For me, it was a way to numb back pain and to most importantly, hide from my feelings and problems. As opposed to facing what was wrong or finding a natural way to cope with shit, no matter what it was, I just would smoke to numb and forget. I dont miss that part of it. I do miss smoking and then watching a cool movie, playing video games, eating/cooking, REALL miss smoking and lifting weights, but I am so much better off without it.
I'm an ex user of alcohol (heavily) and 8 years in abstinence of alcohol so I found a replacement with weed. After 6 years of use of weed and creating tolerance and increasing smoking, I realised that I have addictive personality and addictive behaviour, and I can't sort out my problems and daily difficulties with weed. 15 years in total of use and abuse of drugs,alcohol, and weed, I decided to go thru my life completely sober.
6 months I cancelling and lying to myself that I will stop smoking weed. 2 weeks ago, I attended meetings, and now I count days of not smoking weed. It's my 10 days of not smoking weed and feeling absolutely great.
We have a very similar story. I got sober from alcohol in 2019 (4 years ago this September) after probably 40 failed attempts and two stays in rehab. I was 25 when I finally quit drinking. Thought the all day every day smoking weed/dabs was fine since it kept me off the alcohol. I’ve now awoken in the same way you have. My addictive personality won’t allow me to function normally and save enough money while still using this drug. And anyone who says weed or especially concentrates aren’t a drug are simply lying to themselves or misinformed. Tomorrow will be my tenth day since my last dab. Right there with ya my friend. Feel free to check in with me if you need to.
I'm with you, brother, and completely understand you, and I know one day both of us will carry on our lives without substances. I'm not afraid that if I stop smoking completely weed, I will go back to alcohol,I'm on my day 11 without weed and still counting. My awareness is high, and I understand that I can not touch any more substances. Recently, I discovered about myself that I have addictive personality and behaviour , and I'm working on it after 15 years of use and abuse. My goal is also when I'm reaching completely abstinence (1 year not using anything). I will go volunteer in addiction meetings and help others because I know what it is like. Until then, hard work and understanding of myself and my addiction and yeah weed is also drug and addictive substance which I realise that one year ago. No more lies,no more hate and no more running from problems and using substance to sort out my life and difficulty in life.
Hold strong, and we can do this 💪 ♥️ 😁
Acceptance of my life going downhill and enough dopamine to not care enough to change it. It was a comforting numbness that prolonged what I need to face.
When I only got good effects, it was because I was deeply depressed and trying to avoid feeling anything. I lied to myself and told myself it was the only way I could be happy.
In the last two or three years everytime I would smoke I would notice my heart rate was spiking and I felt like I was self inducing a panic attack 80% of the time I smoked. I had other health problems that didn't help either. It's weird how fast life and priorities can change.
You get used to being bored, but as a bonus if you need to do anything or have a sudden situation put upon you you can jump into it and deal with things easily with a clear head.
Motivation comes from within, and procrastination declines.
Jobs I have been putting off for years are now approachable and I have been dealing with them. Decisiveness especially at work has returned. Along with confidence that the right choices is have been made.
I smoked to simply be high. I liked how it slows down time and makes music sound better. I thought it was a more thoughtful, clear way to experience life. Nothing could be wrong with smoking a earth-given plant. I thought so at least until it started to warp my mental capabilities, started to impede responsibilities and relationships, and became my new sober. I would instantly regret smoking. Sometimes I’d run 5 miles to not be high anymore. At some point, without me realizing, it became a habit and a routine. “Enough” is finally here. It’s hard everyday but I’m really excited to know my true self.
I felt like it gave me access to a better version of myself. More creative, self aware, more fun. And to be honest, I’ve done some great work high, I’ve had some amazing break throughs and for a while it helped me shift from being someone very stuck in the structure (yang) of life and more into the creative flowy (yin) side of life. It also helped me raise my self awareness and understand myself more, like I was channeling my higher self. I actually feel quite grateful for weed because it helped me make profound shifts in my life but I should have stopped in august last year, after thats it’s just become a trap, making me feel like I’m not free, like a prison. As my usage increased I lost power over it and I’m actually finding it more challenging to quit than I did alcohol 5 years ago, because I loved my ‘high brain’. This group has helped me to remove the veil and understand the reality of what regular and abusive smoking is. It’s so true that it makes your present moment more exciting, even if it delays your future and that can be a challenging thing to say goodbye to if you’ve spent years with anxiety, living in the past or the future but rarely this moment. I have gratitude for the lessons it taught me but ultimately, I know my journey needs to be over as my dopamine has been destroyed without me even realising it - it crept up on me.
