Is Weed Addictive?

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Abuse Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: So don't ask why, but I came across my guest's TikTok by accident the other day. Caught my attention. First thing I heard him say was, "Is weed addictive?"

Mike: I suppose that's why it showed up on my TikTok feed. I'm just going to pick up the conversation from there. Walter Hendrickson lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where I grew up.

Mike: Welcome, Walter.

Walter: Thank you so much. I'm, I'm genuinely honored to be here.

Mike: Well, I, you know, that when I, here I see your face and I see first words, "Is weed addictive?"

Mike: And I went, okay, I'll listen for another 10 seconds. So take it from there. What are you trying to do?

Walter: I guess at the end of the day, it became kind of a question of introspection. I think there was a lot of little seeds planted along the way that got me asking this question to myself. And I think it's been one I've kind of been wrestling with for a lot of years, but was just never really brave enough to confront.

Walter: And it, It really was. I was kind of rolling a J and I thought to myself, when was the last time I actually didn't smoke in a day? And I, I couldn't come up with an answer. And then I started thinking the, you know, I remembered Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan talking on, on Joe Rogan's podcast about this gentleman that would get addicted to things and then document himself coming off of them.

Walter: And I was in, you know, Dave Chappelle was like, "Yo, and he can quit anytime he wants to". And I started thinking like, could I quit weed? If I wanted to, and I genuinely thought because of the narrative that surrounds marijuana that I could like that there would be no issue that I would just stop and be able to walk forward and it would not, you know, take any amount of effort to do this, other than just finding a way to occupy my time.

Walter: And I was like, I'm pretty good at being productive, what, you know, maybe, but I didn't think so much of the time I would end up spending in the days to follow would be pacing and, and, you know, scouring thoughts.

Mike: Well, all right, let's go backwards. How long you guesstimated, right? How long has it been? You smoke daily for how long?

Walter: So I smoked daily for, for nine years. You know, I mean, I, I really smoked my lungs like a ham. You know, there was, there was a long period of time where I was smoking about two packs of cigarettes a day. I was perpetually smoking throughout the day. I've never had a job that I was not able to, I mean, I've only had two jobs in the last nine years. I've, I've always been a loyal employee. I work diligently and I'm good at what it is I do. I'm in the finance industry. But I, (laugh) I know, I know. But I guess over the last nine years, you know, I would smoke cigarettes, I was drinking very heavily for a long period of time, really up until about.

Walter: Two, three years ago. And then I was smoking and with smoking, I, you know, that evolved throughout the course of time as well. I think as with anything more and more and more, you, you kind of have to up the ante if you want to have a similar kind of feeling, and I think eventually your baseline kind of moves up.

Walter: So it went from just bringing, you know some pre-rolled joints. I woke up and I'd roll in the morning to work and then, you know, finding time to just walk off. And then it would be, you know, I would get the wax pens, the dab pens, whatever people want to call them, the little oil vaporizers.

Walter: And I would walk around with those and the joints. And then that would turn into you know, just dabs when I got home. So I was literally vaporizing things with a, with a torch and a glass. You know and then I would start eating it as well. I mean, and it really upped itself. So by the end of it, I mean, it was pretty well, I was.

Walter: There was not a moment throughout my, I mean, my only sobriety, I think in that time period was the minutes it took me to get started in the morning.

Mike: Yeah, how much were you spending?

Walter: I calculated quite a bit of money. It's kind of embarrassing to say, but the most recent calculation I did was about $630 in a month which translated, I'd say about $20 a day.

Mike: Wow! And so along the way though You quit nicotine?

Walter: Uh huh. Yeah.

Mike: And still, still?

Walter: So admittedly in the last couple of days I mean, I have like not cold turkey-ed anymore. Like I have hit nicotine pens, but it's not something I feel is like a habit. It's, it's been, I think in a stress, it's not the same though.

