19-year-old Willow Smith recently sat down with her mom, Jada Pinkett-Smith, for a Red Table Talk on the topic of dealing with addiction during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Willow revealed that she quit smoking weed and that it has been a transformative experience for her.
“When I stopped smoking it was a really big eye-opener,” Willow says in the talk, where she explains she’s been weed-free for three months now.
Willow Smith shares some of the surprising results she experienced after cutting back on smoking marijuana.
Willow continues: “I know this sounds cheesy but around the time I stopped smoking, I started doing a lot of yoga and I just excelled because I was putting all of my energy into that, I wasn’t doing anything else. And I was like, ‘Wow, what if I was doing this with everything?’ And then it really made me think, ‘What have I been missing? What have I been not putting my all into or not putting all of my brain power into?’”
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Willow reveals that she began thinking about why she smoked weed, which helped her understand that she may have been using it as a coping method, or as a crutch.
“Just really think about what is the first thought in your head before you smoke. What is your first thought? And if that’s a thought of stress or using it as a crutch in any way, try to think about that. And if that comes from a negative place, examine that, because if it comes from a negative place, that could snowball.”
“Just think about what are some other things that you could utilize that aren’t physically or mentally dampening,” she continues.
In response, Jada shares that she is proud of her daughter for sharing this story, and added that, “as your mother, I could see the effects of it that you couldn’t.”
Willow shared that she realized, once she quit smoking, that weed actually made her more anxious, which came as a surprise. She also shared that she has become much more productive.
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The Red Table Talk in which this discussion is featured is themed around dealing with addiction during the coronavirus pandemic. We all have our coping methods — both healthy and unhealthy — and while Willow acknowledged that smoking weed is highly beneficial for some people, she realized that for herself, it was ultimately not allowing her to live up to her desired potential.
“For some people, marijuana doesn’t affect them like now I see it affected me.”
