a wildly eccentric life as a novelist. These will inevitably include passing joints around a campfire, or writing late at night, lost in a world that opens up to me after I smoke. I fell in love with the idea of drugs creating a richer reality and have yet to rid myself of that infatuation.