Walter: And it's been the little, the little vaporizer. So I wouldn't say. But it has been something in dealing with we, we've been watching my grandmother pass away from dementia.

Mike: I'm sorry about that.

Walter: Thank you. But a lot of my cousins do that. And in the absence of me smoking weed and doing that, I've definitely hit some nicotine.

Walter: I don't want to lie. But at the same time, it's something I definitely recognize. I'm not wanting to trade one thing for another. If I've, I think if I've kind of noticed anything about myself, the question "is weed addictive?" It was very much rhetorical, but it was when I, when I asked myself it was really just to make me think like.

Walter: Is it addictive to me? Is this something I am doing? And I was actually going through my notes. I, I was, I'd written a song about five years ago where I wrote the word "Self-medicate to relate to the people around me, fall out of grace on my face. What am I doing here?" And I guess I kind of started maybe in the last two days thinking that maybe my addiction was self medication in general.

Walter: And when I recognize how truly interwoven my marijuana consumption was with you know self medication. That's really, I think, when it all started.

Mike: That's interesting. Now, we're, just for the listeners, because we didn't say this yet.

Mike: We're, what, day six?

Walter: This is the, yeah, I am. So it was the end of day five at 11:59 last night. So it's, yeah, this is the beginning of day six at the end of the day, I will have finished six days.

Mike: And what have you so far experienced? Your TikToks are fascinating. They're short, right? They're short because it's TikTok, but you know, there's a real window into what withdrawal is like.

Walter: I guess I want to start by saying when I started this, I at no point thought I was going to feel any sort of withdrawal symptoms. I did not think that this was going to be something that I dealt with. And I, I think a lot of people think it's fake because that's, they don't think it would happen to them.

Walter: I, one of the things I've seen repetitively throughout comments is, you know "I've been smoking every day for 30 years and I'm not addicted!" And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, like, What the, what the H word? Like, how do you, how do you, how do you think that? Like, when did you try to stop? Oh, I've never tried to stop.

Walter: Oh, okay. So you're not addicted. Fine. When I, when I look at myself and I ask that if I'm being honest with myself I don't, I mean, there's an addiction somewhere in there, whether it's THC or marijuana, whether it's a chemical dependency is irrelevant to me because I recognize that there's, there's a true addiction.

Walter: There's something I'm not. I haven't confronted and I think that that's really where the bulk of the use came from. And so, yeah, I mean, while they're short windows, the documenting process has been kind of like a video journal to me. A lot of people have given me their own suggestions on how to move past things.

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Walter: But there's a tremendous level of shame when you watch yourself writhe.

Walter: And you know that that was self inflicted and reading the comments and seeing all of the different narratives that people have, I mean, it really is a taboo question to the community. I mean of, of stoner culture. It's, it's an offensive one to some people, even to just ask it of yourself. And there's not a fair shake on it.

Walter: Like, everybody wants to think because you're asking that of yourself, you're projecting whatever you decide your answer is to the world around you. And I've said this in my videos, but I will always be a proponent of marijuana because I do think marijuana versus potentially an opiate you know, is massively beneficial.

Walter: I've heard anecdotal experiences all over the place from people who have said, you know, I use it because I had an opiate addiction and now I don't, and it's much better than the pharmaceuticals. In relation to me, I didn't have that problem. So I don't think it's a fair comparison. I think we're looking at one apple and one orange when people are saying, well, it's better than something else.

Walter: Like, well, okay, maybe, but I'm not dealing with that something else I'm dealing with this.

Mike: Well, and, and to say that it doesn't have any effect, I mean, what was your, your one today is interesting, but we'll get to that. What was your sleep like?

Walter: Not existent. So it was kind of like... You ever fall asleep in the middle of the day?

Walter: Like you kind of have a nap, but you're aware of everything that's going on and you can kind of hear things, but you're in like a state of restfulness.

Mike: Yeah.

