Magic Cigarettes...

I wanted to visit my mate John the Painter today- he's in hospital with bastard leukaemia having his second bout of chemo this week- but I'm not feeling the best myself today so I'd best keep my dirty-bong lungs well away from him and his lowered immune system. I'll phone him instead.

But it's gotten me to thinking; when and why I took up this marijuana addiction that I have; that has given me lung troubles(I've never even had asthma but I'm certain I got pleurisy last winter) for the first time in my life- and this lead to me a diary entry that I made on the fourth of October, two thousand and one. I was pregnant with my Little Son and ; oh- just read this little bit for yourself, and keep in mind that I am/was heavily alcohol-dependant when I fell pregnant.

...I was just thinking to myself that though it may have appeared easy to give up drinking so much, it hasn't been at all easy to give up the desire to feel pissed- in a way I've only compensated by getting stoned every night for about thirteen weeks. I allow myself that because I Only do it (smoke pot) before going to bed; not in the day or evening when my Eldest Son is awake. I know I'd be too scared that I'd get too wasted and wouldn't be able to drive to school in the afternoons to pick him up, or cook tea or whatever; and anyway, it only takes about twenty minutes 'til I'm spastic and have to go to bed. And it's easy to deny you have a problem because in the mornings you don't have a pounding headache- or aching guts- and you don't remember being so stoned that the room was spinning and it made you feel like spewing. I'm not even a heavy smoker of the shit; just a tiny drop in the end of a cigarette. I still tell people I don't smoke it, even. I wouldn't do it in front of my Hubby or Son, either. I'm a closet smoker; it's only a small amount...

Hang on. I need a cone to continue.

Excuse me while I cough up some lung-butter.

I've come a long way from those magic cigarettes with it's tiny sprinkle of dust in the hollow shell of a cigarette. It's almost a waste of time even smoking the shit now that I'm immune to it. It barely makes an impression on me five years later. Honestly; I'll give You three or four cones of good hydro and it'll knock you on your arse; but to me it's just as potent as the guff I sweep off my garage floor. Oh sure- it still makes me creative and funny and thoughtful-that's my mind playing tricks on me again, actually- and that's the only reason I smoke it anymore. That and the small fact I don't want to stop. And can't.

Without putting too fine a point on it; the pot I smoke costs me nothing to buy and is almost always in abundance. The less said about this the better I guess. But because there is always pot around to smoke this would make it difficult to give the habit away- if I ever wanted to, that is-I've already had two sessions this morning and it's not even ten am. It didn't actually take that long to progress from a-cone-a-day habit to what it has become of late- averaging 15-20 I suppose. And only because we're running low at the minute and I'm forced to smoke shitty leaf.

My Hubby used to be a big dope-smoker when he was in his teens and early twenties but for the most part he is only an occasional smoker nowadays. He doesn't mind so much when the bowl and the sappo are empty- while I will fret and go raking through empty shoe-boxes looking for leaf scraps that aren't too mouldy (that explains the pleurisy, yeah?). My Hubby reckons I smoke so much because I'm bored, but I don't know. I like the way it makes me think funny thoughts. I like the way it releases my stammering tongue in a crowded room of strangers and I am Her- Buffoon. She's on fucking FIRE. Natural.

I like the person I am when I'm high. Okay- there's those other moments that spring to mind, too. Moments that can't be forgiven or taken back or wished away- but they are less common now that I actually like who I have turned into. When I sit in my birdcage now I can only think of how stupid I was to ever wish I was hanging from that dead tree beyond the railway tracks when there is so many more good times to be had. Drugs gave me back to myself- when I am on drugs I am the real me- the me that is hiding inside myself. Totally.

Which is why these lung-spores that I cough up daily are a total bitch.