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Weeding out Your Feelings
65 Plays1 year ago
When was the last time you took a break? With 7 months of marijuana sobriety, I have some thoughts. And a lot of feels. Listen up to see what happens when a daily habit becomes a distant memory.
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Transcript
Breaking the Habit
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to another Dirty Briefs.
00:00:06
Speaker
Because I got high.
00:00:08
Speaker
Because I got high.
00:00:10
Speaker
Except, I didn't get high.
00:00:14
Speaker
In fact, I have not gotten high in seven months.
00:00:21
Speaker
This is the longest break I have ever taken since I started smoking weed at 14 years old.
00:00:28
Speaker
And I will never forget that first time.
00:00:31
Speaker
You always remember your first, not your second, not your third,
00:00:36
Speaker
But you're first.
00:00:37
Speaker
I was 14 years old.
00:00:39
Speaker
I went over to my friend Cameron's house after school and his mom wasn't home and he had just gotten some not so sticky icky.
00:00:49
Speaker
In fact, I'm sure this was the most garbage weed I have ever seen in my entire life.
00:00:54
Speaker
Looking back, I'm sure it had sticks in it and little G.I.
00:00:58
Speaker
Joe characters.
00:01:00
Speaker
And basically, if I looked at it now, I'd be like, oh, that's a pile of mulch.
00:01:03
Speaker
That's not something I want to put in my body.
00:01:05
Speaker
But back then, my sensors went off and I was like, ooh.
00:01:10
Speaker
This is a world that I'm ready to explore.
00:01:14
Speaker
Get me deep into the abyss and let me feel what marijuana is.
00:01:21
Speaker
We rolled it up in a detention slip because we were so badass.
00:01:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:01:27
Speaker
We rolled it up straight into a unused detention slip saying that Cameron still had detention.
00:01:34
Speaker
If we're going to be badasses, let's level up.
00:01:39
Speaker
And then as soon as that smoke hit me, it hurt so bad.
00:01:44
Speaker
It was like the great Chicago fire had entered my mouth and my, it was just shredding my throat.
00:01:50
Speaker
I was coughing.
00:01:51
Speaker
It was a horrible feeling.
00:01:54
Speaker
And I don't think that was the weed.
00:01:55
Speaker
Honestly, I think that was the paper.
00:01:57
Speaker
This is that kind of paper that has the yellow thermal paper in the back of a thick piece of white paper that
00:02:04
Speaker
You're not supposed to be putting that inside your body.
00:02:07
Speaker
You're not even supposed to be doing anything with that, let alone smoking out of it.
00:02:14
Speaker
But we did.
00:02:15
Speaker
And then the next few hours, I just remember being in pure bliss, eating every single thing that was put in front of me without a care in the world, just laughing at everything.
00:02:29
Speaker
And in that moment, I knew two things.
00:02:31
Speaker
One,
00:02:33
Speaker
It's terrible to get to the bottom of a bag of chips.
00:02:35
Speaker
There is never enough chips in a bag.
00:02:38
Speaker
Stop with all the puffed air and give me more puffed crisps.
00:02:43
Speaker
But two, marijuana and I, we were going to be in a relationship for a long time.
00:02:50
Speaker
It's one of the longest relationships I've ever had.
00:02:54
Speaker
24 years of smoking weed.
00:02:56
Speaker
24 years.
00:02:59
Speaker
And now last June, I stopped.
Life Without Weed
00:03:03
Speaker
Cold turkey.
00:03:04
Speaker
Just went for it.
00:03:04
Speaker
Got to do it.
00:03:05
Speaker
Promised my wife I would for a certain arrangement that we have.
00:03:09
Speaker
And let me just tell you a little bit about what it's been like to not smoke weed for seven months.
00:03:17
Speaker
Have you ever macro dosed reality?
00:03:18
Speaker
Have you ever really felt everything?
00:03:23
Speaker
See, for me, weed was my escapism.
00:03:26
Speaker
It's my vice.
00:03:27
Speaker
It's my avoidance tactic.
00:03:30
Speaker
Whenever I got a little anxious or I just needed to zone out and kind of just lose myself in a haze, bam.
00:03:40
Speaker
I'll get high.
00:03:41
Speaker
It became so natural to me.
00:03:43
Speaker
Like even after a show, I want to keep that feeling going where I'm just like all lit up inside my body.
00:03:48
Speaker
Great.
00:03:49
Speaker
I'll smoke a little bit and I'll just feel great as I decompress from the high that I was on, really just shifting myself into another high.
00:03:58
Speaker
But you get it.
00:04:00
Speaker
It became so commonplace.
00:04:01
Speaker
I didn't even think about it.
00:04:03
Speaker
I smoked almost every day.
00:04:06
Speaker
for years, many, many, many years.
00:04:09
Speaker
I took a break here and there because I know it's good.
00:04:12
Speaker
Basically, I need to break my tolerance and get myself back to a point where I could really get high again.
00:04:19
Speaker
And that's something that I am looking forward to because look, I don't have any certain timeline on when I'm going to start smoking weed again.
