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Doing Drugs: Drug Abuse with Barrett Christy
Snowboarding, four-time X Games gold medalist
When I was 15 years old, I was at that awkward point of going from junior high school to high school. It was intimidating – a bigger place, new kids, more work. I was lucky though, because I was playing varsity field hockey and lacrosse, and I felt "cool" to be hanging out with the older girls.
The first time I smoked marijuana, I didn’t think that it did anything special for me. So I didn’t try again for a while. But then, as I got into the rigorous schedule of high school sports and academics, I started smoking pot. I thought it was a good distraction from all the studying and demands. It became a neat escape for me from homework and chores. I didn’t think at the time, that it was any big problem.
But looking back at it now, I can see how much it affected me. When I was smoking, I looked at things differently. Smoking pot altered my priorities at the time. I really became unmotivated. I found it very difficult, while being stoned, to finish any projects I started. I had no focus. I lost some friendships, too. And when my mom found out once, I got into a lot of trouble.
I liked the escape "weed" provided for me. But I also hated the way it made me feel so tired and sluggish. In my early 20s, I decided to move on to healthier things. There didn’t seem any point to doing it anymore. I just found that I had better things to do with my time, even when I was bored. I made a decision to change, and I was lucky that it was not a difficult problem to for me to quit. My life was filled with sports, work and school. I had goals and now I was able to follow through with them.
In a funny way, if it weren’t for smoking pot, I would have taken a different path in life. When I was smoking I was drawn to solitary adventures. I ended up quitting team sports. Then I found snowboarding, mountain biking and rock climbing. And because of my involvement in those activities, I stopped smoking pot. So now, I have the focus and the energy and the motivation to fulfill my dreams.
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