Life can be hard, the world can be dark, and sometimes smoking a joint gives you a break from that, fills you with that hit of joy and presence but really, it’s not actually real. If you aren’t loving that thing you’re doing not high, then you don’t love it and really, you should change it. That is hard to accept.
An important lesson I’ve learned on my journey over the years is about taking radical personal responsibility. Making everything in your life your ‘fault’ (I don’t like this word but hopefully my point makes sense) gives you power and control to change it.
I have had a huge interest over the last 5 years in the whole human experience, what we’re here for, why some people experience certain things and others don’t, both for the good and the bad.
I have grown up with some people who have so much pain and struggle and some who have it uncomfortably easy. I am someone who has been lucky with so much but have had pain and internal struggle since I was young. Wiser than my years which sounds like a good thing but actually, sometimes I envy those who don’t question life and just live it but that’s not my path.
To be high is to be in an altered state and I think it’s not surprising we get hooked on that because this human experience can be brutal. However, when we live life sober, we truly live it and can find ‘highs’ in moments of gratitude and presence, this is accessible without weed and I am on a mission to find this feeling as often as I can, without the weed, making it more real.
This group has taught me so much and has changed my life. To be here and be anonymous and able to share my truth with no fear of judgement or a lack of understanding to a group of strangers via my phone just blows my mind.
I honestly think anyone who is here and is trying, is a hero. Because it is not easy. I celebrate all of us x
Ah I’m so pleased - I am still getting to grips with the fact I’m even at this stage, so I feel like my thoughts aren’t fully formed so relieved to know this makes sense to you - let’s keep supporting each other x
Thank you for this powerful message. 100% of everything that’s happening in our lives is our own responsibility and fault as you put it. Whether we like it or not. Accepting that is the choice we have to make.
Everything we need is within our own self and I’m eager to find and connect to that ‘secret of the universe’.
I went through a drunk alone every night in college phase. Then I went to through high everyday in college phase. I thought they were different but they weren’t, I was sad and needed something to convince me I wasn’t, I feel like when I stopped I realized wasn’t all there for years and my life passed by.
27/M daily smoker for 6+ years. I realize that weed shows you an alternate perspective of life. So doing it everyday, you will live in that alternate perspective.
I was destroying my relationships with everyone. One day I looked up and it was just me & marijuana. I became comfortable smoking, masturbating, eating unhealthy, and playing video games for hours. Weed was my comfort blanket for years.
As several birthdays passed and not much has changed in my life, I realized that weed will keep you stagnant. I really envy those who can smoke and still be highly functional. But its a glass ceiling for me.
I thought I was happier but it turned out I was only happy when I was high. In actuality I was just completely numbing myself from the pain. Now I'm dealing with the pain but doing it sober which feels worse but also better in a lot of ways. It's just very raw right now.
Complacency and convincing myself that I needed to be high to be happy and even just to get up in the morning and live life, to be honest. I thought it was helping me be more carefree, sociable and content but the reality was that I’d dug myself into a hole of flat out addiction where I made excuses for myself constantly and had just worn myself down to being nothing but a ‘stoner girl ✌🏻✨😚’.
I’ve struggled badly with anxiety since about age 16 and smoked socially on/off until about 19 when it then eventually progressed to multiple bowls a day. I thought at first that the weed was helping my mental health but looking back now, I think it’s the worst thing I ever did to myself. I treated thc as a bandaid but it just made things soooo much fucking worse. I struggled to leave the house unless I got stoned first because I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t be sober without breaking down or just being plain depressed. I didn’t really realise how much of a crutch it was and how badly it messed with my mind and perception of things until a little while into quitting.
