*How To Quit Smoking Weed: A Dark Comedy

1. Establishing the Problem

Establish that you're afraid you have a problem. That you're scared your lungs will just fall to ashes. You'll try to blow out your 40th birthday candle, and you'll huff out dust like your grandfather's old vacuum cleaner. Embarrassing right?

2. The Smoking Circle Dilemma

Talk to your friends who smoke. Maybe they can offer some insights while one of you waits to roll up some weed. You tell them you want to quit. That smoking just isn’t doing the trick of releasing you from your earthly body. They tell you that holding it in longer makes the high stronger. But that's bullshit, debunked by science.  Not the advice you came for. You'll feel disgusted that you'd hurt yourself like this to begin with.  You'd have to acknowledge that your parents fucked you up and you were underprepared to be an adult, still wearing your shirt from 8 years ago. Pointing fingers at Mommy and Daddy, you should get them chopped off. You did this all on your own accord.

3. Isolation

You'll have realized that some friends aren't good all the time. Maybe you need to spend time with no one at all. Everything you've been searching for, that answer to help you quit overnight, will just become itself so easily. You’ll smoke in secret while waiting for a ghostly intervention. Maybe even the spirits will want some. Wake them up to a party. Dance amongst the stoners who did it before you. Blow that thick smoke and light some candles. Call in Bukowski, his tombstone said  Don’t Try. Maybe you shouldn’t quit now, the time isn’t right… Bukowki has a point even from the grave. He is just the right ghost to partake.

4. First Attempt

Your first attempt wasn’t even an attempt. More like a stunt. There’s no one left to convince but yourself. Your present self, the past one, and the future version sitting at that table; in front of your cake,  smiling with plaque on your teeth. Get serious about it now. Today. Lay it all at your feet. Put the pipe, the bong, and the lighters where you can’t reach. Put them in a locked box, forget the combination, toss the key in the lake with all the alligators to safekeep.

5. Let's be honest with ourselves

            Well, you’re not perfect. This is just the addiction that grabbed you the most. Most people choose sugar, pills, liquor, self-loathing….. You’re in on that last one, too. Don’t listen to anyone sitting across from you in some IHOP at 3 am saying you’re an addict, you know that, right? Just say yes to give them satisfaction so they can think they're better than you. Just say yes to owning it. Just say yes. You can’t feel your shame that way, right? You listen to them talk about how they haven’t sipped water in 2 weeks or a vegetable in years. How they just can’t get the person they want, there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re sooooo perfect. Ha - Ha … Addiction to love is a thing too. While they down another drink with 200 grams of sugar. They’ll be out of this worldly plain before you. But hey, we’re all taken by the hand of something. You would rather leave with the sweet skunk of kush.

6. Alternative Strategies

Ask your sober friends, what are the clean vices? They'll tell you about working out and breathing exercises that've been practiced by monks for millennia - it'll make you feel high. We promise. But none of them smoke or even have bad habits. They’re all well-rounded. Scared off by their bad experiences with weed. They don’t understand how it helps you check out. How it help you not dream of drowning in water too deep.  Dreams of lying in the alligator's jaws, diving for the key. But what do you know? They’re enjoying their life without a substance.

7. Inevitable Relapse

These didn't work. You couldn’t even take a breath deep enough to make a difference… You still haven’t had a bad experience with weed. Not even that time you puked into your soup pot because the edible was too strong and it felt like termites were humming under your skin. Your face was melting into your pillow, and you were stuck in a fetal position. Begging your best friend to stay in your room so you don’t sink into the springs in your mattress. Your best friend would have to pull you out piece by piece... Nah, that doesn’t count. Revisit step 2. Your dealer, Champagne, has the best weed. Don’t ask his real name.

8. Family Ghosts

Where did you learn this habit of defeat? Bargain with yourself to light another one. You got black papers. To look cool while you ruin yourself. Blow out a cloud that shapes into the locks of the Rastaman who raised you. Eight spliffs in the top pocket. Close to his heart, nothing else has made its way there.

9. Body

Your mother told you to stop eating because you’re big enough. Well, smoke has no calories. It fills you with nothing, so you binge eat. Because sometimes that nothing leaves you chasing clouds, so you eat till you weigh as much as a boulder. God, bong hits give the worst munchies, but food is never this good sober.

10. Self-Negotiation

Let's be honest. You don't want to be your father. You'll never be the size of your mother. Maybe a sweet middle? Something chocolate-filled. Maybe breathing is necessary. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll want to be around in a couple of years to breathe fresh air into your lungs instead of out of some oxygen tank. Being a part of the free world is a good thing. Keep telling yourself that.

11. The Addiction's Narrative

Weed is fun. It's the only thing that brings back the feelings you thought were stolen. It makes everything better, doesn't it? It helps you forget that your bills are due, you have to get up for work in 3 hours, smoke some more because sleep hasn’t met you halfway, forget he never called you back, forget you got blocked because you asked too many damn questions. Forget you never filled your tank. Forget you used your last 30 on an eighth. The next day, you woke up late.

12. Creative Delusion

It helps with being creative, right? Yes, yes of course! The best ideas have come when you can feel your heartbeat in your brain, when you’re dancing in the kitchen in your underwear, the music is so much better, and you don't care what the bugs think. But you can imagine him here still laughing at your two left feet. This would make a great short story if you could remember it.

13. Breaking Point

Cold Turkey. You quit. But a piece of an edible doesn't count. Just to take the edge off. Just so you won't notice how dirty the floors are, so the boss's voice still sounds like MEH MEH MEH, you’ll never get that raise, how your dishes are molding in the sink, how you haven't cleaned the bathroom in at least 2 weeks, how you can't stop thinking your life is a chariot of horses released into a Roman ring. Speared down, head first. You can hear the cheering enemies.

14. Rock Bottom

You feel closer to the edge than ever. You can't think, and your tangents are so long your friends think you’ve lost the plot. You’re trying to rake through the fog. You’re not writing anymore, and you have to smoke to eat. Your mucus is yellow, lowness you’ll meet- cough it up in the sink. Lower than the bottom of the ocean and swollen with people's judgments. Your skin is tight, and you look at least 3 years older. Your lips are black and stripped. You don’t know if you're high today because what does the world even feel like when you're sober? You don't know who you’re seeing in the mirror, and you need to smoke to think it over…

15. Resistance

It's been 3 weeks now. You haven't touched a tail. You have to grip your steering wheel and tell the car to keep driving straight. No detours to the smoke shop, even though it's two-for Tuesdays. But soon the gum rot will leave you with no teeth. You can't be a gentle parent to yourself. A ball of desire with no ropes to bind your legs, your debit card, or your fingers to a pole. So you lock yourself away as if it's a full moon every night. Force yourself to type. This and that. Put the cravings on paper. Howl when you can’t sleep, wake up the neighbors. It's better to stay away because you are easily led astray by the things that hurt you. You’re easily distracted when your insides hurt and your anxiety is eating your mind. It’ll all pass in due time. It’s never a good time when it’s your turn to be sober. 

* Don’t apply this to alcohol, sugar, or love. I’m no expert, just a lonely girl looking for a hug. This is just what worked for me.