why does this bother me?

so my boyfriend quit smoking pot a couple months before he met me which was over 2 years ago. i have smoked (cigs) since i was 14. quit few times, started back up. now i only smoke at work because i get so amazingly stressed and cant find something to ease it that moment. but a pack will last me 2 weeks so its hardly anything.

anyways, my dad smokes pot like everyday and is also a "functional" alcoholic. and for some reason if i try and picture my boyfriend smoking pot it bothers the hell out of me and i dont know why. i assumed it because of my dad but my boyfriend isnt anything like my father and i know he wouldnt start doing it all the time but i just cant get past the feeling i get when i picture him smoking. i know it shouldnt bother me if he does it once in a blue moon especially because he is okay with me smoking at work.

any ideas on how to get over this? or does anyone else have this innate fear of drugs?

p.s. he has never and never would do any hard drugs like cocain, heroine etc.... him and i have the same feelings on drugs like that so it wouldnt even be a gateway drug issue.

I can relate to how you are feeling salukigirl. It matters not that your dad is a functional alcoholic and smokes pot everyday. You know how dysfunctional he really is and it bothers you at some level.

It creates a fear in us and we hope that those we love don't end up in the same position. Not to mention the fact that smoking pot is illegal and if caught with it will be arrested. I'm not judging....believe me. Just stating facts.

I think as we age, we look at things differently. Maybe you are getting to the point where you are looking at things differently too.

Not sure how to get over the feelings though. Wish I could be more help.

Take good care!

Hugsss
sabby

You had problems with those around you growing up smoking pot. You felt something which attached itself to "anyone" close to you smoking pot. Probably why you smoke cigs instead of pot.

I have a friend who got a DUI but hasn't drunk for several years but her teenage daughter is still "hyper" and against all drinking at any time by anyone, etc. However, you can hear the anxiety in her "speeches" and realize it is because of her past fears when her mother was drinking.

If you want to get over it, I think the only way to do that is to be present when your boyfriend smokes once in a blue moon and work with yourself/anxieties/anger that arise at that time. But why do you care that it bugs you? Intellectually you know it "doesn't matter" so I would go with that. We're always true to ourselves, even when we deny and/or suppress stuff :-) so I would just put up with the feeling bugged and drop any sense of wanting things symmetrical with any pride that you're not a hypocrite or something.

Seeing your dad and what the booze and pot have done to him, you're afraid that your boyfriend might end up the same way. It doesn't matter that he's stopped smoking pot. It touches a raw nerve in you.

There's also the fact that maybe deep down, you don't trust your boyfriend to stay off the pot. It's understandable, to my, anyway, because of your experiences with your dad.

Try to work through your fear/concern with your boyfriend. It already sounds as if you have good communication between you. This might be more about you and your feelings that it is the possibility of your boyfriend going back to the pot.

Good luck!

Saluk

what is happening is that there is that connection of the memories of your dad smoking pot ... the relation is that ur father is ur father good or bad but there is that relationship ..

sometimes we fall into patterns over n over sweetie therefore we have a conscious effort to avoid those hurtfull connections .. bf u care for and you are relating father and bf together ...

advice :

dont personalize the event break the cycle ... bf is not father

T

I also have an "innate fear" of drugs. I think it might be related to trauma with an ex-boyfriend, but it's now causing problems with my new boyfriend b/c he sees nothing wrong with smoking pot. *sigh* I hope we can figure this out.

yeah i think i see him acting stupid and immature when he does it (in my head) but i have never actually seen him do it so i dont kow if thats how he acts or not. i can be around him when he is drinking beer but shots really bother me because my ex used to do shots and thats when he became violent was after hard liquor.

i guess im just trying to rush things. i know i shouldnt expect to be okay with it after only a couple years. especially considering when i met him i could barely even let a guy hug me. luckily he is patient with me and understands where im coming from.

thank god i found a sociology major lol im like the person in his text books so he knows exactly how to handle the situation lol

thank you guys for replying. one of those things that ive known the whole time but until you either hear it out loud or from someone else it doesnt really sink in. i have to be in a certain mood for it to be okay but that mood happens only once every few months. i guess i have to see it and then see that he doesnt go back to trust him.

Here are two books that helped me a great deal:

_It Will Never Happen To Me!_ by Claudia Black

_Women Who Love Too Much_ by Robin Norwood

thank you for those 2 books. ill look them up.

we talked about it last night because i felt bad just flipping out w/o an explanation. he said if it bothers me too much he wont do it but i said that i think i have to see it and then see him not do all the things i expect to be okay with it.

so i guess well try it once just to see what happens. eeeep. im scared.

I think you just have to trust your boyfriend and see things positively. Being positive is contagious and so if you show more positivity towards him, it will reflect on him and he become positive in life as well.

I think you should stop bothering about it. Bothering over it will not help. It seems that you know your partner well when it comes to that matter, so trust in him.

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This would also bother me. My husband says he'd rather have a joint than a beer any time. It is however illegal in this state so he does not partake. He has too much to lose, his job does random drug testing. And prior to that he was in the military.