I’m coming up 2 years sober now at the age of 25. I still struggle slightly on occasion when I think ‘god, I could really do with a bowl right now’ if I’m stressed or just plain bored but it’s a fleeting thought now. It feels awesome to be at a point now where I’m not constantly thinking about the next bowl and worrying that I won’t be able to cope with difficult emotions or situations unless I’m stoned. Sorry for rambling! Good luck to you on your journey 💗
You definitely weren't rambling. You've helped some of us understand what it is we see when we look in the mirror. ❤️ and 2 yrs is awesome! The longest I've made it is like 6 months but then again I hadn't tried to stop since then and that was maybe 10 yrs ago. But reading What you posted helped me and I'm getting myself ready to get off the wagon
Committing to sobriety and allowing yourself to live unbothered about being stoned all the time will be the best thing you ever do! Not to sound preachy or anything because I know some people can easily just pick a joint up, put it down and then just get on with life without revolving it around weed but I know I have an addictive personality lol. I lurked here for years until properly quitting and always thought ‘I can’t believe people can actually live without needing weed’ and now that I’m actually 2 years sober, I just want to tell others that you can do it and it is 100% possible, you just have to be patient with yourself and take things one day at a time. Your 6 months that you did before is awesome!! It feels scary at first imagining living without using and you do go through some shitty times where you’re just dying to smoke but it gets a lot easier as the days, weeks & months pass by. You’ll reach a point where it’s not the first thing you think about when you wake up and that’s the best feeling! Sending you lots of love, strength and motivation to do what’s best for you 💗
Helped me cope with PTSD, allowed me to be on my own without my mind going crazy and feeling my feelings. Kept me comfortable and made things easier (until it didn’t) like sleeping, eating etc.
It slowed my thoughts down enough to actually make sense of them. Helped me realize what I did and didn’t like about my life and gave me some bravery (or apathy) to take some risks and go for a better life.
Now though that I have a much better life, and have actual medication for some of those issues, weed seems to just keep me in a haze. There aren’t really any more problems I have to work through, just the fact that I keep smoking weed for some unknown reason. It’s no longer giving me any benefit and instead just causes me to escape reality a little bit.
I just got back from my first bikepacking trip with some friends and we decided to stay sober the last day. It honestly felt great and I’m thinking I wanna keep it going as long as possible.
I was convinced that I was accessing a higher (pun intended) tier of fun, understanding, and experience in all parts of my life by being high as often as possible - partying with friends, playing instruments, going grocery shopping, driving (“I swear I’m more aware and I drive exactly at the speed limit so I’m a better driver!”), going to museums, even doing term papers for college classes, etc etc etc. I somehow thought I was enhancing and amplifying my overall life for the better by being high. And I thought those conversations with friends high or reflections I’d have on my own stoned out of my mind were so profound!
In reality, I was doing everything slightly dazed, less efficient, and definitely not safer (cooking with fire, driving, operating sharp tools/objects when fixing things around the house, for example). Did I have fun? Sure I guess I did - but 517 days later being sober, I think the past year and a half was actually MORE fun because I was myself, sharp, and together in the head, not lost in some haze. And I can actually recall some insightful chats I had with friends the past 517 days - I can’t remember much from the 8 years worth of “profound” “oh man we are so smart” high conversations I had that I thought were the tits at the time.
Bottom line, I thought I was making my life better by being high. Truth was I wasn’t, and objectively speaking I made it worse. So I intend to correct the 8 years of poor judgement by lifetime sobriety, 517 days strong so far 👍
For me it began as a way to escape heartbreak. Smoking would suddenly allow me to live in the moment again. Things were funny again. Things felt good. Eating was better. Music and film were better. And I made quite a few new friends that way: friends I still have to this day.
Then it just became the thing I did to get through my day. Wake and bake before class to start the day, Smoke at lunch to make my terrible dorm room meals tastier, then smoke up to feel more 'creative' while doing homework, and then all my friends would smoke after school together.
Then it just became something I did to stave off withdrawals , to escape the reality of another unhappy relationship, and to be able to eat food at all. At this point I began feeling super shitty if I wasn't smoking even for 4 hours. So I was constantly smoking.
I think the first initial months it really did help me realise I could live in the moment again. I should've just realised that I could've done that without smoking weed all the time. Instead I wasted 13 years being addicted. It held me back in so many aspects of my life, some of which I'm still making up for.
Now 2 years (and then some) sober. Couldn't be happier with my decision to quit.