Walter: And while you wake up feeling a little bit refreshed, you know, that that wasn't necessarily sleep. So much as a rest. And I think that that's maybe been the best description I can give is when I've tried to sleep... The first night and the second night and the third night were by far the worst.

Walter: I mean, it was, it was truly just running in a rat's wheel in my brain. Just please sleep, please sleep, please sleep. We're going to work tomorrow. Please sleep, please sleep. And in the mornings, I've replaced my joint rolling with meditation and so I take that 20 minutes and I've just kind of been sitting in mindfulness and while that's been helpful, a lot of times with mindfulness comes introspection and in when you're dealing with.

Walter: You know, confronting yourself that you know, I think that introspection can occasionally be a little bit volatile. And when you ask yourself hard questions, and if you're really dedicated to giving yourself honest answers, you don't always like the answers you find. And those are answers that when I would lay down to bed and I would be sitting there thinking to myself, like, all I have to do is smoke and I can sleep. All I have to do is smoke and I can sleep. And those words were almost on repeat in my brain, like a song. And eventually you would end up kind of nodding to the point that you open your eyes and all of a sudden you're shivering, like you cannot control when you're shaking and your whole body is wet.

Walter: And it's because your whole body is wet. You're, you know, shivering even worse. And that was an experience that I, I mean, I'd experienced it kind of with smoking nicotine when I quit that, but whenever it came down to you know, dealing with this. The shakes were far worse than I remember with quitting nicotine.

Walter: And you know, the emotional swings were also very, very much because you wake up and you're like, I did this to myself!

Mike: Yeah. Well, you know, Walter, when I used to run the treatment center, the last treatment center I ran before I started doing prevention stuff. When I get somebody in who was smoking daily, smoking weed daily, after about six or seven days, I'd walk past them in the hallway.

Mike: I'd look, just look at them and say, "Weird dream last night, hey?"

Walter: Oh my gosh.

Mike: So how was your dream last night, Walter? (chuckle)

Walter: So I'll explain this. I haven't, I, you know, I called my mom when I woke up because I was like, "Mom, I had a dream!" And she was like, "Well, you know, tell me about it." And so the dream, I don't know if you're familiar with the video game, Mario Kart, but there's this level called rainbow road. And I, I ran cross country and track in high school and in college. And I am on a cross country race on the rainbow road and all around me is this black abyss. And it's just me and all of these other athletes that are just running and it's a straight uphill race.

Walter: And I'm not in this shape I was when I was in college in the dream. I am Walter now, and I can remember feeling so out of shape and so ill equipped, and I'm trying to run and catch everybody, and I'm a very competitive person. I don't mean to be, that's just the way I'm wired. I grew up as the younger cousin trying to beat all of his older cousins at stuff, and you know, that that's, I think why I was the runner I was because I, I had a mentality. But whenever I am running up this thing, I'm seeing all of these people and I'm trying to pass them.

Walter: And I'm like, you know what? I don't care if I'm out of shape, I'm going to, I'm going to move past these people. And as I'm starting to move forward in the pack, I start hearing all of these jeers and these jeers are the worst things I have ever heard in my whole life. There's no people anywhere other than the runners who are not communicating with me, but I'm literally hearing all of the worst things I hate about myself being screamed at me.

Walter: And I'm looking around and I'm just seeing black abyss and rainbow. And it's, you know, a translucent rainbow that I'm running up the hill on. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm going to make it through. I'm going to get up this, I'm gonna win this frigging thing. I don't care what's what, you know, I don't care that I'm out of shape right now.

Walter: I don't care that I can't do this. And as I'm getting closer. To the, to the finish line. I'm also getting closer to the lead of the race. And I take the lead of the race and I have this moment of excitement. And then I fall. And when I fall, I fall through the rainbow before the finish line. And I'm like, I go from, and as I'm like trying to get to first place, my breath is so strained that I'm like, I'm just going to hold my breath until I beat this guy and I stopped breathing.

