The Successful Stoner: 6 Ways this Millennial Millionaire Uses Cannabis to Enhance Her Life

September 12, 2018

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Me.

I’m 31. I’m successful by most people’s measuring stick. I run a 7-figure business I started from scratch. I have millions of dollars to my name. I’m fit and healthy. I even have a dog.

And for the last year, I’ve been a stoner.

No, really. I use some form of the cannabis plant — CBD oil and vapors of all kinds, mostly — every single day. Sometimes all day.

Yet I spent the first 30 years of my life fearing the very same plant that has transformed my life. I’d always learned in school that marijuana was the gateway drug; that it was just as addictive and dangerous as heroin, meth, and cocaine; and that using it would kill my brain cells.

I remember repeating “Drugs are bad; they make you sad,” in a chorus along with my 8- and 9-year-old peers during a DARE lesson.

If the government made it illegal, then it must be bad for you, right?!

And then, thanks to the Internet and my escape from über-conservative Christianity in my late twenties, I started to wonder… what if everything I’d learned about cannabis was bullshit?

If none of it was true, then what would that mean for me? What have I been missing this whole time?

I started doing a little research and learned that “the wacky weed” had more uses than had even been discovered yet. Turns out medical marijuana wasn’t just an avenue for the stoners to get their hands on the goods without getting busted for illicit drug possession — it was a tool.

A tool I could use.

The First Time

I was visiting friends in Seattle, Washington, the first time I tried it. It was a hit from an electronic vaporizer. I didn’t notice much — was even disappointed — and later I realized it was because I had vaped a high-CBD strain.

As I experimented with different strains, I slowly began to notice that different strains had different effects, and that I could use the strains to solve certain very annoying problems in my life: poor sleep, anxiety, mood swings, migraines — to start!

The more problems I was able to solve with marijuana, the more curious I became about how many other ways it could enhance my life.

So I got to work.

Here are six ways cannabis has enhanced my life (so far):

1. Better sleep.

I used to spend up to two hours a night trying to fall asleep.

My entire body — or sometimes just my feet — would be restless. Endless tossing and turning. Minute by painstaking minute would go by, and I just couldn’t drift off to Dreamland. Even if my body was tired, my mind wouldn’t shut off.

Thoughts battled for my attention incessantly and, when I finally did fall asleep, waking up in the morning was brutal because my last thoughts before falling asleep were stress- and anxiety-inducing… which affected both my sleep quality and dreams, not to mention perpetuated a next day full of moreanxiety and stress.

Enter marijuana.

Vaping just a tiny amount of THC through an indica strain like Granddaddy Purple or Cookies Kush has me relaxed, happy, and very… very… sleeeeeepy… within just 10 minutes. I use this nightly. I sleep deeply — and because I fall asleep relaxed and happy, my less-than-lovely morning “moods” are fewer and much farther between.

2. No more migraines (almost).

I got my first migraine at age 17 during my German 3 final exam in high school.

It would be two years before I even knew I was having migraines. I never even connected the weird aura and hour-long vision distortion with the intense, nagging headache, exhaustion, and brain fog that followed soon after.

I’d tried all kinds of other plants I’d heard could help with migraines, and those herbs seemed to stave them off a little, but they still kept coming.

At least one a month — several per week if I was at high altitude — that’s how many migraines I used to get. But in the last year since introducing cannabis into my tool belt, I can count on just a few fingers how many migraines I’ve had.

Now I get one every 4–5 months or so. When they do come, the aura doesn’t last as long, and the pain doesn’t require any killing.

I’ll take it.

3. Better sex.

Certain THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) strains can liven up your mood, enhance your focus, and increase your sensitivity to touch.

You do the math!

I won’t get into too many details, but I’ll come right out and say it. Having an orgasm while high is incredible. It is earth-moving. Other worldly. Absolute bliss.

4. Almost zero social anxiety.

Pre-weed, I’d use alcohol to mask my anxiety in social situations. I felt it made me more interesting, and I couldn’t hear the self-doubt in my mind as I tried to mingle and make friends.

I relied on that strategy often, and sometimes so much that I paid for it dearly the next morning. But since using cannabis, I’ve dramatically reduced my consumption — and reliance — on alcohol. In fact, this past July, I eliminated all alcohol for a full 30 days.

Instead of drinking, I vape CBD to keep me calm in situations that normally would have me in knots. I’ve noticed it working in other situations that aren’t as social but still psych me out, like flying and doctor’s visits. No more sweaty palms on takeoff and during turbulence, and no more of the same when my doctor draws my blood for testing!

(I find it absolutely ironic how I had zero problem with alcohol for so many years, even though — as a known carcinogen since the 1980’s — it’s got farmore insidious side effects than cannabis does!)

5. Ability to focus longer — leading to increased productivity and income.

I have become a workhorse. I’ve always been productive, but I’d always hit a wall pretty quickly. Now, it takes me longer and longer to hit the wall—and some days I don’t even hit it at all!

This, I think, has a lot more to do with the ripple effect my better mood in the morning has on the rest of my day. Since I’m not plagued with as much worry, stress, and anxiety, I don’t dread sitting down at my desk to work anymore. I still have the same amount of mental energy as I did before, but I’m able to spend all of it on productive work — as opposed to being drained before I even get started, having spent every waking minute gripped with anxiety.

Of course, along with increased productivity comes an increase in income. Another reason I’m kicking myself for not figuring all of this out a lot sooner! Basically, I do more — and do it better — so more money follows.

6. Clearer thinking, nay… bigger thinking.

Some of my best ideas, breakthroughs, and epiphanies happened while high on cannabis. One day recently, my mind zeroed in on an idea I’d been toying with for several years now: hosting a live event in my niche.

Within a span of about five minutes, I’d scribbled down dozens of clear-as-day details on what the event would look like, how much it would cost to attend, who I would invite—everything. It was almost as if those details had been locked inside my mind the entire time just waiting for someone to let them out.

The only way I can describe it is that it’s mind-expanding. I can simply think differently—sometimes better — when I’m high on certain strains. Certain strains, I say, because some strains make it hard to think at all!

Maybe that’s why the stigmatic stoners have such a reputation…

My Life Now

My quality of life is so much higher (no pun intended) now that my eyes are open to the benefits of cannabis. I’m so happy I questioned what I’d been taught and looked beyond what society had fed me.

I’m so happy… but I’m also angry.

I’m angry that I spent so much time believing something blindly.

I’m angry that the benefits of this remarkable and, quite frankly, miraculousplant were kept from me — and for largely political reasons.

I’m angry that I have to fear backlash from my readers and fans for writing this article (confession?) because, despite the miraculous benefits I’ve experienced and that I show up far more effectively for them when I use it, many of them still believe it’s a drug, and my use of it is not only wrong; it damages my credibility.

And that is stupid. It’s a plant with proven medicinal benefits that, hell, would probably help them even more than it’s helped me.

Frankly, the stigma attached to marijuana use — that it’s just for hippies and the quintessential “stoner” types who can’t get off the couch — needs to die.

Stoners can be successful. And I’m not an exception; I’m proof.

Maybe if more influencers, entrepreneurs, “millionaires next door,” and really anyone who uses marijuana to solve big problems would share their experiences too, then we could kill the stigma.

I’ll start: My name is Caitlin Pyle, and I am a #successfulstoner.