Zak Kolesar
Being open with your family about weed can have a positive impact on everyone involved.
Initially,
making marijuana a comfortable conversation topic for families can be
touchy and tough.
Despite the assumed negative connotations of weed
dissipating over the past few years, it can still be a taboo topic
depending on your family’s understanding of pot. Shedding light on the
truths behind the effects of marijuana, especially as your parents grow
into old age, can turn into one of the most helpful and constructive
conversations you have ever had with those closest to you.
For
me, it was extremely difficult at first to have this type of talk with
my mom and dad. It was also hard for me to communicate my choices behind
smoking to them. However, a few unfortunate circumstances during my
early collegiate years presented the perfect opportunity for me to
explain my marijuana use without feeling like a degenerate.
According
to the National Institute of Mental Health, depression is prevalent in
about one in five people in the United States. Going away to college can
often heighten symptoms of depression as well. Dealing with some
personal issues of my own and not having much success with
doctor-prescribed medicine, I turned to weed in college to help ease my
own social anxiety.
At
first, my parents didn’t understand and suspected that I was indulging
solely to chase a high; it was also very difficult to be the one to
start the conversation. But, as I’ve noticed with most issues in life,
if you approach your problems with confidence and honesty upfront,
respectable humans will deal it right back to you.
Explaining
to my parents how marijuana made me more comfortable in crowded social
situations and eased my running mind has reduced paranoia in my life be a
tenfold. My parents accepted how using marijuana can be beneficial
toward easing the symptoms of depression, meaning that I no longer had
to hide a portion of my life from some of the most important people in
it.
After
that talk, marijuana became a topic that I could discuss with my family
without feeling chastised, and it soon became something that my mom and
grandpa looked to when dealing with their own personal problems. My
grandpa used weed-laced edibles to help with his appetite while he was
fighting cancer. My mom also deals with rheumatoid arthritis in
her hands and has recently started going to the chiropractor for back
issues, but she used my experience with treating an illness with
marijuana to aid her own.
My
grandpa has since passed away—however, my mom will look to marijuana
occasionally when her hand is flaring up. Not only am I glad that I can
discuss marijuana with my family with positive feedback, but more
importantly seeing my mom be eased of her pain because of it puts me at
ease as well.
If I never came up to my parents to discuss my marijuana use, who knows what alleys my mom would be going down to help calm her rheumatoid
arthritis. This discussion can be a difficult one to have and even more
stressful to bring up, but it can have positive life-altering effects.
As you and your family grow older together, new problems will pop up
with age. Marijuana can be one of the safest alternatives to keeping
medical conditions at bay. That’s always a good starting point when
having the weed conversation with your family.
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