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how it affected my life,
and I used to smoke weed.
This is my story of
how I started smoking weed,
and how I eventually quit.
I recommend that anyone
looking into smoking weed
watch this video
and see how
it affects lives.
First of all,
I'm a Christian. I'm 19 right now-
a sophmore in college.
And I'm recounting events from
my junior year in high school.
I started smoking weed
about December of that year.
My best friend Anthony
started smoking weed.
He was hanging out with the cool kids.
Maybe some dark kids.
Not skin color, but..
He tried it one time,
and he went up to me one day
and he was like, "Hey Matthias,"
"I tried weed!"
And I was shocked
I was like,
"Dude, what are you doing," you know?
"You can't smoke weed!"
But he told me it was alright.
So I decided to try it.
And now up until that point,
I had decided never to smoke weed.
My brother was smoking weed
and I just decided
I wasn't going to be that person.
Now, I was into crime,
and I was disobedient to my parents sometimes.
I shoplifted, I stole things, you know.
I did whatever I wanted to.
And I'm not proud of that, but
that's just who I was then.
But for some reason I decided not to smoke weed,
but since my best friend did it,
I decided to do it then.
After we tried it-
after I got high the first time,
I basically loved it.
And it became my everything.
I was working at Dominos and I made
about 100 bucks every two weeks or so,
and I gotta say,
most of that money
went to buying weed.
And this is the part where I tell you
how it affected my life.
It will affect people differently.
But let me just tell you
how it affected my life.
It drove a wedge between
me and my dad.
My dad knew I was doing it.
I was doing it with my brother.
So me and him would do it
down in my room.
My dad would come down
and smell the smoke and,
whether or not he found anything,
he knew we were doing it.
He knew I was a stoner.
And it just
took a toll on him,
and it drove a wedge between us.
And that's not good.
Whether or not you hate your parents,
You deserve to give them respect
because they brought you into this world.
So obey them.
And also, it separated
me and my close friends.
Now my close friends weren't
really stoners like I was.
Anthony,
he smoked weed,
but he was like,
he said to me,
"Dude, why are you doing it so much?"
"I didn't expect you to"
"become this much of a stoner."
Because I became a stoner
and because of other things happening
in my life back then,
I lost those friends.
And I had no friends of my own
except for the people who I would
smoke weed with.
One person said,
her name was Mariam, she was like,
"Stoners are the nicest people!"
You may have heard that before
Because when you're high, you're like,
"Yeah dude!"
"We smoke weed, we get high,"
"We get happy."
But they're only happy
when they're smoking weed with you.
Think about that.
So I lost all my friends.
And I was hanging out with my brother's friends
and smoking weed with them.
It really took a toll on my life.
So it depleted my money,
it depleted my friends,
and it drove a wedge
between me and my relationship with my dad.
So if you decide to smoke weed,
Know this:
it'll take a toll on your life.
It'll kind of grab hold of you.
Like, when I did it,
every night,
I would think,
"How can I smoke weed tonight?"
"I wanna do this so bad."
"It's so fun."
"How can I smoke weed tonight?"
Because there's nothing else
make me happy.
It's a sticky drug.
It'll stick to you.
Now, it's not addictive,
but it controls your
whole life.
It's not physically addictive,
but,
you'll give
more and more
things to it
in your life
that could have been used
for more productive things.
Now what you should do is
be responsible with your life.
Don't smoke weed.
Just don't get into it.
It's dangerous.
I mean, it won't lead
to bigger drugs.
Of course,
people who do
hard drugs
start off with weed.
It doesn't mean that
leads to it.
But it might.
So don't take that first step.
Let me tell you how
I eventually stopped
smoking weed.
And that'll be it.
Summer after my
junior year,
I was smoking weed,
I was a Christian,
I wasn't living like it,
and I was
depressed.
I had little to
no friends.
And I was
steeped in with
*** and ***.
Now you may
have those problems
or you have more problems.
You may have little problems,
but,
those were my problems.
So I was trying to become
a new, reformed,
good person
for my senior year.
I wanted people to see me-
I didn't want them to see
that depressed
person
who never talked
that they saw in my
junior year.
And in fact,
to be that person
for the rest of my life.
I wanted to be that
solid, laughable,
agreeable,
you know, person
with their head on their shoulders
who would marry a good woman,
and have good kids
with love in the family.
But I knew I wasn't
going to become that person
the way I was going,
so I tried to give up
everything-
the ***, the
crime.
I tried to be a good Christian.
But I didn't want to
give up the weed.
And so eventually,
nothing worked.
I couldn't give up the ***.
I was really addicted to it.
You have no idea.
to stop doing that.
And
I couldn't.
And I was a Christian
but I
I went to this Christian camp.
I decided to give God my life,
But decided not to give him weed.
And weed just
pulled me back into a lot of
stuff. I couldn't get out of it.
But here's how I stopped.
First day of school
in my senior year,
I got caught.
I won't worry you guys
with the details, but
it knocked some sense into me.
It told me that
Caramel apple?
Uh oh.
Oh no!
Get me later, I'm busy.
Caramel apples.
Anyways,
it knocked some sense into me.
Smoking weed is
crime,
and that made me a criminal.
And no matter how good
of a person
I was gonna be,
I was always gonna be
that criminal-
that low-life
in other people's eyes.
So,
here's the thing,
I didn't do it myself.
It was God reaching down
into my life.
And brought me up.
He was like, "Matthias,"
you know,
"Forget this whole
weed thing,
you're gonna follow me
with your whole life."
And that's the truth,
that's what I committed to do.
Thanks to God.
And now
some Christians might
watch this video, some
Christians might not,
but know this:
Jesus Christ is the
only person who gives
life to the fullest.
Jesus Christ.
Let me try to explain this.
Everyone has sin.
Everyone's done stuff that's
wrong that they shouldn't have done.
And the Bible says in
Romans 3:23,
"The wages of sin is death."
No. that's Romans 6:23.
Romans 3:23 says,
"For all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God."
So you've sinned.
And the wages of sin is death.
So you're going to die.
And furthermore,
you're going to be cut off from God
for all eternity.
There's no place for you
except for hell.
And now, so who can take
that penalty
of death?