Sea Breeze, based upon what you said about your age in 1976, we about the same age (though you are slightly older than me). In the year 1975 (and prior to that year) I did not put great expectation in the WT's ideas about 1975 (regarding what the WT said might happen in that year). That is because I knew of WT claims made during the few years (or several months) prior to 1975 which made disclaimers that the great tribulation, Armageddon, and the new world (in which Satan is abyssed for 1000 years) might not start by then.
Furthermore, I never did consider the WT's predictions and speculations about 1975 to be prophecies (in the biblical sense of prophecies, at least as defined by the WT, though not in the sense of the general public's idea of the word "prophecy") or examples of the WT claiming to act as a prophet. That is because I viewed them as only being expectations and speculations based upon interpretations the Bible, and not something claimed to be revelations received by the people of the WT directly from God. The WT never claimed that Jehovah God gave them a personal/direct revelation about 1975. I thus did not get stumbled by 1975 and the WT's pronouncements regarding it (that is, until much more recently when I discovered some much stronger claims the WT made about 1975 than I had known prior to the year 2015 or so), and I got baptized in the early 1980s.
Since you strike me as very conservative (theologically and politically) I am thus surprised that you ever (even at age 13) smoked marijuana. In contrast, as a child though I leaned towards being liberal in regards to my beliefs in social/human rights and political views, and though I am now theologically liberal (to the point of being an atheist) and politically very liberal/progressive, I have l never smoked marijuana nor consumed any other substance while it was ever under ban as being too dangerous a drug. That is because since early childhood I have wanted to protect my health. Now, the vast majority of the time I even avoid eating desert (even small candies), even when they are offered to me for free more than once a week, because I wish to avoid spiking my sugar levels. [Note: though I am very liberal/progressive in regards to what I believe are valid social/human rights and in regards to political policies, morally I personally live primarily by conservative Christian values.]
Did you ever go back to taking high school courses and/or did did you ever get a high school diploma or a GED? If not, that is sad.