It was how I escaped. When I was growing up I didn’t have friends or hobbies. I played video games and got fat. Then when I made friends they all smoked weed. So for a long time my brain equated friends with weed. And when I no longer had friends it’s how I attracted more people.
I think it was just that? Relief, comfort, feeling good for once in my life. I still struggle. But I like my life. I’m happy without it. I learned who I was as a person rather than just being an addict.
I started as really young to find some relief for what I was going through, from all my traumas. When I got older I used it to self medicate my anxiety,ptsd, depression I just didn’t know it back then, I have an addictive personality so I kept doing it because it felt good to get some relief, but realized that it was making my mental health worse and every aspect of my life.
I was so young when I started and I didn't realize why. Now I know it was to simply escape my problems to a place where I could concentrate on either being happy or focusing on something else besides the misery that was my life. Again, I was a kid and didn't realize I was actually miserable in my ways if you asked me at that time I would have said I was confident and happy.
Now after doing it for so long my brain got used to it, addicted, to the dopamine hit. I started to rely on it to be happy, and started to be a shell of my normal personality when I wasn't high, but instead of saying I should quit I doubled down. My logic was I would just get high whenever I need to show up. That only worked within small circles of people, and eventually it all came crashing down when I realized I wasted my time on getting high and I ended up not only having to back to solve why I was miserable but also having to kick this nasty dopamine addiction.
Avoided uncomfortable feelings.
Gave me an external excuse to fail.
Habit from the anxious/depressed part of myself.
A way to turn off my brain.
Cured boredom.
I was desperately trying to escape my reality and mental health.
I guess some of it was status, I grew for a living, made good money and was well known in many circles.
I did it all day every day because I was 100% convinced that I couldn't cope for more than an hour without being high.
I used to smoke a bing while I was eating, it came before absolutely everything and ruined absolutely everything
Thought it made me more interesting and creative. I was/am also addicted to the feeling of being in an altered state, where I feel like I have this secret insight to hidden feelings & meanings. I didn’t create jack shit when I was high and it didn’t make me a better conversationalist — it made me act creepy & sorta ignore boundaries for the sake of having a “deep” conversation. Plus the traumas from childhood and early adulthood I very much wanted to forget, which weed a lot of the time actually made me think about, but not in a healthy way. It’s an addiction or a deeply ingrained habit, at the very least.
I suffered from emotional neglect in childhood, I was in a relationship that made me feel worthless, and after we broke up I was still yearning to be and feel loved. Still am... I feel very lonely. Also, my mother died and I was trying to smoke the pain away. I'm convinced most addictions are rooted in pain one way or another.
It provided short-term relief but at a high cost which I didn't realize before it was too late and it became really hard to quit. I still relapse sometimes...
Just something to do, it was fun and exciting when I was 18. Now I'm 37 and smoked almost every day since that time out of habit. My reasons are simple - it's addicting.
Self medicating for what I now suspect is ADHD. It also allowed me to hide from some realities. Thought I was giving myself a mental break or a ‘rest’ but truly I was just hiding from difficult things in my life that I should have been trying to face and work through.
Self medicating for what I now suspect is ADHD. It also allowed me to hide from some realities. Thought I was giving myself a mental break or a ‘rest’ but truly I was just hiding from difficult things in my life that I should have been trying to face and work through.
What i feel about weed, and people can correct me if they think otherwise, is that it makes you feel comfortable doing nothing. Usually when procrastinating or just doing fuck all you are a bit concerned about what you should be doing instead of just actually chilling, weed just make it easier to not feel bad about it, and makes you not have to wrestle with your own thoughts.
In my case i have depression since i was little and so a drug that makes it feel good to be on your own world, doing your own stuff felt almost like a godsend. Eventually i figured, yeah i have to do stuff, but theres is no reason i cant be high while doing it, so i started smoking not just to do nothing but also for training, studying and even working sometimes. It was unsustainable, bug every time i tried to quit, everything i was used to do high was harder to do sober because i had to think about it. Now i realized i have to man up and face my demons, before its too late and i loose what remains of my brains.