Walter: And I'm just like, no, you just got to go a little bit further. And I get so overwhelmed that. It causes me to fall. And as I'm falling through this rainbow into a black abyss, I literally am just screaming and I'm hearing all of the jeers as I'm going. And I wake up from the fear of falling.

Mike: We'll let all the therapists digest that for a minute.

Mike: What, what, what is it, what does that tell you? What is this telling you? Day six, what's this telling you about the weed in the brain?

Walter: I, I think it's, I don't know, in a way, I think it says a lot more about me. You know, when I, when I talked to my mom, I told my parents years later that I actually really, really, really hated running because what I found out as I got older in retrospect was I, it really became, a representation of don't fail.

Walter: And I think for me if I lost a race, I felt like I'd failed and it didn't even matter if I'd gotten my best time at a particular event in that race. If I didn't win it, I failed. So I was never proud of doing my best. I was only proud if I won and felt like I didn't fail. And so, I hadn't necessarily considered that until my mom said it.

Walter: But when I was talking to her, I was like, you know, I, I don't know. It was so vivid. Like that's the other thing. I'm not, I don't, I've never really had vivid dreams before.

Mike: Or colorful.

Walter: But yeah, no. And again, rainbow to black. I mean, it was, it was truly a spectrum. And when I started thinking about it, like, I think there is a bit of me that's dedicated and you know determined and there is a bit of me that there, there's strength there that I maybe don't recognize is there, but there's also an incredible fear to fail.

Walter: And I think with this because of how easy it is to fall into it, you know, I live in a place where it's legal. Everybody I know knows that I have been the smoker I've been. And almost to an embarrassing point where you know, people would make jokes about the amount I would smoke and those are my smoker friends.

Walter: And so I don't know. I think that maybe there was an element of that dream kind of presenting that, like, I'm afraid to not finish the race, but I'm also afraid of what happens if I win.

Mike: Meaning?

Walter: It's confusing, I guess. But when you spend so much of your life identifying this way, like as a stoner, there's a culture that comes with it.

Walter: There's a comradery that comes with it. There's a set of unwritten rules that comes with it. There's questions that you aren't supposed to ask. There's you know all of these different unwritten, you know, kind of rules of the club and. It's a club that I've proudly identified with for a long time.

Walter: You know, I, I used to talk to my parents about my mom never smoked. My dad was one of my smoking buddies and I can remember talking to my parents saying like, I just think it's really cool that marijuana has this community surrounding it, that you can kind of go anywhere as a stoner. And if you see a guy with a pen, you're like, Hey, this guy knows what it's about.

Walter: And you immediately have a friend and it could, it would be based on nothing other than the fact that you both like to get lit. But that's something that I think maybe I'm a little bit afraid to lose. You know when you identify with something, I hate to say it, but marijuana has very much been a part of my identity and I think for a long time, I would have said simple, you know, if people asked me why I smoked, I'd have been like, oh, it helps me eat.

Walter: You know, I've, I've dealt with anorexia for a really long time in my life. Where, Oh, it helps me with my anxiety. But I was still anxious. I mean, when I'm really thinking about it, like I still felt anxiety during smoking. So a lot of the answers I was, or questions I was asking had answers that kind of felt empty, like, Oh, well that's convenient. Right.

Walter: And I don't know, I think. (sigh) There's a big fear of losing that community that you identify with, and there's also a fear that maybe you won't be accepted because you're a person that you know, deals with whatever you deal with and you don't have that same kind of bandage that provides understanding from a community of people that you've, you know, grown to identify with.

Mike: You know, when you talk about community, when you read the comments under your TikToks. One of the things that struck me, there's there, you and I were talking about this just before we started this, there's going to be those people criticizing.

Mike: Because you're criticizing their way of life rather than the drug, that's just the way they feel. But, I was struck by how many supportive comments that you got, or are getting. And there's a huge community rooting for you right now.

