I Am A Plantaholic In Recovery And I Am 6 Weeks Clean
My plant addiction destroyed my life. And I uprooted it once and for all.
Hey all,
My name is Gregory and it’s been 6 weeks since my last visit to the garden section of Home Depot.
For the past 4 years, I’ve had a chlorophyll-thirsty tiger in my chest. I am embarrassed to say it out loud, but I bankrupted my family buying cacti, sunflowers and Snail Bait Killer insecticide. The only moments I was finding peace were when my hands where elbow-deep in a flowerpot of freshly planted hortensias.
I’ve come a long way since the first time I met my florist. I’d just stopped to get a gift for a friend but — like a true predator — he knew an easy harvest when he saw one. He offered me two succulent cacti as a gift — and a life drowned in dependency and vegetation.
“The first ones are for free.” He cheerfully laid his thinly-veiled net on me. “But trust me, you will come back wanting more!”
“Yeah right,” I said, thinking I’d never see him again. “I’m not really a plant person.”
Was I wrong!
A few hours later I was already hooked. I placed the small prickly succulents on my coffee table and I got mesmerized by their presence in the room. I spent the whole evening looking at them in a trance state of mind. I was completely calm and peaceful. There were no problems in my life anymore, apart the lack of more plants in my life.
Brainwashed as I was, I visited my florist again the very next morning.
“I knew you would come for more,” the florist said with a smile under his mustache.
“More perennials, less talking, mate,” I replied, half-embarrassed.
First came the orchid and the rose bushes. Then, the pine tree in my balcony and the lily pads in the bathtub — which I never emptied since. But the problem started when I started growing my own plants to feed my unquenchable thirst for green. I planted my own wall-climbing bougainvillea in the living room and two vineyards next to the fridge. They started covering the walls and the ceiling and, before I know it, my whole house started looking like the greenhouse from the Hogwarts herbology class.
It was all downhill from there.
If I did not smell, see or touch my home-grown greenies for 24 hours straight I was going mad from the plant-withdrawal symptoms
My plant addiction destroyed my marriage. My wife and I were fighting on a daily basis because she was allergic to pollen and — potentially — my fixation with exotic sprouts. Shortly after, she left me and took our Yorkshire with her, but thankfully left my favorite hand trowel. For a while, I thought that was enough. It wasn’t. I should have argued to keep my watering can as well.
Friends and family started avoiding me. “No, I am lending you neither money nor tomato seeds, Gregory!” said my mother the last time we ever talked.
I wanted more and more and I started having contacts with ficus smugglers and unlicensed broccoli home growers. When my local contacts could not service me, I started turning to the dark web to get my geranium fix or even a sniff of some illegal bio-fertilizer.
I hit the bottom of the flowerpot, when I started picking up graveside flowers from a cemetery.
I knew that I needed help. In a profound lack of options, I called my uncle Gary, the pesticide killer, and I asked him to help me uproot this addiction from my guts.
He showed up the next morning and without many questions locked me in hotel room for 3 days straight. The first 24 hours of the plant withdrawal were a nightmare and the grass stopped being greener on both sides of the fence. For good measure, uncle Gary burned my whole indoor plantation to the ground. It was not an easy phone call to the fire department.
I could not have done it without him. He is my hero. My blowtorch trigger-happy hero with the weird bondage fetish.
I can finally say it, I haven’t watered a flower pot for 6 weeks. Not even once.
To detox my mind from this nasty addiction I started gaming again: Farming Simulator Deluxe. I took back my life in my hands.
I am recommending to burn all your weeds in your life, as I did. Not only will you be in a better place mentally, but also physically.
Trust me.
Nothing transcends waking up without the acrid smell of manure in your nostrils.
Follow Slackjaw on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and get our best stories once a month by email.
