Clearing the smoke

By: Yessenia Rivas

I used to love getting high, the peace, the quietness that went through my mind, how it made me forget all the bad moments , the feeling that made me feel like I was in my own little world with no one to bother me. It made me feel happy and filled with joy. 

I started smoking when i was in 7th grade when one of my friends had brought weed to the school, at first i didn’t think much of it or even cared for it.When i first tried it i felt like i was dizzy and couldn't walk normal after a little time i started to control it and it was peaceful walking around listening to music and it helped me feel relaxed and i felt like everything was moving and it just felt beautiful in my opinion. I started buying weed for me to smoke. I liked it so much to the point where I would smoke during school hours and before going to sleep. Doing it before bed made me relax and calm my mind which helped me fall asleep quicker. Since I didn't wanna get caught with my parents I would tell them I was going to sleep even if it was 8pm just so i could go to my room and smoke.

Smoking weed affected me in negative ways,First was with family, i started to just be by myself in my room because i wanted to get high and wanted no one to bother me.It started as a little fun thing to do then it became a habit that felt really good and that I couldn't stop.I became distant with family and started getting random mood changes. 

These mood changes affected me more than I thought. I would be out with my family on vacation or whatever it was and out of nowhere I would get mad at them and they tried to help me but I would just tell them that I was fine.They started to worry so they would ask me all the time if i was good and then one day i had an appointment at the doctor and my mom decided to tell them that I had mood changes and that she was worried about me.

After this I started to get therapy and I would go 2 times a week and it helped me because instead of smoking a lot I would tell my problems to someone and it made me feel a lil more relaxed and not that stressed. 

Academically ,I went from always getting good grades to not getting so decent grades, i started skipping some classes because i didn’t think it would affect me but in the long run it did, I started hanging out with other people that also smoked and it made me feel good that i had friends because growing up i never had a lot of friends or a big friend group.

This caused me not to be A-G to graduate which means I can't go to a 4 year college if I wanted to. That's when I decided that I needed to stop before it became worse. I started to stop smoking little by little but it was always hard and I would always fall into temptation. 

The more I stopped smoking the more I realised I didn't know what I was doing it made me view everything differently. Now I have completely stopped and sometimes when I'm not having the best day I still think about doing it but I always remind myself that I haven't done it in a long time and if I do it again its just gonna mess everything up and it has worked for me I also try not to pay attention to it by talking to people and keeping myself busy has helped me a lot which is usually by cleaning my room while listening to music.