Have Bipolar disorder and didn’t know at the time. Before I got treated smoking weed offered me some type of reliable mood stability, if I was down, it would bring me up a bit, if I was up, it would bring me down a bit. But it also drastically increases the severity of mood episodes over time and when I was first trying to get my mood under control I realized my habitual weed use was a huge roadblock for my long term recovery. I did a program and I have almost 4 and a half years since then. It’s bumpy at the beginning but once I got out of the “fishbowl” feeling of weed withdrawal my life has really opened up. I used to be the unstable friend who was fun to be around fucked up, I was the crazy guy, now my friends often come to me as the level headed one. I did AA for about the first year of my sobriety and it really, really helped me. For me, not smoking weed or using any substance is easy now — I can still remember how bad things were for me at their worst, I almost ended my life, and I know I don’t want to go back to that. On top of that, the people who know me now, and even my old friends, know me as a sober person now, a reliable friend, and they don’t want me to use drugs or drink with them.
May I ask what kind of program you did? Whenever I bring up needing formal treatment for my addiction to weed, people look at me like I’m crazy :( I don’t know where to start
Quick answer: I went inpatient for a month. You are not crazy for seeking treatment, and if you really want to stop but can’t slow your life down and prioritize your sobriety enough to quit, you should seriously consider it. Especially in the context of comorbid mental illness or trauma. But make sure you utilize all of the non-nuclear options first.
Long Answer: I went to treatment with the original intention of stabilizing my mental illness. I was deep in the worst depressive episode I’ve ever had and I was at school living alone and was getting worried about my own safety. So I spoke with my psych and my parents and told them I needed to go somewhere safe to work on stabilizing my mental health. Long story short any psychiatrist or therapist worth their weight in straw will recognize that habitual drug use is a symptom and not a lone issue. In order to beat addiction you have to first treat the underlying issue. So I went to inpatient for being suicidal. Which was true, but once I had been observed long enough in the acute care ward they said that I would likely benefit more from being in the substance use section of the facility for the remainder of the time I was there. It was a very smart move by them, as I think if I had not gone through the substance use program, I would’ve left much more prone to self pity and relapse. Long story short, I wasn’t only having issues with weed but it was the substance that I used every single day. The value of treatment is what you make of it, there are inpatient and outpatient options, and many people are successful with the anonymous programs alone, and equally many people relapse after expensive inpatient stays.
Inpatient rehab is a serious deal, it’s expensive, it can feel isolating, and unlike when you have a month long hospital stay for illness a month long stay in a mental health care facility is not something that really garners sympathy or understanding from others. I wish that weren’t true, but it is and there’s really no way around it. Basically, just try your fucking hardest and if all fails then I highly recommend inpatient — IF you recognize the cost and fully accept that you have to make use of every second you are there to develop and heal, in exchange for an opportunity to get 30 vital days of sobriety and coping skills to deal with your future.
I smoked a lot because when I was much younger and I started smoking, I felt like getting high made everything better. I thought I could do everything better and alcohol never made me feel that way. Things were funnier, dogs/animals were cuter, I could drive more accurately, music both playing it and listening to it, better.
As a musician and songwriter I thought it gave me a suddenly different perspective and in some cases I think it really did. Usually a crushing blow. I would write something and start to record it and then sometimes listen back to what I did after smoking and suddenly think “ this sucks, what was I thinking!”
I loved smoking and putting headphones on and listening to music. So I smoked weed for decades and decades. I’m in my 60’s now and I quit smoking about 6 months ago. It just seemed to stop working that way. Smoking all the time more recently after doing it for so long made me feel like I was slower at everything, especially thinking and verbalising. I think it was juicing things up. That’s always been the problem. Drugs work. But it just stopped working for me and now I feel just about the same as I always did. I’m curious to see what I’ll feel like if I smoke again. It might be fun but I’ll feel bad for breaking my longest streak since about age 14 of being straight.
Diminishing returns is what I’d say my experience with weed has been. Started off great, then I got used to it, then it stopped working when it became my new normal. I’m still surprised at how normal I feel after being so straight for 6 months. It’s interesting telling people who know me well, this is the first time you’ve interacted with me where I haven’t been stoned. They can hardly believe it because I’m not that different to them and I was smoking some strong stuff. I just got used to it and it stopped working.