Walter: There really is, and you know, a lot of people have kind of asked me, and commented like, Don't let the haters really get you down. And I'm kind of reminded of this story. I heard of Larry David, the guy that wrote Curb Your Enthusiasm. And he's talking about going to a Yankees game. And at that Yankees game, he gets put on the jumbotron and you know, a hundred thousand people cheer for him. And it's such a big night.

Walter: He's happy. He's beaming and he's walking to his car. And this guy pulls his car over, stops Larry as he's walking to his car. And he says, Larry, you suck. And just drives away. And all of the people surrounding Larry said all Larry could focus on after 100,000 people cheering for him was that was the douche in the parking lot.

Mike: Yeah.

Walter: And when I started looking at my life that way, it kind of made a lot of sense. Like, don't let the guy that says you suck in, you know, a sea of people that are really trying to support what you're doing. Don't let that be the louder voice.

Walter: And so, yeah, I think there was, there was an element of that, that. As I've kind of read through the comments. And also you realize like some people only see pieces, right? Some people don't see the whole thing Some people just see day six or day five and they don't necessarily know the entirety of the journey. So I don't take it offensively whenever people say that like there have been ones that some comments have smarted, I'm not gonna lie.

Walter: But I will also say that 95 to five people have been wonderful, supportive.

Mike: Yeah.

Walter: And even to the point, like I did not expect this to happen, but several, a lot of people have said, I'm gonna do this with you, and have been posting their updates within the comments and I definitely did not anticipate to do that.

Walter: I, this whole thing started off as me just wanting to know what it was going to be like, you know when I realized I didn't know what my brain sounded like anymore without being baked. And I wired virtually my whole life to be able to kind of. You know, maneuver myself so I could get baked. So whenever that kind of all started happening, I think people saying that, you know, they were in this with me, made me feel less alone.

Walter: And it made me realize that maybe there was also like a subculture within this community of stoners that are asking themselves the same questions. Like, am I self medicating or am I. What does my brain sound like? Or when was the last time I didn't smoke? And I don't know, when I, when I really couldn't come up with the, with the answer of when the last time I didn't smoke was, I really think that's why the question "Is weed addictive?" came.

Walter: And I guess I kind of approached it through a Socratic methods, you know answering a question by asking a question. So is weed addictive? Well, how long have you smoked? X amount of time. When was the last time you didn't smoke? I don't know. Why do you think that is? I don't know. Well, let's, how do we find the answers?

Walter: Well, we don't smoke. Well, what, what's that going to be like? And so there's, there's all of these different like I said, it was a whole bunch of different stair steps. My dad sobered up about three months ago and he silently suffered. And he told me I want to say two months in you know, he hadn't, we'd been talking the whole time, but he hadn't told me he had done that.

Walter: He lives in Michigan. And so he told me about two months in, you know, son, I haven't I haven't smoked for about two months. And I got to tell you, man, I'm, I feel very clear. I like, I think differently. And I was like, Oh yeah. (chuckle) Okay, dad. Like, and part of me was even disappointed that I wasn't going to get to smoke with my dad.

Walter: Like I, I can remember thinking like, he's going to be coming to Arizona and we're just going to be around each other. Like that was, and that kind of made me sad too when I started thinking about the fact that like, wow, for me to enjoy my time with my dad, I have to be smoking with him and kind of, kind of made me sad.

Mike: Wow. Lots of thoughts.

Walter: Yeah. Well, and so then one of my buddies who I've smoked with A lot was like, I'm I'm also not smoking. And he was a couple of weeks in, and this was maybe a month ago and he's still not gone back to it. And, you know, he was like, you know, I got to be honest, Walt, you smoke a lot, bud, and that's coming from a guy you smoked a lot with.

Walter: Are you. Do you think maybe it's something else? (chuckle) No, dude, it's just who I am. It's just a part of me. It's what, it's what I do. And I guess when I started thinking about it, maybe those, and you know, my, my cousin that I live with, Simon, he's definitely been one of the biggest supporters in this whole thing.