00:04:28
Speaker
But I know when I do...
00:04:30
Speaker
It will be more purposeful because this experience has changed me in a lot of ways.
00:04:36
Speaker
It made me realize that I was smoking without any thought behind it, which is fine.
00:04:43
Speaker
However, I would just do it
00:04:47
Speaker
Because it was there or because I felt like I should.
Facing Challenges Post-Quitting
00:04:50
Speaker
When I, the first month, every night when I was driving back from a show or just from being out in the world or when I was at a concert, I would just like hanker for it.
00:04:59
Speaker
I'd be like, oh, I just wish I could have some right now.
00:05:02
Speaker
But I knew I couldn't.
00:05:04
Speaker
My dreams came back like crazy.
00:05:07
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:05:08
Speaker
I am watching just Warner Herzog documentaries in my dreams every single night.
00:05:15
Speaker
Triple features.
00:05:16
Speaker
They do not stop.
00:05:17
Speaker
I'm not sure I've even slept since June.
00:05:20
Speaker
It is insane what happens when I go to sleep.
00:05:23
Speaker
I am really just like...
00:05:25
Speaker
When you don't smoke, when you smoke a lot, your dreams kind of just drift off too.
00:05:30
Speaker
But when you stop, man, do they come roaring back.
00:05:34
Speaker
And it is in high definition.
00:05:37
Speaker
A few weeks ago, I was dreaming that I was going up these stairs and there kept being a snake in my way and I had to avoid these snakes.
00:05:45
Speaker
And at one point, I just kicked a snake and I felt myself just hit it right in the mouth.
00:05:50
Speaker
And it was such a visceral feeling.
00:05:51
Speaker
I was like, wow, I just kicked that snake.
00:05:54
Speaker
And then my wife woke me up.
00:05:55
Speaker
She's like, you just kicked me.
00:05:57
Speaker
Oh, that wasn't a snake.
00:06:02
Speaker
I didn't realize that I was so sure that I had kicked a snake.
00:06:06
Speaker
And what happens is these dreams are so lucid that I will wake up from a dream, be like, Oh, okay.
00:06:13
Speaker
I'm in my bed.
00:06:14
Speaker
Everything is fine.
00:06:16
Speaker
Then I'll go back to sleep.
00:06:17
Speaker
And it's like a continuation point.
00:06:20
Speaker
It's like I left a bookmark inside my dream and it opened right back up.
00:06:26
Speaker
I was like, oh, did you think you were out of this one?
00:06:28
Speaker
Well, we're not done yet.
00:06:30
Speaker
And maybe I'm supposed to be dreaming like this.
00:06:32
Speaker
Maybe my dreams are trying to tell me things.
00:06:34
Speaker
Now, look, I'm not going to make this some weird, like, listen to what my dreams are, man.
00:06:39
Speaker
Because I know how boring that would get.
00:06:43
Speaker
But it's probably good that I'm dreaming like this.
00:06:46
Speaker
The hard part is...
00:06:48
Speaker
When I do feel anxious and when I'm just like kind of all tense or tingly and like in a negative way, I don't have my vice.
00:06:59
Speaker
We all have something that we do.
00:07:02
Speaker
Sometimes it's positive.
00:07:03
Speaker
Sure.
00:07:04
Speaker
Like when I get on a slack line for an hour, super positive.
00:07:07
Speaker
If you're out there doing yoga, going for a run, or reading a great book, these are very positive vices.
00:07:14
Speaker
But you probably have some negative ones too, right?
00:07:17
Speaker
Right?
00:07:18
Speaker
You're probably drinking a little bit more than you want to, or you're
00:07:23
Speaker
doing cocaine or you're getting into fights with random people on the street or you're just throwing rocks off a bridge onto a highway and waiting for the cars to crash into each other.
00:07:33
Speaker
You probably have something.
00:07:37
Speaker
What would happen if you took it away?
00:07:42
Speaker
What would you feel?
00:07:45
Speaker
How would you avoid if the one thing you use to drift off
00:07:52
Speaker
is suddenly put on hold.
00:07:55
Speaker
Sorry, my nose is, I mentioned cocaine and my nose is going crazy.
00:07:59
Speaker
Is that normal?
00:08:03
Speaker
I haven't done cocaine in a very
Ambition and Transition
00:08:04
Speaker
long time.
00:08:04
Speaker
I honestly have no interest in doing cocaine.
00:08:07
Speaker
I don't know, something about post-cancer cocaine just doesn't feel good.
00:08:11
Speaker
You know that when you're in chemo and you just do a couple bumps while the medicine's just flowing through you?
00:08:18
Speaker
Doesn't feel right to do cocaine, nor do I really want to.
00:08:23
Speaker
I miss it.
00:08:24
Speaker
I do.
00:08:26
Speaker
I miss it.
00:08:29
Speaker
Feeling everything is weird.
00:08:31
Speaker
Because...
00:08:33
Speaker
I have to really lean into that feeling.
