Hi wonderful friends 🫶🏽 I just flushed my last little weed and tobacco. Will be 9 months sober from alcohol in a few days, and the excuses I’ve been using for my remaining vices no longer cut it. What I once perceived as “secondary addictions” are plain as day my primary ones - now that alcohol is so far gone out of the picture. I cannot/will not continue to maintain the charade that displays these behaviors as passable. It’s time for me to go full power, which means full sober. Straight Edge. Works for me cuz I’m punk like that.
I’m typing this as I lie in bed ready to fall asleep; tomorrow will be interesting, and I state my intention now that I will lean into my strength and devotion for this great change. Knowing that it will create harmony where there had been distortion, and vitality where there had been a vampire. This is absolutely needed for me in my life at this very time. Thank you for the support of this community
Greatest of everyones personal experience and recovery is its always the same. We didnt become addicted to our drug of choice in one day. For me it started way before i started my drug of choice. One day at a time. Keep up the great work. Keep strong, good job on noticing you were in denial with your addiction! Thats a huge step in the right direction! Keep it up!
Good for you!! We can keep going from one thing to the next or start working on the underlying issue of what we are escaping/avoiding with use of xyz. The work of recovery!!
This is wonderful!! It took me a while to ditch the weed too but MAN, a fully sober life is absolutely incredible and worth it. When it’s time, you just inow it’s time. Proud of you!! Keep rockin’ it.
Being fully honest about what goes inside you, honest with yourself and honest with us, is essential to break the power of that denial and addictive thinking. Thank you for trusting us and valuing your own health and well-being.
thanks guys. sorry for the long pause. i got 2 additional jobs last week AND found a new place to live so it’s been enormous waves of change. i did not stay sober from weed and cigarettes. i’m trying again today on my 9month anniversary sober from alcohol.
relapsing so soon after this powerful declaration taught me a lot about these addictions. they’re trickier than alcohol because alcohol was SO physically debilitating - cigs and weed are sneakier because they’re so casual for me. so i now know i need to do a lot more to refocus my energy and change my mindset around this whole idea. focus on what i’ll gain by not using. focus on who i want to become, which can only be realized without these substances. it’s not worth it to continue. after smoking both for 15 years this is very challenging. i can do it i need to be much more present with the triggers and make sure i redirect my attention from the lack of the substance/desire for it, to my devotion to who i want to be & what kind of life i want to live.
i’m being honest when i say, the life i want to live is free of these substances. i’ve struggled to shift gears but i know i can do it, and i’m starting again today with a better understanding, determination and tools in my belt. i’ll check in more this time. thanks again everyone i fumbled but it’s still time.
Glad to hear you got a new place. I remember how worried you were about it. Home is so important: a home base, safe place to face the world from.
I get this. My addiction (sexaholism, or more basically an addiction to lust: a hollow pursuit of lust for its own sake and not for a healthy human connection) is similar. It is built into life, and to me it seemed to have no dramatic effects. Gradually though, as I gain some recovery and some perspective, I’m seeing that it numbed me; it hollowed out my heart, like termites eating a tree trunk. Eventually, if I had let it continue, it would have rotted the trunk entirely and my heart would have fallen, decayed and lifeless, to the ground.
You can do it Julia. You have an electric spirit, a live wire and a deep rich heart with powerful, life-giving currents. Living with that perceptive, creative, fierce force in you is overwhelming at times. It’s a force that shapes your emotional landscape, like the ocean does to the land, but it also brings life to you, it sustains you.
In your past, in circumstances that seemed bewildering and contradictory to your younger self, you found these substances - the ones you’re finding freedom from now - seemed to calm your seas: they seemed to give you a respite from the thunder of your heart. (What you didn’t realize at the time, was that the thunder in your heart was a balancing, equalizing force, which you could use, with some coaching, to resolve the contradictions facing you.)
Now you know the cost of that “calm”, and you want to be free of that crutch, and to find your natural centre, in your natural world, with your natural power.
You will find it. One day at a time. You will find it.
If we have multiple substance problems, halting one drug may intensify urges for another. Example: beer in right hand, cigarette (or pills) in left = take away beer, and I’m staring at smoke or drugs. My brain will recognize that I’m missing 1 stimuli (beer) if I continue using the other mood alterers.
I tried pretty much everything to quit smoking cigarettes. What finally worked for me was Chantix. That drug sits on the brain receptors for nicotine so you don’t crave it. It might help with weed because if you’re not inhaling cigs it might be easier to not inhale weed either.
Stop smoking is hard - if one goes the Chantix route, it’ important to remember that is a temporary fix and one should plan to wean oneself off the drug once smoking cessation is established.
Sometimes it is best to medically detox from all addictions at the same time, so withdrawal urges from one substance don’t trigger a return to a previously ceased addiction.
I struggled with weed and had so many resets. The first 10 days were really hard and if I’m being honest I still get cravings 10 months later but they are easier to push aside. I’m not sure what the turning point was or how I finally got the footing but I do know I took it day by day, sometimes hour by hour and I relied heavily on posting here and having people basically talk me out of going to the dispensary. You can do this. You want to be substance free and you have the tools to make your life that way. A lot of the things I did to quit alcohol helped with quitting weed. Going to bed early, rewarding myself with a pair of leggings for making x amount of days, chewing gum, coloring, working out.
I used Chantix to quit cigs. It’s been almost 6 years now. I know for a fact I could not have quit without it. I did have to ween myself off the drug when I felt like I was in a good place. I tried to just stop taking it and I was nauseous and had terrible headaches. Talked to my pharmacist and he told me how to ween off. I can’t even remember the last time I craved a cigarette and I live with a smoker
awww thanks for asking @Runningfree !! i’ve successfully abstained from weed the whole week, still working on the cigs…just saying i want to quit and knowing i want to isn’t enough to break this ingrained habit, i need something else…not sure what to try…
One thing that helped me quit was a constant reminder that, time is money, cigarettes cost a lot of money which is equal to time, Smoking reduces your time on this earth. Essentially, every time I smoked, I willingly gave up my time in exchange for less time, and for what? So some tobacco exec can fuel up their yacht?
Every time I smoked I thought of this, it made me angry. I used that anger to focus on quitting. Come hell or high water, I was going to stop willingly giving up my time for nothing. The first couple weeks sucked, but I started getting my time back, and that’s been worth it.
When I quit smoking cigs were $5.35 a pack. I recently found out via the hubs that they are now almost $9 a pack I couldn’t afford to be a smoker now if I wanted to lol I keep trying to get him to quit. We could take super nice vacations off his cigarette money!
@HoofHearted@Runningfree thanks you guys honestly it’s pure denial that makes me keep buying packs. i bought one yesterday ($14) and i just crushed it up into the bin. starting my clock again right now. to continue smoking is to completely deny that this is financially irresponsible, disrespectful to my health, and mentally/emotionally misaligned with who i really am. quitting is hard but people do it all the time and i can do this. today i will not smoke. i will write a list of all the reasons not to and every time i consider it i will read the list and just push thru the discomfort. that’s all it is, discomfort. it’s beyond worth it to feel uncomfortable for a week or so, for the payoff of having this toxic ridiculousness not be a part of my life anymore. i’ve smoked for 13 years and it’s time to be finished now. im better than this. i deserve better.
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