Walter: I mean, I, there's been a lot of moments where he would get home from work. He gets home from work late. We work pretty opposite shifts. I'm an eight to five guy. And you know, he's a, he's a two to eleven guy. And there had been a couple of times where he would come home. And I'm just shivering and shaking and crying by myself thinking, you know, he was, he was going to go play a pool or something because he's, he's a really, really great billiard player.

Walter: But he would come home and see me in just shambles. And he's a dude I smoke with a lot, but when I told him what I was wanting to do, you know, he was like, anything I can do to support you. What you tell me what it is, I'm not going to quit. But if you need me to not smoke around you, if you need me to keep it away from you, I will.

Walter: And so when he would come home and he would see me just falling apart, he would be like, what are you feeling, bud? Like, you know, are you, are you okay? Like, and even just hearing somebody from within my community looking at me and saying. You know, a guy I smoked with every day saying like, "Buddy, I, you're, you're never not high. Like, how do you feel anything?" And I don't know, like I said, I think between those kind of three seeds planted, there was something that was going to come to fruition. And I think it when I saw that there was maybe a little sprout to that idea, I decided maybe it was worth cultivating.

Mike: (laugh) Seeds, sprouts, and cultivation. There's no puns in there at all. Is there?

Mike: Well talk about The feelings for a minute, if you don't mind. I know you're going through stuff with your grandma right now, but you know, I thought that was an interesting comment you just made. "What are you feeling when you're high?" Well, what have you discovered about feelings now that you're not?

Walter: Oh, I think grief has been so crazy because I can. I went through a divorce not long ago, well, a couple of years ago, and my ex wife fell in love with one of my friends, and I can remember thinking that there was no worse pain than that. And a couple of weeks later, my best friend lost his dad, and I was with him when he took the phone call, and I watched him fall apart, and I can remember thinking, "Wow, like, the the way he's reacting to this is no different than the way I reacted or have been reacting towards my divorce."

Walter: And in this scenario, in this season of life, both in that context, I was perpetually high. And in this context, I'm recognizing that this feeling of grief is so... there is a visceral difference between the way it's experienced and it's much heavier, you know, it's much more overwhelming. It's much more on your mind.

Walter: And at the same time, there's a level that you're, you're kind of able to intellectualize it in a way that doesn't just feel like this sucks. I hate what is happening right now. And it becomes more of a... I think the internal dialogue sounds different. I'm a person that has a perpetual monologue going on in my head.

Walter: And that changed a whole lot from... When I was going through grief before, I was only thinking about the fact that it hurt and one day it would feel better, but I was not necessarily noticing that people supported me, people loved me, people were there, people were understanding. I just knew that like it hurt real bad.

Walter: And now, I'm seeing that grief kind of comes with the spectrum, you know. I'm, I'm surrounded by people that love me. And yeah, it's a terrible circumstance, right? But the feeling of grief is kind of counterbalanced by the feeling of being loved. And that has been a distinctly different thing.

Walter: And while it's so much harder to deal with grief in the middle of sobriety, it is also so much easier to feel the experience of being loved. And, you know and I think that in one side of this coin, it's a burden. On the other side, it's a blessing. And when you look at that, I would take the harder feelings that come with grief, if I got to feel loved.

Walter: I mean, when I look at it to me right now in this position of my life, it's a worthy exchange. I've always struggled, I think, with feeling loved and accepted. And I came from a loving family. But you have to, you have to learn how to accept that. And I think in a lot of ways, my use of marijuana was numbing my lack of acceptance for myself. I think I found a community in people that also were similarly kind of misfit people that, and not everybody, right? Like not everybody that does this is self medicating there. I think I will always be a proponent of marijuana because of the medicinal benefits.