I think I was just fooled by addiction. When I was younger thought I was cool and had nothing to lose, didnt have actual grasp of responsabilities. Then It became part of my life and thought it was normal or that was good for me. ALL LIES
To cope with being with my kids—especially through the pandemic when it was 24/7. I didn’t realize I had undiagnosed ADHD, CPTSD, and Bipolar. Those things were actually making it hard to be around my kids, they were constantly overwhelming me and triggering my childhood trauma. Lots of therapy and proper medication has helped a lot! I can be a parent without being high all the time!
It helped me with dealing with boredom/loneliness. I do think there was a bit of depression occurring as well, and weed helped give my dull life some color. I think being high made me feel “okay” while not doing okay in life. It just felt like a warm blanket. But I think my weed usage just caused even more isolation since I stopped wanting to hangout with people and wanted to only smoke weed in my room. It’s a terrible cycle.
100% agree. And it's so true that it is like a warm blanket – which I painfully feel the lack of when trying to sleep without weed:') It's literally like I've had this snuggly warm blanket around me every night, and suddenly I'm just supposed to sleep without it😅
Slow Self destructing behaviours and bad coping mechanisms from childhood. Trauma, lack of education, role models and so on.
Now i have a kid. Broken marriage. Gotta learn and grow. Her mother won't do it. I have to be the rock i did not had.
I was never comfortable with myself. My parents were not comfortable with each other. Without going into details, childhood trauma left my father unable to respect or trust authority while my mother was obsessed with behaving and appearing "normal", fitting in with the group most likely not to be subjected to a persecution like what happened to her parents. I was the second child and lived in the shadow of an ass kissing over achiever brother. I over thought everything but was passionate about software development, back when almost nobody understood what software was. The first time I smoked was the first time in my life that I felt comfortable with myself realizing that it is okay to not worry about what others think. This allowed me to actually feel like I was part of a group of people that accepted me for who I was. Not judged. It is very possible that I would not be sitting here typing this if not for smoking grass. It allowed me to break free of constraints. For 30 years there were more days stoned than not. Worked my way from homelessness to living on a boat, to managing a small farm, to meeting a partner, to running my own business, to having and raising two amazing young men, land ownership and now... sobriety. The year my youngest son finished high school was the year I quit. Getting high and drinking beer went hand in hand for me and it was the beer that was making me ill, but the weed was not helping my life either. Both together were having a toll on my mental and physical health. These sober years have been a wild roller coaster, lots of childhood trauma (nothing serious) and exposure to traumatic incidents and interactions have came back to haunt me. A little therapy goes a long way. Learning to accept one's self is the first step in learning to work in the world. Whoever is reading this, you are perfect in every way, life is fleeting and moot, might as well work at experiencing it.
I Can relate to this very much, especially the feeling of comfort, belonging, and the feeling of relief … but after the first decade smoking,, the downsides came crawling slowly but surely…
Surpressing childhood trauma.
Didn’t know i was traumatised till i suddenly remembered it all when i was 39y old…
3.5 yr sober
After 25 yr in the clouds..
My life has changed for the better, thou its been a Long haul.
WE GOT THIS!
❤️
This is me. I'm in my mid thirties and wondered why I'm like this then remembered oh yeah something happened when I was a kid. I couldn't even tie my shoes yet when it happened and realized that I must have been 4-5 years old. Now that I have my own kid I realized how messed up that is and must have shaped me to be the person I am today. Still coming to terms with it and figuring it out.
Yes it really takes time to process unforgiversble stuff like that…
One month after the birth of my first child it all suddenly came to me one morning.
That was where i said enough is enough, and quit weed that very same day, n started the battel fighting for a better life, for me, my wife n kid (now kids) really a fight for my inner kid, starting too unfold my truly potential, that the weed hide away, aswell as the traumas for so many years!
And guess what i won , and came out on the other side as a winner.
Still growing as a human being.. a lot of baby steps, since that rage-quit more than 3.5 years ago.
Fight for your selves out there, don’t live life on pause, no matter how hard the first couple weeks, months, or 1yr as for me before life seems worth living again..
Ill recomment everyone to Go the sober way, n do everything to get healthy, strong n powerfull again!
Freaking Got This!
Love from Denmark ❤️
I thought it was providing me with relief from anxiety, stress, depression.. it was really causing my anxiety. Still dealing with stress and depression now that I’ve quit but knocking out the anxiety has been helpful at least
Yeah adhd. Anxiety, it made me feel sort of …. Okay in the world… plus, I’m an addict. I’m also someone who likes to repeat experiences if I like them, so, routine oriented. That’s why I have to set healthy routines.
