SCABs

SCA Weed Free – By @TristanAmadeus

Tristan Amadeus

By Tristan Amadeus

 

SCA Weed Free

 

As of Monday, I have been weed free for 6 days. I’m not going to lie, after smoking it everyday for over a decade (bar scatterings of tolerance breaks and holidays here and there), this week has not been easy.

I’ve had to adapt the masks I wear for certain occasions. Integrate myself back into society. Distract my cannabis dependant mind. Throw my heart and soul into my work.

During my “high life”, I’ve associated all happy memories and experiences with the herb. The thought of leading a weed free life, is/was, well embarrassingly, complete trepidation. 

Yes I found it good at the start, all us pot heads do, but when you have to smoke weed to function, to feel normal. Not cool man.

And no matter what all the old school pot heads say, it does fuck you up in the long run. 

Yes I smoked it with tobacco, so the double cravings are fucking horrible. Last time I quit, I replaced the void with the even nastier demon. I was a bigger chimney than the Croydon power stations back in the day.

This time, I’ve quit, double barrelled shotgun style. 

I’ve quit several times in the past (longest being 12 and a half months). However, cognitive dissonance became too much, and all the cannabinoids in my brain conspired against me (cue Eminem’s ‘Relapse’ album).

Why did I stop?

A plethora of reasons.

  1. I hated waking up with a head full of smog every day. My alarm went off, and my first thought was: Fuck me this is too much, I need a joint.  
  2. I hated that cacking feeling all day throughout school. Then completely greening out at home, whilst trying to work.
  3. I hated the feeling of standing in a shop, taking 10 minutes to decide whether I wanted ready salted or salt & vinegar…Jesus.
  4. I hated my mood swings when I wasn’t high.
  5. I hated haemorrhaging my Dad’s bank account every day.
  6. I hated having an idea, then being too faded to carry it out.
  7. I hated flaking on my friends, because the thought of a night in with Mary, was better than a night out with with Mike.
  8. Post-rationalising, justifying to myself.
  9. I hated being defined by weed (and drugs in general) to some people.
  10. I hated…ffs, I hated a lot of things about it, but I was self-medicating. I rationalised, justified, and did everything in my power to tell myself it was okay.
  11. Not being able to remember a single fucking dream.

Then recently, a series of small realisations have built up to form a big ole dirty mirror, staring back at me.

An old SCA team came in one day, and Marc asked them: “what changes in behaviour did you make to win the year?”. Answer: “Stopped doing drugs”.

The main thing though is the pedagogy of SCA 2.0. Being exposed to a a constant flux of brilliant minds, daily. Being surrounded and inspired by my fellow SCA creatives, daily. I can’t describe the effects it has had.

Also, things were turning slightly sepia with my girlfriend Georgia (she’s an ex-pothead as well, so she knew I needed to quit). The times I should have been investing in her, I was investing in Mary.

Anyways, the take away is: cannabis gives you loads of weird and wonderful ideas, but it takes away your ability to profit from them.

I just needed to get this weed thing off my chest (sorrynotsorry).

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