UPDATE

NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT BIGFOOT

SO FUCK EM!

anyways, so i graduated my course two sessions early today, but here's why:

right before christmas (dec.2014) there was a weekend i decided to join a bunch of my friends and drink in the bars downtown. it was two nights in a row. i'll completely ignore the irrelevant details, but the first night i got drunk enough to dance and get hot... and i left my leather coat upstairs at the blue moose, hanging on the bench in the far corner. i was 100% sure that i left it there and was pretty confident that i could ask the barkeeps and get it back. we had left the bar at closing, which was two a.m, so no one should have been there except barkeeps. i was pretty sure i'd be fine, but i'd had an unmarked cannabis chocolate in the breast pocket of my jacket.

the next night we were all going to the same identical bar, and i asked and got my coat, and the candy was still in it. i'd have been uncaring if the thing was gone, and more concerned about the coat itself, but now that i had it again, i was pretty happy... i was saving it for a later date and it was in my jacket because i didn't want anybody to find it. i hung it in the same identical spot and also got drunk enough to dance and get hot again, but this time i remembered my coat when the bar closed at two a.m.

my group had somehow split from myself and one friend, who needed a ride home, at whose house i'd be staying, and i had my car downtown because i drove for some reason. i think there were like four drunk people needing rides to the bar where we were all going, and i had had either nothing, or less than a beer. this is pretty standard as my driving rule, and why i ended up driving after the bar that night, i suppose it was some sort of fate?

my friend and i walked to my car in the free lot that is accessed from gilbert street, which is a main, through street downtown. i recalled a recent past night in which i waited sober in my car in that lot because i was waiting for a friend who was at a bar to come out and i drove him home. he is notorious for being late and slow, so when i pulled onto gilbert street and three drunk young ladies walked out in front of me, i agreed to drive them home as well, i'd just get my friend afterwards and he probably wouldn't even be ready still...

come to think of it, this must have been in october because i remember the girls giving me fake names and wearing costumes. they also gave me the watch that i am wearing now. they kind of digged in their purses and it was what they came up with as a thank you for the ride. they said they found it that night and it was probably worth a good amount. they lived right down the road at kennedy plaza on gilbert court, which is where i lived when i was frequenting the bars in iowa city. i made that walk very many times, and many of those times i was drunk, because i was going to or from the bar.

but back to december, i was driving south on gilbert street again, and i got pulled over. it was one of those nights when i got in the car under bright lights at night and forgot to turn on the headlights because i was used to having courtesy lights in my other car, and i had no difficulty seeing in front of me. i'd been pulled over downtown before for this prior, maybe even twice, and i'd been sober and driving someone who was drunk and the cop let me off with a verbal warning.

so i was honest with the cop, at least as honest as i thought a drunk person should be with a cop, and my having been drinking led him to perform a field sobriety test and i consented to a breathalyzer which read me at .192% BAC IIRC. the iowa BAC limit is .08% so i was to be put in jail and my friend had to walk home. luckily, the officers parked my car in a lot before hauling me off.

at this point i started thinking about the candy in my pocket, and as it ended up, i was able to quickly and discreetly eat it in booking at the station, while he was filling out my info and before we even went to the jail.

so they made me get a substance abuse evaluation which i completed at the university, and i was honest so i was recommended to attend the group counseling treatment for four weeks, three times a week, three hour classes. i was to abstain from alcohol and i was advised to reduce my use of cannabis by the physician for the duration of the treatment. i had already been one or two months sober from alcohol. to be agreeable and to score lower marks on any UAs i may have to take, i decided i would quit eating cannabis edibles for the duration of the treatment. i had no problem with this. i accumulated a handful of edibles in the meantime and just keep saving them. by the way, i also randomly scored free shrooms and i hid them. that will be a nice reward but not until i complete my 48 hour lockdown hotel checkin course for substance abuse brainwashing, which is required in place of 48 hours jail time and i have it scheduled beginning may 1st.

i was honest with the faculty and participants, and i enjoyed group every time i went. the time is split between two facilitators which weren't necessarily the same each day. on my first day, to my surprise, we spent much of the first portion of the course discussing the absurdity of cannabis prohibition laws, and i was pulled aside by a facilitator after class and reassured that the faculty had an understanding that i would be using cannabis to treat symptoms of crohn's disease, which had well documented successful results.

last wednesday during my third week, the (part time) facilitator in the first half of session pulled me aside when break came, and asked me if i'd smoked that day (yes) and at what time (literally it was 4:20, but i thought it best to say 4:30) and since class started at 5:30 and by the time of the conversation, it was probably only 6:30 or 7:00, i was told that i shouldn't have been using and not to smoke on the days of treatment but i could finish out the day, to which i agreed. i was told that something was different about my demeanor but i wasn't disruptive, which i am still tripping on a little, because i asked the facilitator to specify what behaviour of mine during the session was unacceptable and there was no answer.

the next facilitator was the same who originally assured me i was being treated for alcohol abuse and that my quiet use of cannabis was of no concern in this context, and i was again reassured that it was all a big miscommunication and i was totally fine and didn't do anything wrong. i started tripping on it though and was basically very distracted by it about half the time during second half of session that day. then i realized i was doing this, and started tripping on how high i was when i came in that day and how i wasn't distracted by my thoughts at all until this happened... so which came first, prohibition or paranoia?

when i went in to later sessions, which ended up only including thursday and today, i did abstain from cannabis that day. i didn't even say anything about it. after first half i was pulled aside by another facilitator and told i was good company, insightful to the group, and all these things, that i could complete the course early so i finished out the session, did 10 of 12 sessions and 30 of 36 hours, and i got my certificate today. i have an appointment on friday with the first facilitator who pulled me aside, and i'm planning on asking about volunteering there to see if it would be possible to do my community service with the substance abuse treatment facility helping humans.