The social media stoner
I smoked a lot of weed in my lifetime. I had my first joint at 15 years old, after a few years of severe depression and social anxiety. The mood shift after taking a few hits was so profound that I ended up smoking weed every day for almost 10 years.
There are two types of regular weed smokers: those who started smoking weed very early in their lifetimes, made a habit out of it that eventually turned into a more severe addiction and those who started smoking weed later in their lifetimes, that also made a habit out of it but are way better at managing it. Think of the regular stoner vs Joe Rogan.
I was part of the first category. I started smoking at a point in my life when I was very vulnerable. Weed was a coping tool and I slowly ended up outsourcing more and more work to it. At my peak, I was smoking around 2 ounces per week. My days and my life were governed by weed.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Joe Rogan weed smoker archetype — people who started smoking in their late 20s or early 30s. By then, they have developed more healthy coping mechanisms to life. They learnt to self-regulate stress and have a more balanced philosophical take on life and rely on meditation, physical exercise, etc. They have already developed a certain degree of psychological maturity by the time weed entered their life and it didn’t end up taking too much control.
