Me every day at age 16. Photo by Jake Kivanç
Annons
Annons
Instead, as much as it sounds like a cliche, I got totally drunk off my newfound freedom. I was now attending a school that had five times the student population. Teachers didn't seem to know your name let alone notice if you didn't show up for class. Eventually, I started partying, weed being my drug of choice. I was tight with a classmate who was also our dealer, which meant access wasn't an issue. Before long, I found myself skipping school to blaze in the parking lot, or attending class high. I started off Grade 12 OK—still pulling mostly As and Bs—but as graduation neared, most of those grades were down by half. My guidance counsellor and teachers begged me to attend class, because at this point I was missing an average of one a day, even threatening to ban me from prom. University began to seem like a goal that was farther and farther out of reach. But the thing was, I just didn't give a fuck. I was more or less in a fog where I'd lost all motivation to excel and was just living—and getting high—day to day.In the end, I graduated, but didn't go to university. Instead I worked a shitty job at Canadian Tire for a year, hired by my friend, a manager who also happened to be the biggest stoner I knew. I continued to smoke pot almost every day, while simultaneously becoming depressed about the monotony of my meaningless job.Read more: Teens Smoking Pot Are More Likely to Be Paranoid And Hallucinate, New Study Says
Annons