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I didn't look forward to having much in adult life. No kids, no marriage, no house. I was fine with getting high, being a lost hippy, forever trying new hairstyles, and picking up new lovers.

Photo by Ivandrei Pretorius from Pexels

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I smoked my first cigarette when I was sixteen. Four years later, I would find myself in a stranger's smoke-filled apartment, smelling of jasmine incense and marijuana. (In this same room we'd be naked and smoking reds, first thing in the morning; fond memories.) Alcohol, on the other hand, didn't bring good stories. I was barely 18 when I got blackout drunk, and next thing I knew, was having non-consensual sex.

Over the years there would be more hangovers and drunken sobbing but drinking never became my game; smoking was. Nicotine was my substance of choice and most of my late teens and early twenties was sparked by cigarette flames. The cigarette habit kept me grounded, in some way. Marijuana — on the other hand — took me to the another side.

Who could imagine that a young woman like myself would be putting these things between my lips? These dirty pipes, cigarette butts, tubes, and bongs. I didn't grow up in the slums or in common residential areas. I was raised by a puritanical, virgin-bride, perfectionist mother inside the gates of a church compound. However, my father smoked cigarettes in secret (a vice that sparked domestic abuse in our household). Someone in the family had to “inherit” the habit. I guess it had to be me.

I was happy with just smoking and lighting up and dying eventually, because of it.

So when all my friends began smoking, I sort of followed. Maybe I was just rebelling, consciously doing something “bad” like all the other angst-filled teenagers, as a way to subvert authority.

It was my way of saying, “Hey this is my life, I do what I want to do with it.”

And so in many sad and cold nights, I would walk along Harrison Road in Baguio and light a cigarette or two. During fights with my boyfriend, I would light up.

Thinking about it now, I guess it had been a form of self-harm. I wanted to become light-headed, dizzy, and sick, as a way to distract myself of some other pains, like the difficulty of transitioning to sad childhood to even more miserable adulthood.

And then came marijuana, which was many things. First, I used it to enhance sexual experiences. Then, I learned to just enjoy the high.

Any activity plus marijuana became a cool thing. Listening to music feels like you're having sex with your ears. Food becomes infinitely more delicious. I went hiking with a bunch of people who brought weed. We slid through caves, climbed down mountains, and soaked ourselves in cold water while high. It was unforgettable. The laughter and accompanying wonder never seemed to end. It felt like I was a video game character in an 8-bit universe.

I reached a point when marijuana was all that made me happy. If I wasn't high, I was miserable. Something was wrong with my life so I stopped using. But I didn't stop yet when I failed a drug test and lost my job. I had to have that existential misery.

Thankfully, marijuana was relatively easy to quit. Cigarettes, on the other hand, was hell. After a long day at work, walking by a store that sold cigarettes and not buying any felt like starving myself and denying food.

I had quit smoking many, many times. I smelled bad, my skin was awful, my lungs were stuffed, and I suffered poor athletic performance. If I wanted to become better, I ought to stop smoking. But I came back to the habit every time, with full acceptance of the fact that smoking would cause lung cancer eventually.

He realized that a thirty-minute high was not worth risking a lifetime of peace and freedom.

And I was fine with that, because I didn't wish to live long anyway. I wasn't even expecting to see myself reach my 50's. Life was a miserable story for me, for the most part. I didn't look forward to having much in adult life. No kids, no marriage, no house. I was fine with getting high, being a lost hippy, forever trying new hairstyles, and picking up new lovers.

I was happy with just smoking and lighting up and dying eventually, because of it. Life was short and I was determined to live it to my terms, just like when I was rebelling and hurting myself as a way to assert subversion.

People around me were concerned, nonetheless. My mother — who had seen me smoking — always asked when I was going to stop.

“When I get pregnant, I'd stop,” I'd say.

What caused me to stop smoking recently was baby fever. I guess I couldn't do it for myself. It had to be for something else, or someone else. I never threw away my pipes, my boyfriend did. And even after he'd done that, I still had the nerve to ask him to smoke marijuana with me, just for once.

But he was determined to quit and never come back. He'd smoked for about two decades. He stopped only recently when some of his friends faced jail time due to using and dealing. He himself used to deal, too. He realized that a thirty-minute high was not worth risking a lifetime of peace and freedom. And so he quit while encouraging me to do the same thing, for the sake of safety.

If he didn't force me to quit, I wouldn't have stopped using. It would always be my little hobby. And more than just a hobby, it would be a door-opener to new experiences. A key to the rabbit hole, a wonderland entrance.

Now here's a word to those who are still “clean”:

If you haven't started smoking, good for you. Try not to start altogether, because I guarantee that you will want to stop smoking eventually. Quitting will be a struggle.

As for marijuana, try not to go too deep down the rabbit hole. As you get into the drug culture — a place of escape, pleasure, and wonder — you will be enticed to try other substances (i.e., hard drugs) and you would probably do it out of curiosity or for the sake of experience.

Some people can use illegal substances for recreational purposes only. But they're an exception, not the rule. Some drugs are banned/illegal for a reason because they will fuck you up most definitely. Either you become an addict or you slowly waste your body away. When you do hard drugs, it's like you're already placing one of your feet in the grave. Be careful.

Bottomline

That you can use these things for fun, for escape, just for the sake of good times is what we all think in the beginning. When I smoked cigarettes when I was sixteen, I just wanted to get a taste of them. Never did I realize that I would become a chain smoker and gravitate towards the hookup culture because of it. But I guess that's just the way life goes. You pick up something and get so much more than what you thought, or expected.

“When you can stop, you don't want to. When you want to stop, you can't.” – Luke Davies, Candy