Marijuana Saved Me Twice

I always hated marijuana, mostly because it made me feel tired and stupid. I couldn't remember anything, laughed at everything, and then proceeded to consume all the food in sight, usually ice cream. I liked to walk on the wild side, and play with the drugs that kept me up all night and and into the next day, but you can only do that for so long before you are making deals with God, running a fever, and hoping you don't die as you rock crazily in the rocking chair to keep your heart beating. At least that's what happened to me.

I think the last straw was when me and my friends helped clean Benny's apartment. He was moving back up to Aspen, CO, and he needed to get his deposit back, so all of us pitched in and cleaned his apartment for him. Of course, there was a lot of cocaine involved, and by the time he and the others who came to help, got in Benny's car to leave, I was pretty high. My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I was running a fever. I couldn't think straight; my thoughts were racing through my head fifty miles per hour, and I had this overwhelming desire to jump off the deck and kill myself. But, I didn't. Instead, I went back inside, telling the rest of the people who were headed home that I would take a quick last look, and then lock up. I watched the dust rise in little swirls from the dirt road as they drove down the driveway, and I waved and smiled, as though nothing was wrong. Once they were out of sight, I went back inside, locked all the doors, put the broom and mop away and tucked myself quietly inside a closet that still had a curtain covering it. I had complete darkness, and I pulled my legs up into the fetal position and rocked for several hours. I had broken my promise to God, so I couldn't ask Him again, but I still found myself begging Him for help as hot tears rolled down my face. I finally fell asleep from all the crying and the sheer exhaustion of being up for three days and three nights, doing lines of cocaine and drinking rum and coke.

I woke to the feel of somebody rubbing my back, and the soft sound of two people talking. I slowly opened my eyes, wondering if it was the police, but no, it was Taylor and Heather Dalton, the couple who lived downstairs from me. Apparently, they got worried when I didn't come home, and spotted my car in front of Benny's apartment. Taylor managed to get the back door open, and they found me in the closet where they had been sitting with me for several hours. I began talking to them, trying to smooth over the situation, and they didn't say much, but handed me a joint instead. At first, I didn't want to take it, but what the hell, I was already a mess, why not? I took in a drag and almost choked to death. Heather smiled and told me not to take it in so deep next time; not to smoke it like a cigarette, and then she showed me how to take a puff the right way. Taylor rolled another joint, we cleaned up the liquor bottles left in the kitchen, and decided to go smoke outside so the smell wouldn't be in there if the landlord came by. Once again I locked the back door, and quickly drove down the hill and the three blocks home. I was feeling a little light headed, but happy, so I didn't want to drive for very long.

I began to spend more and more time with Heather, and slowly lost my desire to use cocaine. I learned how to grow the plant, and the difference between sativa and indica. We built a huge plastic structure in the back yard, and planted one side with various types of sativa, and the other side with various types of indica. I liked the sativa better for days, because I could smoke it and still manage to function, and the indica would always make me so tired I could barely function, but that brought on good sleep.

We grew for several years, and it seemed as though each year the plants were better than the year before. Marijuana is legal in Colorado, so we made quite a good income with all three of us working at it, and in time were even able to hire some other people and expand our business to a large area in the country. It seemed as though life could not be any better, but then it always seems you hit a snag just when life is good. That's what happened to me. I began having horrible pain in my back that ran down my right arm, pain that was so intense that it would bring me to my knees and tears to my eyes. I went in for an MRI, followed by a visit to my neurologist, and he told me I had severe degenerative disc disease, and that the disc between C3 and C4 had ruptured and I needed surgery because the nerve had wrapped around the disc and that was causing my pain.

I had the surgery, but had severe back pain and needed injections in my spine to reduce it. I had the injections four times a year, and they took a day away from me every time I had to go through it. I sat on my bed when I got back from the clinic where I got the injections, and began to wonder if smoking a joint would help my anxiety and pain.

Over the next few months I smoked the sativa we grew and found that my back pain was less and less. Soon, I had no back pain and the injections were no longer needed. I consider marijuana my gift to myself, because it saved me twice. I would have died from cocaine use, but the magic weed got me going in a better direction. A direction that helped me become a grower, and helped me get my life back on track. Now, once again, marijuana came to my rescue by helping me get out from under injections and pain from my surgery. Some may feel it's a gateway drug, but I believe it's a gift from nature and I am very grateful to have found such a safe and pure answer to my problems in life.