I just quit cannabis again, at least for awhile, the last drug I was on after weaning myself off BP meds, Flonase, and daily coffee. Every time I take a tolerance break from weed the same thing happens. My eyes start feeling weird as the THC decreases in my body.

I immediately lose 5 lbs in weight and it keeps dropping the longer I don’t smoke it. I don’t get the violent coughing fits that Marijuana gives me. I tend to sleep better and remember my dreams more. I get more involved in projects, hobbies and improvement of my life.

I feel my emotions much stronger and sometimes feel verklempt and on the verge of tears, a thing that happens to the elderly anyway.

I quit the booze when Joe Biden was elected, so without pot I just need to ride out sadness and depression and other emotions I could successfully suppress and ignore when high. Cannabis works very well for me: like a key in a lock.

At first, of course, when I run out I get the intense craving to drive the 15 minutes to Sacramento county to The Sanctuary, a fine pot shop, where I’ve spent $1,900 in the last year on weed–I saved the bags and added it up.

Today I got motivated to study Dr William Davis’s work on fighting CVD and resolved (again!) to cut all wheat, grain and sugars from my diet. I’ve been eating paleo for about 15 years but only maybe 75%, my kryptonite being bread, chocolate (sugar!), maple syrup, rice and honey. And coconut water and kombucha.

At 74 I’m healthy for my age and I’m height/weight proportional at 5′ 10″ and 175 lbs (the FAA Standard pax weight). So eating mostly what a Paleolithic hunter gatherer would recognize as edible does work for me.

But still, I’ve got arthritis, a replaced hip joint, and peripheral neuropathy in my feet despite not being a diabetic (Agent Orange from Vietnam?). Also tinnitus from artillery service in said ‘conflict’, tendinitis from playing bass too much (but ain’t it the life?), and sinusitis. So I still have a long way to go.

I do few life changes drastically or cold turkey, like weaning myself gradually off Amplodipine, the deadly blood pressure Rx that fucks with calcium metabolism.

And I still got heart palpitations for a few days after I got myself off the shit. Probably not accidental or random since they are one (of many) Amplodipine ‘side effects’.

So I still go over to my old college pal’s place about once a week and smoke his crappy weed and get really stoned from low tolerance. And cough violently again.

I don’t know if I’ll go back to smoking lots of weed three or four times a day but I kind of doubt it. Despite it working so well, calming my anxiety, and making for jolly times, about a minute after that first toke and I get a strong sinking feeling.

Smoking more reefer gets rid of most of it. But a residue of paranoia lingers despite the California legality. My mother died of lung cancer at age 60 so when I suck down that skunk smelling smoke, especially obnoxious when I quit it, I think about it floating into my lung avoli, like it drifts in the dreamy sunbeams of my garage–the ‘potting shed’.

I hope it is made legal everywhere soon, even if it is done by the traitor Donald trump. Good luck to everyone in cannabis country but I believe I’m drifting down into sobriety land. I hope so. Because I feel really good, and better the longer I don’t smoke it.

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