Walter: But at the same time, what happens when you recognize that you have been self-medicating the whole time. And if you don't address that you can continue to live and have a good functioning life, and it can help you with your insomnia and sleeping and your eating and, and your anxiety, sure.

Walter: But what happens when you recognize that there's something maybe more to that, and I found that as I've dug into that there was a whole well of grief, and there was a whole well of just bad feelings. But, there was also a wealth of love surrounding me that went equally ignored to the numbness of, of grief.

Mike: Yeah.

Walter: And I think that again, that exchange is a worthy one to me. I would feel all of these feelings to feel the love that I've been shown.

Mike: Well, when you trade the numbness. When you trade the numbness, which mutes everything, you're trading it for the extremes, right?

Walter: Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

Walter: And there's a lot of different, I think there's a lot of places on the spectrum, you know, there is, everybody's a snowflake. And I, I think everybody's experience is their own. And, you know, you can't force somebody to your own version of introspection and truth, right? Like it's not universal.

Walter: There's not a one size fits all answer to this thing. And that's something that I'm repetitively finding out. I see a lot of people say like, you know, I use weed for my chronic pain and I came from opiates and... I have time and time again, when I see that comment, tell them, don't fix what isn't broken, you know, like you are, I applaud and commend you because admittedly, like I would imagine opiates do a, a much better job at eliminating pain.

Walter: I don't know. I've, I've, I've never taken weed for pain. I've, I've just taken it cause I liked it.

Mike: So I noticed, those of you who are listening, that we're not talking about the future here. This is a one day at a time thing, right?

Walter: Yeah.

Mike: And every, every day, if you go on to his Tik Tok, you, I would invite you to do day one, then do day two.

Mike: It doesn't take long. And just the range of things you've experienced in the first week are worth listening to.

Mike: You want to come back on again down the road a little bit?

Walter: I would be honored. I'm still kind of seeing what this journey is going to be. I haven't decided if I'm going to return to use like to smoking again or anything like that, but no matter what happens at this point, I've recognized that my relationship with it will be different.

Walter: And I'm absolutely happy to talk the update.

Mike: Yeah, you know nobody knows, right? And sometimes you, it's just like you said with the nicotine, you take a hit or here or there. You know, it's, there are always circumstances that are difficult. You know, you're one last night where you said, man, this is hard to cope with without it, but you are, you are, you know.

Walter: And it is hard (laugh), I'm not gonna lie, but. And I, and I appreciate that, that affirmation, because there is for anybody that decides that this is something that they want to try. There will constantly be that voice in your head. That's like, this would be a lot easier if you just smoked and you're going to see every scenario in your life that you would have smoked otherwise.

Walter: And that's going to be right up and in your face. And again, like a rat on a wheel, sometimes my brain feels like, why do I keep coming back to this? Like, why am I, why do I keep saying I want to do this? So I would just challenge anybody that if. If that is something that you are hearing going down in your brain you know, just recognize that that's normal

Mike: And normal is normal, right? (chuckle)

Mike: While this has been just terrific, you're a great guy to talk to. I really appreciate it. And for those of you who looking at this on our YouTube channel. He just happens to be wearing a really cool Bowie shirt. So. You can't go around that.

Walter: Ziggy Stardust.

Mike: Yes (laugh), which I listened to monthly if I, if I'm down a little bit, nothing like that album to bring you up.

Walter: I really think it's, it's his best work. I mean, to me that is definitive Bowie.

Mike: (laugh) Well, before we get into another YouTube channel.

Mike: Walt, we're gonna wish you the best and tell you we're rooting for you with the thousands of other people there. And I'll contact you again down the road and let's do this again regardless of how it turns out. But in the meantime, you have our thoughts and prayers.

Walter: Don't threaten me with a good time!

Mike: (laugh) Thanks to Walt for doing this. And for those of you listening, thanks for listening. Listen in next time and stay safe and challenge yourself to experience all the ends of the continuum.