[Magellan]

Preface: This is gonna be long. I’ll give some background info about myself (probably too much) and then state what I have concluded mainly through self-analysis, but also through observing others. Hopefully some of this will interest at least the OP, if noone else.


I hear you buddy! Your personality sounds a lot like my own.

I had my stint playing MUDs starting in my first year of uni, setting up some very bad study habits. For me it wasn't to the exclusion of socializing but studying; I would miss lectures and tutorials to play. I have always been on the obsessive side when it comes to gaming, particularly with RPG type games. I also gave Counter-Strike a good thrashing a few years back.

Substances are an interesting situation for me. I started smoking weed reasonably regularly in my final year of high school (good timing, I know), and so began my underachieving academically. It wasn't that I couldn't cope with school work, just that I would rather avoid doing it in favour of hanging out with friends and getting ripped. I also tried speed and LSD a couple of times that year. I still got good enough grades to get into uni.

So, soon after getting to uni I got stuck into a MUD called Turf, and was smoking weed daily. As mentioned, it was my studies that suffered though, not my social life. I also expanded my experimenting with substances to include meth, e, and shrooms. The interesting thing is that while I smoked weed obsessively I restricted my other intakes to once a month or so (on average) without a problem. Also, I've never been a big drinker. Women I could easily get obsessed with, but it unfortunately didn't work the other way around. I didn't relate to the ladies too well back then, and that didn't change 'til my early 20's.

So time marched on 'til roughly 5 years back when I met my now wife. I had deferred uni a little earlier to try to get my [censored] together, hadn't got my [censored] together really, and never went back to uni (had a full time job, liked the money etc.). So strangely enough my future wife came from a fairly religious background, though she knew the full extent of my extra-curricular activities. I stayed totally straight for the first couple of months that we were together, until one fateful day she told me wanted to try weed! Cutting to the point, within 6 months we were both smoking weed daily. I had also convinced her to try other stuff, leading to some of the best times I've ever had. This was like rediscovering drugs all over again for me, because there was a whole new range of experiences to be had, and with someone that I was in love with.

So whilst there have been others, my main vice is weed. The crux of the problem is that I really like it, I tend to be a bit obsessive about things I really like AND the fact that I can still function fairly effectively when I smoke it daily. The main immediate negative effect is to my motivation, and the more that time passes the more I’m considering the long-term health effects. My main motivation-related regret is that I’m not in a higher paying job (I should be), something I aim to fix this year. That said, we have managed to organise a wedding and have a house built in the last few years, so it’s not like the time has been a write off.

So my annoyance with myself on the motivation front built up over the last few years, partly due to the amount of time I had smoked for, and also because of the growing number of things I needed to get done that were being put off. The major project was the landscaping at my house. So, a little over 6 months ago my wife and I decided to cut back smoking to weekends only. We made a serious commitment to help each other do this. Apart from a few exceptions like when we’ve gone to see bands, we have not caved in at all. We’re quite happy with the outcome and our major motivation, the landscaping, is nearing completion.

So it’s about time for my conclusion(s) about this type of behaviour. I don’t think this type of behaviour is necessarily a problem, and as Blarg noted it can be used for “good” as well as “evil”. Anyone with this type of personality needs to learn to be honest with themselves about the effects (both on themselves and others) of their compulsive behaviour, particularly where drugs are concerned. Honesty about what you want out of life and whether you’re getting it is important too. Personally I’m not a career driven person and prefer to focus on my life outside of work (though I do work hard at my job when required and couldn’t put up with a boring job). With that in mind I don’t mind that I have sacrificed achieving my full career potential to smoke a lot of weed etc. and get obsessed about a few things I enjoy doing in my free time. I find there is a strange attraction to getting absorbed in something a little compulsively. Basically yasher, and anyone else with a similar personality, if you are happy like this and not upsetting people around you (within reason), then I say obsess on! If you are unhappy with something you're currently obsessed with, then be honest with yourself and take steps to change the situation.


DISCLAIMER: I'm definitely not recommending everyone get stuck into drugs, especially the harder ones.