Hello, im new to this cite but many of the stories that i've seen here, i have been able to relate to. I am a 17 year old guy and have been smoking since i was 13. When i first started smoking i only smoked very occasionally with either family or friends. I thought it was amazing and i supported weed to the fullest! I simply just liked being high and chilling with people every so often. But it wasn't until my junior year of highschool when i started smoking heavily. At first it was just an every weekend type of thing, i would never smoke alone, only with a group of friends when were kicking it. I still had my personality then and was able to feel comfortable "high" in social situations. Then i started smoking almost every night before i went to bed just because weed gave me the best sleep. I guess it kind of became a habit. I never smoked before school because i have always taken my education seriously but then i figured i can make it through the school day and just smoke when i get home, which i usually did. It started becoming an everyday thing. I loved watching videos about weed on youtube and listening to music that normally i wouldn't listen to when im sober and just started having fun getting high by myself. Everything seemed so interesting and intensified when i was high. I liked it a lot at first. And then summertime of '13 hit and i started smoking everyday. Morning, afternoon, evening, and night. I started off toking with one of my close friends everyday but eventually i just felt like i was smoking him out all the time so i would just make up excuses to why i couldn't hang out so i could just get high by myself. I started thinking a lot. Thinking about anything and everything. I sometimes just felt lost in my thoughts. I kind of liked the feeling of being disconnected from reality and being in my own world at times because everything just seemed so simple. This continued for about 3 weeks, and keep in mind i was smoking throughout the whole day( literally high all day ). It was my friends birthday and i knew i couldn't miss it so i went to his party and started smoking with a crowd for the first time in a while... This is where i went nuts! I started feeling like everyone was looking at me and usually i don't have a problem with that but for some reason i felt awkward, stiff, uncomfortable, and just plain paranoid and really just didn't want to be there. My hands started shaking i felt nervous and i didn't want to communicate with anyone i was just being quiet the whole time. The best way to describe it would be a mini panic attack. When i got home i started thinking, i hope they're not talking sh*t about me because i knew i was acting awkward and weird in an environment where everyone was just having fun hanging out besides me. I can't communicate with people as well as i used to just because i don't know what to say at times, and it gets awkward. I started getting depressed and lonely knowing that i was becoming weird and anti-social. But still i continued smoking. After that night and didn't want to talk to anyone just because i felt like being awkward for that one night ruined my reputation for some reason. Trust is becoming a problem, sleeping sober is becoming a problem, communicating is becoming a problem, being social is becoming a problem, focusing is becoming a problem, and so much more. I really just feel disconnected from myself and the world at this point and it is very scary for me, i don't want to live my whole life like this. Please, I need help escaping this ugly state of mind that i am in right now. I just hope it is not too late
quit smoking then lol