Letters to the Editor
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I'm addicted to food--but I'm alive!
I'm addicted to exercise--but I'm really healthy!
I think the question is, are you writing to an advice columnist because you think your high-functioning in the presence of intense drug use is SO WEIRD that you want outside input, or because part of you thinks you're not actually doing that great?
It sounded like things are going well in your letter, like you've thought about the various spheres of life--work, friends, emotions--and have decided they're all okay. If that's really true...well, I'm a big fan of pot. NO WAY could I function the way you do if I were smoking as much of it, so I don't. You are not the first person I've heard of who does incredibly well with a daily pot habit.
What if the headline was: "I take Prozac every day--but I've never been happier!" Some people would still have a problem with it. Would you?
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Smoke
Just a few thoughts:
More physical activity.
Moderation.
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Enjoy it while you can...
But as crazy as it may sound, you have a very comfortable world carved out for yourself. You're on top of everything. It's all working out.
But college will be over soon. You will not be rushing back and forth to class, to work, to writing your thesis, to seeing friends. At some point, all that goes away and you find yourself in a place where you wake up, go to work, come home and repeat the next day.
That is when, for you, pot may become a poison. Enjoy it while you can, as long as your grades are up and you're fulfilling your responsibilities. But be prepared to severely lessen your usage.
But you said you're already thinking about that. Good for you.
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Chasing the Dragon
I am not a pot-smoker, nor a drinker, nor really an "-er" of any kind, but I am an artist and this I can tell you:
If you continue at your current pace, you will reach a point where you will begin to doubt your talent, your ability, even your worth as a human being, because instead of just giving the nod to pot for allowing you to stay relaxed enough to deal with the stress surrounding your accomplishments, you're going to suspect that the pot was responsible for the whole kit and kaboodle. "Oh my god. Did I get that brilliant idea when I was high? I think I did. Yeah, I was definitely high... Holy shit! What about my other brilliant ideas? Was I high when I had them? What if I only get brilliant ideas when I'm high?... Where did I put those Doritos?"
You get my point. It's just the beginning of the vicious black hole of "recreational drugs" that I've seen a so many of my artist friends fall into. For this reason alone, you should start to cut back. And it's not because pot is bad, or whatever - you will have tons of people tell you that they've smoked for forever and ever and never had a problem. But you can already see that it is a problem for you, so nip it in the bud while you're in a fairly forgiving time and place in life.
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Ask the man whose girlfriend is Mary Jane...
I noticed a big red flag in our 21-year-old pot smoker's missive:
Why all the "exes"? Why is there no current relationship? Very likely, because his girlfriend is Mary Jane. And why is it such a problem being friends with these exes - if it is a problem, why does he have so much invested in it? I bet you dollars to donuts that, after Pot Student leaves, his exes roll their eyes, look at their current significant others, and say, "I just feel sorry for him..."
He's 21, which is, and should be, the time to get stupid shit out of one's system. Imagine if he had written this letter...and he was 41.
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Cary gets an A+
I've been known to second-guess Cary in these letters, but not this time. If you give the pot-moralizers an inch they will take a mile, but he didn't give them an inch. His advice transcends that dreary debate and makes two excellent points: that the pot experience is not directly addressing the causes of stress, and that an expanded repertoire of stress-reduction techniques would be a good idea. Taking steps to understand the stress and to deal with it in a number of different ways takes the focus off the issue of pot, and in general issues of every kind get sorted out in the best and most natural way by doing precisely that. Of course, by resolving the matter in this low-key fashion, we may never get that satisfying answer about POT, or whatever external agent we are projecting our issues onto--an answer that is almost sure to be false; but we may arrive at satisfying answers about ourselves, which are likely to be true.
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follow the advice of edziu's muse.
and do realize that by smoking pot you could end up losing everything because it's illegal and you could go to jail.
Is that stupid and unfair and probably a plot to funnel profits into privatized prisons? Yes.
But it's still true, and you are taking that gamble.
If and when pot is legalized by rational people, the advice of edziu's muse--exercise and moderation--will still be good.
I also found the comment about the exes kind of odd. Not that I think it's odd that you're not in a Serious Relationship now--lighten up guys, he's 21--but, uh, why are you putting a lot of effort into being friends with exes? If its that much work maybe you're not meant to have been friends either. Let that stuff go. And LOTS of exes? That's another source of wasted energy. Relax about the girls, man. You're still a kid.
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me, i like to smoke now and again; but i'm addicted to fish oil.
I wish there were more people like you in the world, LW. I specifically wish more of my colleagues were like you. Not in the am-I-smoking-too-much way, but in the I-smoke-and-it-works-for-me-in-many-ways-though-I-have-no-interest-in-being-a-stoner way.
The thing about pot is that as paranoid as it makes some people (people who don't smoke much, I guess), it has quite the opposite effect on others. Me, when I smoke, I think more freely, more associatively, I'm all about affinities. I become less concerned with logic and thus become more myself. That effect — the more one's self effect — holds true for a lot of people. Take it from a professor: being one's self and thinking associatively are both really useful to writing, say, a senior thesis.
So if you're more relaxed and creative and yourself for all your smoking, well, finish off your senior year with a nice, long puff. But keep tabs. Be aware of yourself. As Cary suggests, know your options.