Chewing CUD

Addiction doesn’t always look like chaos. Sometimes it looks like stillness.

Cows spend their days chewing cud. Slowly, methodically, endlessly. They eat, regurgitate, and chew again, cycling through the same motion without thought. It’s a peaceful rhythm for them, part of their nature.

But when you find yourself doing the same thing, circling through old habits, burning hours in a haze, it’s not peaceful. It’s paralysis.

You ever watch a cow chew cud? They just stand there. All day. Same motion, same look. Not going anywhere fast.

That’s what CUD, cannabis use disorder, feels like after a while.

I didn’t start smoking to be lazy. It started as a way to even things out. I’m bipolar. My mind doesn’t always know how to chill. Weed helped me hit pause. But after a while, it wasn’t helping me pause. It was keeping me paused.

At first, weed was a muse. It slowed the tempo of a mind that often ran too fast. It made work feel lighter, music richer, conversation deeper. But gradually, it stopped opening doors and started closing them.

My business slowed down. My workouts lost their edge. My connection to my wife and kids dulled around the edges. I was there, but not present. The smell lingered on my clothes, on my breath, on the moments I wanted to remember clearly.

No one said it outright, except my wife, but I could feel it.

That quiet awareness that something was slipping away.

Addiction doesn’t always look like chaos. Sometimes it looks like stillness.

You’re not destroying your life. You’re just idling it away, day after day, chewing your own time like a cow chews cud.

And that realization hit hard. Because I’ve built my life around discipline, awareness, and striving toward mastery. Yet here was this quiet dependency, slow, subtle, almost polite, eating away at my purpose.

It started bleeding into everything. Business slowed down. My workouts became optional. My time with my kids felt muted, like I was watching the movie of my own life, but half-asleep. I realized I was losing moments, not in big dramatic ways, but in quiet, invisible ones.

That’s what’s dangerous about CUD. You think you’re still functioning. You think you’re fine. But inside, you’re like that cow, stuck chewing something long past its flavor, just passing time.

So we drew boundaries. My wife took my venty and my stash, not out of control, but out of care. To rebuild a healthy relationship with something that had stopped being fun and started being necessary.

Because I want my kids to remember me, not some version dulled by smoke and delay.

And I want to remember them too.

I’m not against weed. It’s medicine for some people, and it can be fun in moderation. But when it becomes the only way you can stand to feel “normal,” that’s when it’s time to face yourself.

If you’re bipolar, like me, you know the highs and lows are tricky enough. Add THC to that mix and it can throw off the whole rhythm of your life.

The goal isn’t shame. It’s clarity. To reclaim what the haze had blurred.

I’m not preaching abstinence. I’m preaching awareness, the art of knowing when something that once balanced you now chains you.

Because life is motion. And if you find yourself stuck chewing cud, whether it’s weed, nicotine, or your own regrets, it’s time to spit it out, look up, and move again.