I feel terrible.  My head is pounding, I'm twitching like I have a mild electrical current running through my entire body and I have sweat leaking from more pores than I thought a human being could possibly contain.  Sleeping and eating have become things I do irregularly, rather than at scheduled intervals.  The only things I actually seem capable of doing is using the internet and throwing up five pints of water several times a day.  And why, I hear you cry?  Does ClaritySam have a life-threatening disease? Radiation Sickness?  An unpleasant habit of mainlining Heroin into my genitals?  No my friends, no.  I am suffering like this because I've made a life-changing decision to give up my one and only vice (assuming you don't count videogames).  I....... have given up smoking weed. 
 
Now I know what you're thinking, marijuana is not that kind of drug.  Giving it up is, at worst, gonna make you really grumpy and a little sleep-deprived, whereas the shenanigans described in the above paragraph sound like a savage rerun of Trainspotting, minus the creepy plastic baby.  Well you'd pretty much be right, but two things happened to me at the beginning of this year that have shaped the last six months of life and led to me feeling like I've been fed through an industrial mangle.  Number one - I inherited a huge stack of cash and number two - I walked out of my job.  Now I assume most of you know at least one stoner (as opposed to a casual smoker) so you'll be well aware of what happens when a proper caner gets shit-loads of money and time off........  Seven months later I find myself sat in the exact same place, thirty thousand pounds worse off and smoking a quarter ounce of the finest amsterdam-grade shizzle every day.  Even my dealer keeps telling me to cut down, last time I visited him I left with half of what I asked for and a stern warning to make it last ringing in my (slightly flabbergasted) ears. 
 
That was the first sign I should cut down (the first one I paid any attention too anyway), but there have been several more since.  The crowning glory though was getting in touch with three very old mates that I've known since playschool (or kindergarten for my friends across the pond) and haven't seen since college.  One is editing the new Harry Potter film, one has just published an award winning debut novel and the other will be familiar to any fans of skate 3, because he's Benny Fairfax  :-)  Now I'm not saying for one single second that I'm not thrilled for all those guys but it really rammed it home for me what a total pigs ear I've made of my life. I'm intelligent, charismatic and creative, I'm not exaggerating when I say my IQ puts me in the top 0.02% in the UK.  I know that sounds like the worst kind of arrogant bragging, but I actually think it makes me even more pathetic that  with all the gifts I've been given I've accomplished exactly zip.  But thats gonna change. 
 
I'm really lucky.  If I hadn't received enough cash to quit my horrible, dead end job I never would have been able to do this.  However, I feel that at the age of 27 I'm approaching the last chance saloon.  I have no qualifications, no jobs in the last seven years that I haven't either walked from mid-shift or been fired and frankly I've been such a freeloading dickhead I'm lucky ANY of my friends still wanna know me.  But none of that matters now.  I'm getting clean, I'm having my teeth fixed up,  I'm going to travel the world and I'm going to University to study multi-media journalism next year. 
 
A second chance is a beautiful thing. 
 
Sam 
 
PS. Thanks to anyone who read this, I know its really self-obsessed but I feel quite good to have got my thoughts about it down in writing.  And yes, I do realise that becoming THAT addicted to green makes me a tool :-)