I'd lived a very sheltered life where drugs were concerned, my father was a police officer so the people that used drugs tended to stay away from me. I was not aware that my husband had done these drugs when we started dating, and frankly had I known I would not have dated him. And I would have missed out on a truly wonderful husband and father.

I don't know how I would feel if they legalized pot and he choose to smoke it then. I think the stigma attached to it, for me at least, is that it is illegal and therefore bad.

We also have children, so that is another reason why he would not partake at this point in his life.

I understand your point of view and my first instinct is to tell you that this is not the relationship for you, you're believes are too different. But then as I mentioned before, had I followed this advice I wouldn't have the man in my life now.

i can see why you are bothered. could you be projecting your father's behavior onto your boyfriend?

my father was and is a functional alcoholic. at rare times, my husband might grab a beer in the evening (twice a year or so). when he does and i see it, i automatically panic and ask him what he is doing. he is just having a beer and only drinks one beer. i think that it triggers memories of my father downing close to 15 beers/night and i panic. in the 16 years we have been married, he has never once gotten drunk so i know it is my issue.

like you, my husband and father is nothing alike which was by design.

sounds like you have faith that your boyfriend wouldn't start again and that you gave a good relationship with him.

have you discussed these feelings with him? maybe some reassurance from him would help you reconcile what is bugging you.

i am not innately fearful of marijuana. did it a little bit over 20 yrs. ago in rebellion against my mother. not proud of it but would never touch it again. not proud of it but know what to look for if my son begins to use. i am horribly fearful of the hard drugs.

anyway, hope this and/or the other posts help you settle your mind.

thanks.

our beliefs arent totally different. in fact our views on most things are almost identical. he doesnt like my smoking cigarettes because of the taste and because he associates smoking with bad girlfriends who cheat and are promiscuis because thats his past experience.

so he knows that i feel like. thats why he was so ready to say "if it bothers you i will not do it". the drinking used to bother me too but he has gone months at a time without taking a sip so that im not too concerned about. he just knows that i dont think i could ever see him do a shot or know that hes a done a shot because my experience has been that hard liqour makes people nasty.

and we have talked about how i am jsut assuming he is going to be like my dad and my ex boyfriends which i know he wont. and it has been over 2 years since he has even smoked pot at all. even one hit. so i know hes not going to start back up again,

its not legal anywhere in the u.s. but its decriminalized here so you just get a slap on the wrist.

it might happen soon so ill let you guys know how it went.

thanks again for chiming in. feels better to know that other people feel the same way i do.

For me witnessing alcohol use is the trigger. I've seen too much violence around the misuse of alcohol that it scares me to see anyone take a drink of anything. If a party starts and people start over drinking.... I'm gone. Not a problem if people light up their bongs. I've yet to see a pot head commit an act of violence or any other crime for that matter and I know a lot of pot heads. People in my world use pot to meditate and smoke pot like cigarettes so its not something I take much issue with at all. I can't say the same for alcohol or for the people I know who use alcohol.

I think our past impacts our attitudes about a lot of things we face everyday. I think it's always wise to put things into our own historic context before we make assumptions and attach broad stereotypes to things as benine as marijiuana.

I also think you are right to be open with your communications with your bf. It's wonderful that you can both be so open and honest and supportive of one another.

I'm not sure what I think about you decided to partake with him. You might just want to observe the first time so that you are sure you have an accurate memory of the event. Like I said... not sure what I think about you partaking.... should be interesting at very least. Second hand effects may be enough for you the first go round.

Look forward to reading your report back.... take care....

ive done it before. usually it makes me want to throw up.

another big thing is that most of my friends didnt stop at just that and it did prove to be a gateway. i know a lot of people deny that it is but my friend's dad had a cocaine induced stroke and she still wanted to try it. i dont know anyone that has just kept it at that except for him. even my dad. he has told me about doing coke etc...

i have to be extremely drunk for my inhabitions to be low enough that ill touch it lol

why do people have to ruin everything? lol

It sounds to me like you feel guilty about smoking cigarettes. Or that you don't like that you smoke and you don't like how you justify smoking. Possibly that is making you think of his starting smoking (pot) again and justifying doing that?

we have already had the talk about how quitting cigarettes is like quitting heroine and he understands that its hard to quit and he personally has never had to quit something he was addicted to so he really doesnt know what the withdrawls and everything feels like. i asked him if it was kinda like out of sight out of mind and he said yes, he just doesnt want to see me doing it i guess. and the only time i do is at work so i dont go postal. lol we dont really need justification. he is also 3 years older than me and is graduated from college so hes done all his partying etc... so he also understands that he has a lot more experience than me and i dont want to act like im 45 when im 20. so we agreed that as long as i dont start back doing 2 packs a day that he was fine with me smoking.

he also admitted to me that the reason it bothered him so much when i smoked wasnt because of the cigarettes but who i was with - this guy i worked with really liked me and he was usually my smoking buddy. he felt like we had a connection with smoking that jason and i couldnt have (jason is my bf). but now we have moved and i hardly ever talk to that guy anyways so hes fine now. just took a while to get that out of him.