My life is going down the tubes. Could it be the weed?

Listen to yourself:

"I have enrolled at JC for the last two semesters and both times I’ve screwed it up. I missed too many classes and did too little work. And this is all because I was high every day."

"As soon as I get high in the morning any good plans I had to get stuff done and make some progress just gets shelved for another day."

"I’m 23 now and I can see some of the people I went to high school with are starting to get good jobs and stuff and I’m still just sitting around with nothing to show for myself."

You know what you need to do to prevent your life from going nowhere, becoming a useless unproductive miserable mess. You need to stop smoking weed. And you have discovered through experience what addicts, whether its alcohol, cocaine, cigarettes or weed, find out: You can't just do a little, on weekends or special occasions. The weed takes over and you lose the ability to control it. You can't hang around the people, places and things that keep its company. The weed takes over and you end up in the same mess again.

You need to stop smoking pot now, or risk really screwing up your life.

You may have believed the lie that weed is harmless and you can do it and still have a successful life. But you have learned by experience that this is a lie. You have proven it. You are going nowhere smoking weed with others who will be going nowhere too, if they are stoned all the time. Maybe some people can smoke occasionally and the weed doesn't take over, but you have found out you can't, and you can't hang out with pot-smokers without the weed taking over. There are many good people who are like you, and they are OK, as long as they stay away from pot.

You are going to have to make a choice. Do you want to move on to a better life like those you knew from high school who are making their lives work, or do you want to go nowhere but downhill with the pot smoking crowd?

It is hard to part company with those you love and are attached to, and it is not that they are bad people. You love them, and it will be hard to watch them self-destruct if they don't clean up their act too. But, like many young people who partied with peers, you'll watch some of them clean their act up and create great lives, and you'll watch some of them become alcoholics, pot-heads and addicts, going nowhere and miserable. Which are you going to be?

Find an addictions counselor who you can talk to about this. He will verify what I am saying, which is important, because those who want you to keep smoking with them will have their own agenda and their own opinions to tell you. A good addictions counselor can hook you up with support groups and educational material that will help you. And then, some day you may be able to help someone else out of this mess you are in. You can help your friends more by getting clean than by going down the tubes.

Best wishes to you. I hope you make the right choice.