Since quitting alcohol, I have developed a taste for weed. I take it every night in my hot chocolate 
. What are your thoughts on this? Is it harmless fun, or am I developing a new addiction?
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Do a search and you will find all sorts of threads on weed and substituting one addiction for another. Folks have all kinds of opinions on this.
You asked, so you will get plenty of responses!! So, be prepared! 
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This is indeed cross addiction. But, I will admit that I have given up alcohol for weed. If I didnât have weed on Friday night or some evenings when work was just too much I would have never in a million years stopped drinking. For me, weed is the better alternative. You will get some here that flat out donât think itâs a good idea. But, too each their own. I donât get high all the time. I use occasionally. I was a binge drinker, that drank 15+ beers at least 3 nights a week before switching to only weed. I stand by the fact that I made the best decision. Iâve also lost 15 lbs in the last 3.5 months.
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Yer I thought Iâd smoke weed instead of drinking at the start, ended up drinking again. Youâre just craving another mind altering substance
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I quit drinking for many reasons. One of them: to live life on lifeâs terms, to deal with the good and bad without having to numb myself to emotions. I have found that living through the good and bad, feeling all the feels, without using a mind altering substance is a wonderful life. For me, if I was using we3d⌠I wouldnt consider myself sober.
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I was a true weed addict for over 30 years. Who binged all other sorts of drugs including alcohol on the side. When I finally quit weed -after there was no more fun in it for me for years already- alcohol slowly but surely took over. Till I quit that too. For me the goal is to live life clean and sober. For me life is much better this way. Thatâs why Iâm here.
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Glad you think smoking weed every night is amusing. You arenât developing a cross addiction, youâve already developed it.
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Iâve been there, went through a phase where I said Iâll just smoke weed instead of drinking. It always brought me back to alcohol eventually.
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At this delicate stage of my recovery, I feel like I need something, and weed has stopped my cravings for alcohol. I know itâs like swapping one thing for another. But I see it as the lesser of two evils.
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Well if youâve already made up your mind why bother asking?
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I can understand that. I did the exact same thing with sugar when I first quit alcohol. It felt like it was what was keeping me sober and sane. So I do understand your point of view. I knew it was trading one addiction for another and, like you, I also questioned it and felt like it wasnât healthy.
This is where the ârecoveryâ part of my sobriety really kicked in. After about 18 to 20 months of gobbling sugar to keep cravings at bay and feed what was off in my body mind and spirit I decided to cut out the sugar and begin therapy and use other tools to examine the WHY of my need to escape thru drugs, alcohol, sugar. I waited until I felt more at home in my sobriety. I asked myself a lot what I was feeding inside me, what I was avoidingâŚmostly it was my feelings. And so I worked on being okay with feeling agitated, being okay with feeling stressed. I found ways to make peace with the fact that as a human I will have feelings, it is normal. And I delved into past feelings that I had avoided thru nicotine, sex, drugs, alcohol, sugar etc. I realized I just wasnât comfortable in my own skin or with feelings because I had literally never had one that I didnât smoke, drink or drug at since I was a kid. That was eye opening.
I found talk therapy, meditation, Buddhist readings, movement, breath work, and more all helped me work on my recovery. And helped me understand that feelings come and go normally, energetically if we *allow * them to âŚif we acknowledge them. It is when we get stuck in them, when we drink at them, when we donât allow them their full expression that they get stuck inside and become our issues.
That has been my experience. I hope that answers your questions a bit. Or gives you something to consider.
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I see your view point. And from a newly sober point of view it makes sense. However, consider one thingâŚ
My sponsor said, "my best thinking earned me this chair, at this table, at this meeting. "
Sometimes our addicted mind set leads us astray. When I started working on the âwhysââŚthe why do I turn to alcoholâŚwas the day getting sober stuck.
We all have a path in life that we must follow to the best of our ability. I would suggest extreme caution using weed to stop drinking. There are a lot of programs out there (AA, SMART, therapy, ect) to help with alcoholism and addiction
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That has been my experience too. I read somewhere - it was about general health and fitness, not sobriety specifically, but it applies: âItâs not âIâll be happy when Iâm fit.â Itâs âIâll be fit when Iâm happy.ââ
The fundamentals are internal; theyâre not about what we do to our body, or put into our body. That is kinda scary because our internal sense of self and worth is at stake. Itâs intimidating, itâs unknown, itâs something weâve been running from for a long time.
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Yes, there have been so many Oh wow/Aha moments on this journey. Certainly the recovery aspect brings them often. So much to truly learn about our selves.
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Iâm new to weed, so I was just wanting yo hear peoples experiences with it. That OK with you?
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Thank you for that very well written post. Great!
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Thank you @SassyRocks @Matt and @Thirdmonkey for your honest thoughts here. Youâve given me a lot to think about. And talk about with my therapist! 
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No need to thank me, maybe thank my sponsor! As he puts it, âalcoholism is a thinking problem, if you want to change it starts with chaning your thinking. So, engage your sponsee in thought.â
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I just remembered where I read that: it was Ajahn Brahm, and he was talking about the Western obsession with âthe pursuit of happinessâ. Book club for the win!
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Most of us did! If we are totally honest. Looking back, getting sober was easyâŚbut hell them first days, weeks, months were toughâŚand for me, I thought of a lot of âstuffâ that might get me soberâŚavoiding any pain!
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