00:08:37
Speaker
My wife says I'm more ambitious and maybe I am, maybe I'm trying a little harder to figure things out because the one thing is when she asked me to take a break from weed, I was very much in a transitional period and I admit I still am.
00:08:52
Speaker
I was coming out of cancer and the chemo and everything else.
00:08:55
Speaker
And I wasn't sure how I wanted to proceed with my career.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I thought, okay, maybe changing things up is good.
00:09:04
Speaker
It's always good.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yes, not maybe.
00:09:06
Speaker
Change is always good, even when it's uncomfortable and not smoking weed for me is a big discomfort.
00:09:12
Speaker
Therefore, I knew this would be a good thing.
00:09:15
Speaker
And seven months in,
00:09:18
Speaker
I'm still not exactly sure what I'm doing.
00:09:21
Speaker
I have things that I obviously I have big projects in the works, but on my day to day, it's hard to figure out exactly what to do because I have to think about future Alex.
00:09:31
Speaker
I have to think about, hey, how are you bringing money in down the road?
00:09:36
Speaker
Right now, sure, you can chill a little bit.
00:09:40
Speaker
You can lay back and read a great book, get on your slack line, drop rocks off a bridge onto a highway and watch the cars crash.
00:09:51
Speaker
But as I don't bring in a ton of money, that's got to change.
00:09:56
Speaker
So I got to think about future me.
00:09:58
Speaker
And not smoking weed makes me think about it a lot more.
00:10:03
Speaker
And it's going to make me figure it out in the same way.
00:10:06
Speaker
So I challenge you.
00:10:09
Speaker
What is your vice?
00:10:11
Speaker
What if you spent a week away from it?
00:10:15
Speaker
How would you feel?
00:10:17
Speaker
Do you think you're going to be uncomfortable?
00:10:18
Speaker
Is it going to be okay?
00:10:20
Speaker
Are you going to immediately grab onto another vice and latch yourself onto that?
00:10:27
Speaker
I'll tell you what I do.
00:10:28
Speaker
I watch inspiration porn.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
Getting high off weed feels great.
00:10:37
Speaker
But you know what feels even better?
00:10:39
Speaker
Watching a three-year-old deaf girl put in a brand new hearing aid and hear her mom say, I love you for the first time ever.
00:10:47
Speaker
Have you ever had that kind of high?
Finding New Joys
00:10:50
Speaker
Because that's good.
00:10:53
Speaker
Sure, you can eat a 20 milligram edible or you can watch a soldier coming home from war and reuniting with his dogs.
00:11:04
Speaker
Oh, well, bark me up that tree because that sounds pretty.
00:11:11
Speaker
Man.
00:11:11
Speaker
I'm excited.
00:11:15
Speaker
I am.
00:11:16
Speaker
I have to be excited because I can't smoke weed.
00:11:18
Speaker
So I have to get excited about other things like this podcast.
00:11:21
Speaker
So thank you for being here.
00:11:24
Speaker
Thank you for being a part of my life.
00:11:25
Speaker
If you're not part of my email list, by the way, HooperComedy.com, you get a free roasting guide when you sign up.
00:11:32
Speaker
So please sign up.
00:11:33
Speaker
I send about an email a week or so because I'm paying for my email service.
00:11:37
Speaker
So I have to send an email a week.
00:11:38
Speaker
Otherwise, I'm wasting my own money, of which I don't have a lot.
00:11:44
Speaker
So what are you excited about?
00:11:47
Speaker
Are you able to get through it without substances or whatever your vice is?
00:11:54
Speaker
Maybe your vice is cuddling a pug, which is a great vice.
Personal Growth Beyond Weed
00:11:58
Speaker
That's one of mine too.
00:11:59
Speaker
That's a great replacement for weed, even though I used to love getting high and then cuddling a pug.
00:12:04
Speaker
But now you just cuddle the pug and it's almost as good.
00:12:09
Speaker
Almost.
00:12:10
Speaker
I'm not going to lie to you and say it's just as good because it's almost as good.
00:12:15
Speaker
But with every day that goes on, I'm learning a little bit more about who I am without weed.
00:12:21
Speaker
It doesn't need to be my identity.
00:12:23
Speaker
It never was my identity.
00:12:25
Speaker
I've never been a pothead.
00:12:26
Speaker
I'm a person that smokes pot.
00:12:28
Speaker
I used to say the same thing when I was in high school.
00:12:30
Speaker
And people were like, oh, you're a theater kid.
00:12:31
Speaker
No, I'm a person who does theater.
00:12:34
Speaker
There's a very different mindset behind each of those.
00:12:39
Speaker
So.
00:12:41
Speaker
Come see me at a show.
00:12:42
Speaker
I am a free man right now.
00:12:44
Speaker
Since I just taped that special, I'm building an all new joke structure, doing all kinds of fun things.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I want you to come see it.
00:12:52
Speaker
But also I want you to get in touch with you because isn't that why we're here to get in touch with ourselves so we can shine our light onto others.
00:13:03
Speaker
That's beautiful.
00:13:05
Speaker
I think it's time to stop.
00:13:06
Speaker
I love you.