As my last joint slowly burned, I told myself that this would be the last time I would ever smoke.

After finishing my joint, my body was relaxed, but my mind was stuck with thoughts of inadequacy.

During this time, I had been out of school for nearly a year and had stopped interacting with the outside world.

When you’re high, random thoughts get amplified in your head. As I saw everybody else returning to their normal lives, i.e, partying and socializing, I wasn’t.

I knew I had to quit. It wasn’t healthy for me to have these negative thoughts, where I would beat myself up about being a loser and never leaving my house.

My wallet made the best decision for me. I had run out of money and weed.

I first started smoking weed during the last semester of my senior year at Morningside High School in Inglewood.

I had smoked before with my high school friends on one-off occasions. Nearly all of my friends smoked.

So I began doing it too, every single day after my final class.

More than 30% of 12th graders reported using cannabis in the past year and more than 6% reported using cannabis daily in the past 30 days. Moreover, the CDC says that teens who use cannabis are more likely to quit high school or not get a college degree.

That was me.

I stopped caring about school and I stopped putting any effort into my classes. I resigned myself to working with my dad at his landscape company for the rest of my life.

Smoking cannabis made me feel as if I was on a cloud when I laid down. It made even the cheapest items from McDonald’s taste like a five-course meal at a fine-dining restaurant.

My use of weed wasn’t for self-medication, but rather as a nice treat for myself.

However, when I was high, I would often lose track of my surroundings and my thoughts. I would have one thought in my head that would disappear shortly after.

At first, I didn’t think much of it, but as time went on, it became an issue.

I attempted to quit twice.

The first time I had quit was during the vape pen scare in the late summer and early fall of 2019.

I saw news reports of teenagers damaging their lungs by vaping. However, that attempt at quitting only lasted a few months.

I started again, switching from vape pens to marijuana leaves. Switching from weed oil to leaves made it much more noticeable that I was smoking.

With the vape pen, I was able to hide my use of marijuana from my dad. For about 18 months, I was using the vape pen.

My dad had no idea I was smoking regularly.

He had his suspicions, but he didn’t have enough evidence to be certain that I was smoking weed behind his back.

One day, I arrived early from work after helping out my brother at his construction company and decided to grind down my weed so that I could smoke it in a joint.

Hours later, when I finished grinding my weed, my dad came to my room to check up on me.

As soon as he barged into my room to check up on me and caught a whiff of the overwhelming stench.

Despite my attempts to hide the odor by spraying Febreze and opening up the windows, the pungent odor remained. I had become numb to the smell and was blind to the fact that he could smell it.

I had never seen my father so disappointed in me.

I momentarily quit, but relapsed two weeks later when I smoked with my co-workers. By then, I became a more casual smoker, only smoking cannabis if it was offered to me.

In 2020, I began working with my dad at his landscaping job. Working with my dad meant fewer chances to smoke. Early 2020 was also my first semester at El Camino College.

Once I started school again, I had to quit once and for all and get serious about my education.

For a while, I was able to curb my cannabis habit. I went multiple months without smoking. I had a few hiccups here and there, but I stopped smoking for the most part.

I thought I was nearly out of the dark, but the social isolation caused by the pandemic made me turn to cannabis in early 2021 as a form of escape from the mundane routine I developed.

Instead, it only made my situation worse – I felt even lonelier when I smoked.

March 28, 2021 was the day when I quit cannabis for good.

Quitting for good was easier than I expected. I had run out of money and cannabis. There was nothing left for me to smoke. I didn’t experience any withdrawal symptoms.

It was also partly due to my isolation and never leaving my room other than for work. There was no way for me to buy more weed.

It’s been nearly four years since I last smoked. One of the greatest feelings after my withdrawal is being able to perceive the world as it is, as I no longer have to distinguish what’s real or what’s fake.

The day I stopped smoking is a day I often look back on as the day my life changed for the better. I was able to return to school and now I am on course to receive my associate degree and transfer to Long Beach State.