I do not claim any of these ideas to be my own. I just picked a bunch of phrases from fellow redditors and added some of my own spice to put it into a motivational essay to stop smoking, because I felt motivated. Here is the result:

Every person, at some point in their life, will come to realization there's no growth in comfort. How old you are when you reach that point is completely up to you. This is an essay, reflecting on how I stayed in the same place in life because of my smoking habit.

Weed is so weird man. I think it affects everyone so differently. For me, weed possesses absolutely ZERO short-term flaws. I embraced early that you literally cannot die from it. There has never been a death from blood toxicity of cannibinoids. Trust me, I’ve tried many times. I still consider this to be one of the best attributes of the drug. It’s absolutetly safe in this respect. However, this fact also has a very dark side to it – you can smoke weed all day every day and still survive. If I had consumed any other substance with the frequency and quantity that I smoked weed, I’d be fucking dead. Full stop. I would’ve been viewed as an addict, I would have profound health problems, and would be a total degenerate by any reasonable person’s standard. But because I smoked weed I wasn’t an addict! I was a stoner; a non-comformist; I lived my life as I saw fit. I could smoke relentlessly and have no incredibly negative consequence. And I’m the sort of person that needs consequences. The damage it did to me happened slowly over years and I've been mostly too high to notice it. I believed because I graduated university, never got arrested, or have any health/mental problems that I was keeping it together. I was surviving. But I wasn’t truly living. I fell pray to the weed’s subtle seduction, and faced it’s curelest trick. It doesn’t kill you but it still takes your life. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely preferable to be alive than to die by overdose. But it’s sadder in it’s own way to live in stagnation than to truly live. The danger is how it makes you extremely comfortable in your current reality. Weed has always been a coping method for me. The coping mechanisms was so powerful that my goal was to design my lifestyle so that I could freely dive into the weed habit of my dreams (safe zone environments). I've been in the same spot for 4 years because of how "content" I was. I achieved what some would call an extremely cozy weed bubble. I still believe to this day weed is a luxury for those who have already made it to where they want to be in life.

Thing is, I badly want more out of life. I badly want more out of myself, too. A little voice that grew louder in me was desperate to show my flawed lifestlye :

-It has happened many times that smoking was the first thing on my mind and my hand in the morning.

- When I use I will literally continue to smoke untill I pass out in my bed from high exhaustion.

- I became nervous when I was getting close to the end of my stock.

- I used to think about ‘sober life’ and all the better things I could be doing after getting high.

- Ironically, mundane tasks would require weed.

- Accepting the fact that weed hadn’t felt ‘good’ to smoke in a long time was extremely difficult.

- My day would be gone into limbo as soon as I lit up.

- I have tried moderation that would quickly turn me back into my old self.

- I’ve been getting high for years and have become tired of that specific, fleeting, only partially satisfying, very familiar type of high that only downregulates with time.

- The constant feeling of living under your true potential and calibre.

9 months ago I made a video named ‘why I’m quitting weed’. All I have to say is my 4 month relapse is part of the journey. Addiction will have you LITERALLY fall in love with the idea of doing it again – ‘Just one last time, it won’t do any harm’. That voice is ALWAYS a lier. Everything the voice says is a lie to get me to give in to the bad habit. The addiction never makes you WANT to quit. So I’m not hateful towards myself for slipping up after a hard breakup.

I still struggle to fully accept the damages on my growth weed has caused. What I can accept is the spheres that were affected : Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Relationships, Social Skills, Hobbies, Passions, Personality and Character. All of those suffered from my smoking habits.

Also, I don’t believe going clean will make my life any better. In fact, I’m sure it’s going to suck fat dick for another long period of time. Shit ain’t easy. I’ve been feeling all sorts of emotions that are hard to deal with, especially boredom. At the end of the day, though, the ultimate goal is to love myself so much that I don’t need to smoke. I get to decide that I can exercise, meditate, keep my space clean and perform well at work without this ‘treat’ I used to give myself, like a dog. It’s a bit like leveling up as a human.

The problem with this motivation is that willpower suffers from ego-depletion. It truly is a limited ressource. And I believe one day I will encounter ego-depletion. I relapsed because I lost self-confidence from a failed relationship. The trigger could be anything. So I’ve changed my strategy from 9 months ago.

One way I intend to reinforce my willpower is to recognize a new personnal written Law: I Will Never Smoke Again. It doesn't require will power for me not to rob a bank. The Law cannot be broken at any point. Any thought that pops in my head that contradicts the Written Law is the Old Man, not me. This Old Man lives inside of me – he’s ugly, smells like piss, chain smoking blunts. Oh, did I mention he’s got cancer lost all his teeth? So screw you old man. My true self is already free of this addiction – cravings only happen to this Old Man, and without me giving in, one day he will die. I’ve been telling him off in a quick asshole-y approach. Human beings can achieve insane feats,so fuck-off old man I’m trying to stop smoking a non-physically addictive drug here, this ain’t heroin.

There’s never a happy ending in the middle of the story, so I’ll keep on livin’. I feel like I’ve taken care of myself enough during the pandemic to make this decision much more manageable. Again, my focus is not to take weed away from my life, but to concentrate on adding more into my life. I feel like I’ve already done the most difficult part, which is to get yourself mentally where you are 100% ready to leave weed behind and move on with your life. So I’m getting back on that horse and not looking back.