[FeloniousHam]

I'd been a casual user for a while (very sporadically in illegal days, regularly once legalized). I happened to going through a fairly traumatic breakup, and felt that if it didn't actually help me get to sleep, it at least made the insomnia tolerable.

My life settled down, but I continued to smoke a tiny bit. One puff really, before bed pretty much every night. When things were crazy and awful, I didn't care about feeling mossy the next day, but as normal life resumed, it definitely started to affect my attention.

Then, the "intrusive thoughts" started. It's like having an edge lord in your head. Whatever you think about, the idea gets lensed(?) from the worst/most extreme possible viewpoint/conclusion. It's hard to describe, but it was very distracting, and often just depressing. And of course, waking up at 3am every night, this is what I had to look forward to. And sometimes, I'd take a little toke in the hopes I'd get back to sleep.

Here's the punchline: I quit smoking and it went away in two days and hasn't returned.