Can I be straight with yall?

[AliveDrive]

*Sips a beer*

Ahem...

I DO DECLARE THAT FROM THIS MOMENT HENCEFORTH, I SHALL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF MY ACTIONS, FOR AS LONG AS I SHALL REMAIN INTOXICATED!

[ConflictedX3]

I'm not gonna weigh in too much as i've only read the OP first post & don't wanna step on any other posters toes, but as far as the weed thing goes, i'm not against it, i personally choose not to smoke, i just think its not sexy and boring, but all my friends do it, but weed itself isn't a bad drug in my eyes, this might be my Jamaican (yes i'm 100% Jamaican) side being ignorant but weed itself is actually pretty healthy more or less, its a herb, and test have shown that weed smokers on average live up to almost 2 years longer than non-smokers & hell if you choose to smoke occasionally, better it be weed than cigarretes.

i'm not saying you should smoke anything, or get high to have fun, i had a very similar childhood with being in a room playing video games as my only form of interaction, so i understand your side of saying: "i'm enjoying life in a new way that just so happens to include a BIT of marijuana here & there" as opposed to people hearing "i hated my old life, i smoke weed as a result and screw my grades now" - thats not the case here, so i get that and i'm just saying if your gonna hang out and have fun i'd prefer you smoke weed over cigarettes or black & milds, if not just skip it altogether.

Just as long as you keep a mindset of self-worth and don't try OTHER things cuz you THINK you can handle them sometime down the road, then you SHOULD be fine, but smoking weekly is a bit much in my mind, no matter what the substance is your gonna get an addiction, humans are fragile --> hell if i had Nutella chocolate weekly for a year i'd prolly end up eating someone's face off in miami if they banned the stuff, but smoking monthly or even better: "once in a blue moon" is different. I've tried weed and black & milds each on seperate occasions of years apart, and it'd be no more than a single digit number of hits,maybe i'm not attracted to it as i really don't see the allure but its def possible to enjoy something in moderation.

and keep your grades up, i just graduated, schools always gonna suck but its nice to apply yourselves once in awhile, never know when a teacher takes interest in a student and tries to get them a job that pays better than a fast food joint.

[Blizzard]

I just wanted to add that I also believe that formal education is good. While you may waste a lot of time learning unimportant stuff as well, you will probably learn some things that you may have never learned otherwise that are important to you. e.g. It took me 5 years to get my master and guess what unexpected skill I learned from that: patience and stress management. If I hadn't gone to college, my stress management skills wouldn't closely be as good.

[Spoofus]

Well i finally got around to reading this topic and I thought I would say something at least.

I do indulge using "weed" myself.I use to smoke literally at least 4 times a day, which is pretty bad I know I was maybe around the age of 15 when I started,and I actually picked up on it from my own dad from a really young age,but I did start on my own accord.Now I highly don't recommend ever doing as much as I have done,since you can get to the point every day of literally just wanting to do nothing at all.My brother had recently lost his job and he is how to put it...a "weedaholic", now I know you can't get addicted to the stuff,but you can trick your mind into thinking that it is something you have to have on a constant basis,I was almost the same when I was younger but over the past 5 years I have drastically lowered my use of "weed" to maybe twice a month and it is always on my days off from work.I am 25 years old now and that old saying "wisdom comes with age" is a very true fact, and as I got older I began to realize what i was doing with myself and eventually got my act together and started to do something with my life.

Also Taboo it is good to know that you are very capable of quitting at any point and time,that shows you have the willpower to stop,which is a very good thing.All I can say is try to quit smoking it or in the very least cut down your smoking to at least something similar to what I do and it really shouldn't effect anything,but preferably try to quit it all together.Your still young so you have a lot of time to make something of yourself,it took me longer to get that through my head for myself than I would have liked I was 20 when I finally realized, that hey I could be doing something with my life in stead of sitting around with my thumb up my ass

[ForeverZer0]

"I can quit anytime I want, I just don't want to."

[Subsonic_Noise]

"I can quit anytime I want, I just don't want to."

Marihuana is psychologically addicting, like coffee or sugar are, and not physically, like cocain, valium and cigarettes. So as opposed to those, someone who's mentally strong can quit anytime, just as I did. Though the question is if someone who's not mentally strong would admit that to themselves.

[ForeverZer0]

Everyone possesses the mental capacity to quit, that's not the issue, its a matter of realizing it and putting it to use. There is a world of difference between speaking it without having done it, and actually putting it to the test.

I can say that I know how to pilot an airplane all I want, and really truly believe it, but until I have actually done it successfully, its stupid to put faith in it. I overcame heroin addiction, does that mean I am mentally strong? Would I have got addicted in the first place if I were? It has nothing do with mental strength, as so many believe. In every rehab, NA meeting, AA meeting, etc., that is the first way of thought that needs to be broken before you can successfully recover. So long as you think that you can beat it with mental strength alone, you aren't getting anywhere. Its more of a matter of replacing old habits with new ones.

[Blizzard]

Actually I am not completely sure that coffee/caffeine creates only a mental addition. I think it does make you physically addicted to an extent. As far as I remember, caffeine inhibits the natural production of something in your body that should "wake you up" because the caffeine took over that job. Though caffeine addiction is relatively easy to cure as the brain recovers in 1-2 weeks.

EDIT: Except you are speaking about the push-up effect (or whatever it's called) of caffeine, because that IS a mental thing.

[ForeverZer0]

Yeah, as an avid coffee drinker, caffeine is addicting physically. Not anything near on par with other addictive substances, but minor stuff, such as headaches or overall feeling of "blah" if I don't have any.