I smoked daily for three years straight. I was in my early twenties when I discovered it, so being that I have a tendency to take things to extremes, I suppose I felt I had some catching up to do, which led to my frequent use.

I wouldn't say it was necessarily harmful to me, but looking back on it I feel I was lost in something of a whirlwind while everything else was going along as normal around me. People I knew graduated college and moved on to better things, and I would feel uncomfortable when these changes would take place.

I would say to myself and to old friends, "Wow, we're not kids anymore. It's crazy how much has changed."

Truth being, it's very easy to find a comfort-zone with regular use of the plant. Early twenties are a confusing time, and it's all too easy to wrap up a stressful day with a smoke session, laughing with your girlfriend in the comfort of your apartment, binging on snacks. Days become long when you're always looking forward to smoking in the evenings, telling yourself you're operating with at least some level of self control.

Then you begin to function so well on the plant that it becomes a part of your mornings. You wake up and smoke, do what you need to do, smoke even more in the evenings.

But the smoke "sessions" start to go away. You're so comfortable being high, things almost make more sense than when sober. Smoke before you take a shower, smoke before you go grocery shopping...everything is just "easier" when you're high.

Basically I quit because it wasn't fun anymore. I could function so well on the plant, I didn't really feel high anymore at all. And it was never for a lack of "dank nugs."

I think the real shift in this whole marijuana legalization thing is the fact that people are ready to admit they just want to get high. I don't think it's that big of a deal, honestly, but it's definitely easy to miss out on the world around you when you're always sneaking away to get high.

I have no idea where I read this little tidbit, so I can't provide a source, but basically it said all of the time you spent smoking and doing nothing could've been put into learning something valuable. That's probably how I'd sum it up.

I do believe smoking made me a much more compassionate/self aware person, so I could never call it a waste. I just feel like a part of me was frozen in time in that smoke filled room while the world kept spinning around me.