TeenConnect: Turning Point December 30, 2019 Issue

‘I stopped smoking pot’

Name Withheld

Originally appeared online in the teen series: Turning Point - October 29, 2019

I’d always been shy. When I was little, my sister often answered for me when someone asked my name. Despite the shyness, I managed to have friends, both boys and girls. But when I became a teenager, I withdrew—especially when it came to boys.

I was introduced to drinking alcohol and smoking pot, which seemed to loosen me up so that I became less self-conscious and had more fun. The trouble was that as time went on, I became more and more dependent on these substances to enjoy myself.

It got to the point where I was getting high even to enjoy activities that would have been fun without the drugs. Worse, after graduating from college, although I had a great job as a computer programmer and worked from home, I was getting high so often that I couldn’t discipline myself to do much work, and I finally quit my job.

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