How to Survive as an Ex-Stoner Around Stoners

Putting down that wer-hackybacky doesn't mean putting down your dozy homies too.

For quite a lot of stoners, after years of all-consuming dedication to smoking weed, something unnerving happens. A change occurs in your brain and weed gradually stops being fun. It can happen to anyone. 

Facing all the evidence that weed is no longer enjoyable might takes years of denial. It could be a matter of accepting and instantly regretting dooby after dooby until it finally dawns on you - Shit. I can’t smoke weed. And then puffing uneasily through a control group of another few hundred challenging joints, before you realise - Fuck. Yeah, I really can’t smoke weed. 

It’s a jarring biological alarm telling you it’s time to get off the couch, brush the crisps from your eyebrows and find a new hobby. But, what about all the beautiful friendships you made trading nonsense for hours and hours on end? Those bonds forged in the long, silly nights and groggy mornings are everlasting. However, your new life as the lone square in your stoner circle will take a bit of adjusting to. Here are some tips for embracing the unblunted lifestyle, while hanging with your dozy homies. 

Keep Your Plans Reasonable

People say potheads are unreliable. That said, you can always track them down to one of two sofas. With the exception of annoyingly productive stoners, weed smokers tend to be intrepid explorers of the great indoors.

Just because you’ve miraculously rediscovered the use of your legs, don’t go barging into their sanctuary with grand plans. It’s not fair to expect high people to sign up for a sketchy expedition past the outermost wall off the lounge. If you catch yourself trying to drum up interest with the hopeless oomph of a Friday afternoon teacher - stop. 

“Come on, guys! Let’s go hike! There’s a whole world out there, you know?” 

Sit down. You can’t expect your high mates to jump at whatever shelterless wild goose chase the new you has dreamt up. 

Not Being High

Laughter is the best medicine, and weed is the best way to access a steady supply of it. Stoned folks are known for their super sensitive funny bones. The whole room will be howling at a remark that your sober brain finds more funny-peculiar, than funny-haha. It can feel like you’re on the outside looking in on an inside joke. 

Don’t launch a pathetic inquest into the gag. Stop yourself from taking a big THC-free piss over everyone’s buzz. Just smile along with it all. Try not to comment on how high everyone is, either. It breaks the illusion that all the weed-infused high jinks are not plain, old, wholesome family fun.

The easily amused get a bad rep. Life is more enjoyable with a laugh track. You can experience a kind of psychological second-hand high if you let yourself. It’s easy to get swept along with the silly, drowsy vibe like a giddy little kid staying up too late at a sleepover.

Yes, everyone will be laughing at everything. Conveniently, your jokes fall into that bracket. Even without the Performance Enhancing Drugs juicing up your creative banter drive, anything you say will be met with a supportive chuckle.

Help Where You Can

Just by being the only non-high person in a room you have super powers by default. With this great power comes light responsibility. 

When high, the hassle of spearheading a 5-man takeaway order can bury the idea. Pushing 5 

indecisive minds to a pizza verdict is hard enough. Then there’s storing those deets and relaying their intricate sauce demands to a testy restaurateur. It’s too much. Why not do your mates a solid and volunteer your unconvoluted brain for the task?

There’s a knock at the door. Maybe it’s the takeaway. Maybe it’s someone who will be greeted with the unconcealed disappointment of high people expecting a takeaway. A deeper silence falls on the already zoned-out room, as the undertaking ahead hangs heavy in the air. Everyone else is experiencing three times as much gravity as you. For you to spring up and save the day is nothing. Remember their struggle. Why not take the hit for your anchored homies?

Now, I’m not suggesting you take on an unpaid position as resident lucid butler/PA. Don’t end up fetching Rizzla from the night garage at the ring of a tiny bell. Don’t sign up as chief admin on an Excel file tracking the complex trail of weed and snack debt. But do use your newfound abilities to help out your glazed buddies, where you can be bothered.

The Smoke

If everyone is smoking inside, you’re slightly fucked. The contact high is very real, but quite gentle. Short of importing mason jars of fresh air, there’s no getting away from it. Hopefully, the second-hand smoke will only put a bearable psychological twist on your mental state. But if not, you just have to sit near a window and get a tiny bit unpleasantly high in the name of friendship. 

Raising Media Standards 

At the risk of generalising, high people as a people, tend to be quite easily satisfied. Blanket appreciation is a large part of the ganja’s appeal. Weed can turn the mediocre into straight-up art. It will have you testifying that “How I Met Your Mother” will remain this century's most important contribution to humanity. 

The manual labour involved channel-hopping often causes stoners to settle for any tolerable combo of moving images and sounds. As a straight-edged square, it’s harder to see the entertainment value in a 7-hour Cake Chef marathon. 

A pothead's attention will be drifting in and out, as they cat-call tiramisus, see the funny side and find profound parallels between a cake's 3 tier structure and our unjust society. Without haze-tinted glasses, the story arc isn't all that enthralling.  

Now that you're jaytotal, you have to strive for better if you want to break yourself off some of that viewing pleasure.

Avoiding Temptation

Officially announcing that you don’t smoke weed anymore, is among the fastest ways to guarantee you are offered a zoot. Stoners will make it their afternoon’s mission to lure you back onto the forbidden grass. Current stoners: It’s not a bad ruse if you’re ever hounding for weed.

Building up any kind of logical willpower is a lengthy process. It will probably take quite a few unfun reattempts at the weed, before you can refuse a joint with any certainty. 

Now you can get on with the new clear-headed chapter of your life, without letting down your compadres in the blazed community. Naturally, assuming your new identity will take a bit of training. The life of a narc undercover in a cannabis operation is not an easy one, but you'll get there.