It had only been 21 hours and I broke my sobriety. I think I used maybe less than a minute ago and I’m already here sharing that I feel guilt and shame. I have a tattoo in Sanskrit that reads ‘from this moment on’. I think I’ll have to carry that with me.
I feel shame and disappointment and resent myself for giving in already. However, I no longer have the thoughts about wanting to use and it has quieted the noise. It’s hard to think what is better, peace in quiet in my head or in my life.
Was day 1 the hardest for you?
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The hardest part I think is getting that initial momentum. Like you know you want to quit but you constantly second guess if you are ready. Don’t beat yourself up too bad. I’ve fallen off many times. Fall down 7 times, get up 8 my guy.
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Nothing changes if nothing changes. To be honest it’s going to take hard work to stay sober. It’s not easy at first but it does get better. You have to work at your recovery with the same time and energy you did getting high or whatever your drug of choice is. Maybe you can look into outpatient programs like counseling or consider a program like AA or NA. Go to meetings. Connect with other people in recovery. Learn why you feel the need to change the way you feel. If you work at recovery and stay on this path you with feel peace in your mind and your life. If you have anything like Paraphernalia or stuff like that get rid of it . Delete/ block numbers that tigger you. Don’t hang around other people who use or drink. All you have to do is get through 24 hours and tomorrow is a new day. This is coming from personal experience… I wasted 10 years looking for the easy way out and it only got me a lot of pain and consequences… wasted time. You can be sober and content. But you have to want it. Keep reaching out on here and read around. really take a look at your life. What do you want? Just get through 24 hours. Take things one day at a time. You can do this But it’s definitely going to take some work.
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I agree that it takes momentum…not necessarily rock bottom. I was ready to quit months before i actually did. When you tell yourself you are going to quit enough times your brain eventually flips a switch. At least for me it did.
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Its that cycle that was the hardest for me. The first day clean i felt so much shame and disgust and physically unwell from being up all day and night, that the first day wasnt the hardest. For me it was day 3. That was my downfall almost every. single. time. At 3 days clean, Id start to feel better, forget how bad things were, and then use again. As soon as i called the dealer i felt instant regret. Our addict voice will lie to us every single time. It will lie and justify and try to find any reason under the sun to make us use/drink. The trick is (at least it was for me) was to play the tape to the end. Essentially, reminding myself of how bad it got and why i was soooo desperate for recovery. Every time i had the urge to use, id read over my list. Use distraction. Do some self care. Exercise. Anything to get out of my head. Eventually the more i stopped listening to the addict voice, the quieter it got on its own. Ur addict voice is quiet now bcuz it got what it wanted (for u to use). But wheb u stop giving it power, it slowly dies on its own and the voice will get quieter without the use of susbtances. Now over 2.5 years clean, the voice is still there but not nearly as powerful or loud as it once was 
thia can happen for u too
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Day 1 was hard, I’m on day 402 and sometimes its still hard. Its a choice I have to make everyday. I don’t know that itll ever feel natural but it does feel good. Something I used to get sober and still use for other life changes is 1D vs D1 (One day, or day one) it inspires to not wait to make positive changes in your life. Something else that i love is on the back of my one year chip: I chose sober because I wanted a better life. I stay sober because I got one.
You got this. It’s not easy but it is worth it. I promise.
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Thank you all so much for your kindness. Tomorrow (today) is a new day. And I’ll hold that with me.
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Yes day one was very hard for me. I felt lost and knew that I never wanted to feel like that again. Once in a while after 4 year’s I’m still tempted but I try to remember how I felt at day 1. Then I step outside and get some air instead. You can do this if you believe you can. Stick around. This is a great community. 
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I lost count of the hundreds of days when I woke up full of shame and feeling like the hangover was gonna kill me. Every one of those mornings (well, let’s be honest, it was usually the afternoon) I would swear off drugs and alcohol for life. Only to start feeling better by the evening, tell myself some pretty lie about being able to ‘handle it’ and go out for a bottle or three of wine…
Wanting to be done and being done are different. At least, when I was done, it felt different. Putting your head on the pillow sober is extremely hard in those first few days. But do not give up on yourself. Stick around the forum, read/listen/watch any sobriety-related materials you can find, go to meetings, even online ones.
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Throw out all weed paraphernalia ,grinders ,king skins ,bongs the lot ! Giving up weed takes a whole lifestyle change . Get out and get walking. change your whole routine I couldn’t sit in the house for the first two weeks my brain was spinning too much but I was proud when the day was done and I had my head on the pillow sober .tell all people you use with that you don’t want to be shitfaced anymore that you have a new job and you want it. or just don’t see them .you’ll find you don’t have anything in common with them anyway now you’ve stopped . Talk to us when it’s tough vent when your angry ,cry when your sad because your going to go through all of that to become the person you want to be . Weed kills minds ,motivation and selfless behaviour suck it up and you will become a better human because of it we’re always here but you have to reach out before you pick up 
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I always had my day ones in a hospital, or jail. Just be careful because the bottom can always get lower. I wish I had the opportunity to choose sobriety and not have it forced on me, but that was not how it panned out. I choose sobriety everyday now, but initially, every stretch of sobriety I started began with a very low point or situation that gave me very little choice but to stop “picking up”, and slowly I began to embrace sobriety as recovery, and not just abstaining from drinking, using, etc. Technically all I have is today, so we are all in the same boat, everyday is day 1. Some of us have just amassed lots of “day 1’s” so to speak. I guess long story short don’t beat yourself up, a lot of us have been in your shoes, but dont use it as an excuse to keep relapsing. I hope this helps
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Thank you all for your kind words. I’m definitely trying to do absolutely nothing today. Stay at home and let myself kinda just be. 12 hours in to sobriety and I feel okay, better than yesterday but then again it’s not like I accomplished much at all.
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I had those same thoughts. I was looking for excuses to drink at the time, and the old standby “I’ve only got one day (or two or three or 7), I’ll restart after today” pulled me back out time after time. When I reminded myself that there was nothing left in a drink for me, and I concentrated on getting to the end of this day sober and adding it to the stack, well, that was a much better attitude for me to take to remain committed to my sobriety.
I went to an AA meeting almost every day early on, and the one I adopted as my home group gave out a chip to mark each 30 days sober a person attained in the first year of sobriety. Getting those chips really motivated me to keep going, and quite effectively countered that argument that I could restart.
Get to the end of the day without drinking or using dope and you can count that as a win! And remember, the amount of time you need to stay sober in a day is considerably less than 24 unbroken hours - you are doing stuff like sleeping and eating and working and going to therapy or meetings etc during the day. For me, it worked out to like 3 hour stretches between events that I had to manage, and that was way more manageable than a whole 24 hours!
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The hardest day was every day that I continued to drink when I knew it was bad for my body and soul. Every day that I drank was the hardest to deal with in terms of the mental game playing, guilt and anguish and trying to reconcile my behaviour against my better judgement.
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