throwaway / porn account
im basically you +about 6 years or so. your story resonated with me a good bit, so im gonna write up a long post with my thoughts. Feel free to skip it, cuz it's really long, but I'd appreciate if you or anyone else who reads it gives me some thoughts at the end
I never did any drugs in highschool. I was a very strong student. Got into a good college with a hard major, wanted to do even more higher education after college. I started smoking weed my junior year of college because I heard it wasn't as "bad" as it was made out to be when I was younger. I instantly liked it (who wouldnt?). I did a really good job of keeping the work of college balanced with the fun of using drugs, only at the proper times (on breaks or after I had finished all other work).
Weed was something special for me. It allowed me to "stop and smell the roses" like nothing else I've ever known. I have a very objective- driven mind, which is 99% of the time a blessing, because it allows me to be very mentally competitive at things that most people struggle with. However, smoking weed sorta forces you to be in the present. I finally understood that phrase of "stop and smell the roses"
I'm a big gamer and weed allowed me to play games I normally never "could." In general, I play exclusively multiplayer games (dota2 mostly) because I just get bored so quickly with single player games. I play them for ~5 hours and then they just lose their appeal- I think nonstop about the fact that after I invest 20 hours into this game I will beat it and have gained nothing. At least with multiplayer games I feel I am honing a skill- this is the mindset that allows me to sink many hours into multiplayer games. When I discovered weed, I found that for the first time, my mind was slower, I was "worse" at stuff (single player games that normally are easy like skyrim became just hard enough to give me a challenge and keep it interesting), and I was able to really notice and appreciate all of the things that make single player games art. I could look at a landscape in Skyrim and really take in the scenery, just be in awe instead of constantly thinking of how to min-max my build to finish whatever quest and get 1 step closer to finishing the game.
I continued using all through college (only weed, I did dabble with other heavier drugs but they never really called to me much... I felt they didn't do anything desirable for me). My use was always very measured and careful- I never lost sight of my "goal", to get into a higher education school (med school to be exact). I studied hard and eventually got in senior year, which was very exciting. This started the first time in my life when I really just went crazy with smoking. Most of senior year I was high, drunk, or both. Looking back, it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I met a girl who I liked a lot. I thought she was really interesting because she would notice things I never did. For example- if we were driving (sober, I never messed with that), later she'd mention how pretty a barn was we passed. I never notice stuff on the sides of the road, my mind just filters it out because it's not important to the task at hand- driving.
So, I finally started med school after smoking + drinking for about a year straight. This is the point that seems most relevant to your life now. I also found that I was in a fog- I hadn't needed to really study anything for a while (I let my grades slip because they didnt matter once I was accepted so long as I graduated). So, not only was I out of practice for studying, but I also had basically lived a full year of a very toxic lifestyle, and I was worried that I had damaged my brain's ability to learn. Lastly, and this one's more subtle, I didn't realize it till years later in retrospect--- I had no motivation. Most of my life had been progressing with a goal of getting into med school, now that I was in, I didn't have any strong desire besides to just pass and get an MD I guess. This is important, as most of my class had very compelling backstories (for example, a guy 7 years older than me had his dad die of cancer and totally changed his life course to put everything he had into trying to better himself and help others. I just did med school cuz I could, basically).
I quickly realized the drugs had to go. My gf was very supportive of that, she never really liked the drugs to start with. However, this kinda disrupted my work hard / play hard balance I had crafted over the previous few years. Instead of working hard, crushing schoolwork, then relaxing over winter break by getting stoned and playing a single player game, I worked super hard, got my ass kicked my med school (passing barely), and got to winter break and had nothing to do. I felt just tired all the time, and a little sad that I had just barely passed given how hard I worked. Not to mention alone during the daytime, my GF worked (as we were both done with college now) so she didn't have time to hang out during the week. Eventually I just decided to sneak out and buy more weed, but only enough for the winter break. I did that for two breaks, and it worked fine, but I was always sluggish when starting back up again. Eventually my gf found out I was buying and got really upset because she thought I had quit (I told her I did). I decided to quit all drugs permanently. This decision was made easier because I intentionally didnt make any "contacts" in my new school system, so it was very inconvenient to find / buy any weed where I was.
That started my streak of sobriety that I have still not broken, it's been about 3 years now. However, instead of making my life easier, as I had imagined, it made things very hard. This was a surprise for sure. I figured once I had been clean for ~4 months it would be just back to how I was before I had ever used. I was basically thrown into a slow burning depression. I had a hard time enjoying anything, and I found it increasingly hard to keep up in school. I had previously found motivation by telling myself to look forward to the breaks when I would get super high and play whatever amazing new game had come out, but that was gone. Breaks were just lonely and consisted of me waking up tired and staying tired the whole day, and most of the time I would just think about how bad I wished I had weed to smoke. I also felt guilty for not doing better in school- I felt that since it was literally the only thing I was doing, I should be doing very well in it.
No one told me until years later that it's OK to pass med school and not be at the top of my class- med school is made difficult on purpose, they have to have a bell curve in grading even if all of the people in the class are smart.
So, I just kept moving along in school, totally sober, but getting progressively more and more depressed. I kept finding school harder and harder (a combination of the fact that I was more depressed, as well as the fact that school legitimately does get harder as you get farther in), and kept passing just barely. I finally got to almost the end- with one (large, multi-day) test left, and I failed it. For context: this last test is almost a formality, with 99% of people passing it. It's a hard test to be sure, but if someone has passed everything up to that point, most people also do fine on the last one. I was unsure of what to do, and just really sad. In a wildly incompetent move, my school told me they were considering expelling me, which converted me from depressed to actively suicidal. I couldn't even process the thought of being kicked out- getting this far only to have it all discarded, leaving me with years wasted (not to mention the crushing student loans).
After very nearly dying, I had a meeting with my school scheduled where they discussed what should happen next. I was told I could just take a year off, re-do the test, and move forward. I was also told I was never going to be expelled, that it was a simple miscommunication. This left a pretty foul taste in my mouth, as it seemed like more than a miscommunication to me.
Ironically, it was around this time that I first had the actual desire to be a doctor- right when I was facing the very real threat of that dream dying, after getting so close.
That pretty much brings us to the present. I worked hard that year, sought formal treatment for depression, passed the test, got a good score (about 50% percentile, which is about the best i've done on anything so far), and married my GF. Interview season was hell, as no one really wants to interview a candidate that failed a test that 99% of people pass. However, I think I probably did well enough to get a job at a hospital next year.
I will say this though- I never went back to "normal". I think once you use a drug a lot, even a mild one like MJ, your mind is permanently changed. Sure, the "mental fog" cleared up once I got treated for depression. However, I still have cravings to use. I probably have a dream about weed once a month or so. Not always getting stoned, just buying it or having it. I'm at a really odd place now, because for the first time in years I have some time off again, and I'm feeling similar to how I have in the past- just alone, wanting and thinking about weed (honestly the reason i came back to this forum), wishing I could play the witcher 3 without getting bored 6 hours in. I'm thinking like an "addict," but I've been 100% sober for 3 years or so now. It's very strange..
I keep thinking about how nice it would be to just get high and play something with all this free time I have, but I just can't get started again. I heavily believe that any "happiness" I get from using drugs is just borrowed from the future, and I will end up paying it back later. I also think that quitting was a big part of the start of my depression, and I can't really do taht to myself again.
Thanks for reading, if anyone still is at this point