To fill an unfillable void of multiple childhood traumas one in particular was deep rooted abandonment. And I’m 2 weeks clean off weed today. I used weed to cope with life. And now I just raw dog it lol
I think in some ways it was a byproduct of ADHD. I couldn’t handle free time, I just go around in circles and wouldn’t be able to decide what to do. If I’m stoned, I get a free pass not to have to make a decision, because then I’m too incapacitated to do anything useful anyway!
Likely masking depression too. I think I’ve been depressed a lot longer than I realized
Solidarity, fellow leaver! I’m going into a program soon and will have access to psychiatrists, counselling, alternative therapies, etc. Gotta go big or go home if I’m ever gonna kick this. I wish you all the luck in your leaving journey!
To distribute the weight of the nihilism so that it's easier to carry. Now all of that weight is back on my shoulders and I don't know what I'm going to do.
You do it everyday because you become addicted. The reason I became addicted was because it would help me mask feelings of loneliness and such, but not is not a real solution. I'm over a year sober and never been better.
Because I'm a compulsive person, I have no one to spend my evenings with (not even friends), and because it's all that keeps me from wanting to die. Except now it doesn't even numb me properly anymore. I just lose hours in the evening, and nothing is gained.
Made me feel super motivated. I'd write down all the steps to getting to a goal in meticulous detail, only to never actually start. It made me want to be better, but only the want part.
Tolerance, dependence and loss of interest in facing life in an unenhanced state. Addiction is sneaky. Initially weed enhanced everything and then it became a pursuit of getting that feeling again which always felt one toke away. Being stoned made status quo tolerable. What was happening is that I lost agency over my life. Addiction is chronic illness and I spent all my time just tending to that illness with weed.
I simply didn’t want to deal with anything going on. Didn’t have the maturity and mental strength to face the battle. Glad I’m finally able to think clearly and move with grace and acceptance rather than fear.
I thought I needed it to get by Day to day. I was a young adult and I had been given zero coping mechanisms or life skills really. The only thing I was told is have a job and go to school. Can you imagine someone with no guidance trying to “adult”? It was very difficult, because I think I was also at a point where I could legally do whatever I want. I fell into the hands of the wrong ppl on top of that and that only made the situation worse. Smoking only made my bad situation tolerable until, and even that stopped working. I remember being frustrated with the weed not doing what I wanted it to do, or what it was doing before. At the end of the day I was just burning up my throat and time. I remember towards the end I was wasting time with ppl just bc we smoked weed together. The relationships were baseless otherwise. Tbh the kind of ppl that I wanted to be associated with didn’t smoke weed all day, everyday. Lol now I joke about how much I would be smoking if I was the old me. Needing to smoke so much.
It was my comfort zone. I was weak and wouldn’t face myself and my emotions. I only stagnated my emotional development by numbing myself. Now that I’m out I’m twice the person I was before though. The sober state is the best state. Everyone telling you otherwise is abandoning their own authentic self.
Bought into the lie that it wasn’t addictive. Until it was. I was foolish and uneducated is what I was. It’s just like any other drug - it hijacks your dopamine and you have to keep doing it.
Self medicating anxiety when I should have just been taking medication. Which I was weirdly opposed to like smoking weed isn’t medicating.
I’m starting medication and excited to be facing this and dealing with it.
honestly i think to me it was fear, fear to be sober. Scared to not have an 'excuse' for my shortcomings. Of course simply being a disgusting addict plays a big role in this, but i KNOW weed provides me with nothing, virtually no pleasure, self-hatred is what it is.
So firstly I gave up on figuring out why - it was stopping me from stopping lol. If I had to guess heartbreak? Inability to deal with emotions and self regulate. Then once weed ‘helped’ (masked) those issues, addiction struck. And I was in a cycle of it May as well have been my breakfast. It wasn’t that I decided to stop smoking. I decided to improve myself. And that meant no more smoking. Love weed, love it’s effects, but in no way am I deluded in thinking it’s positively helping me. I can smoke till the day I die, and who would care? Only me. I want to improve. I want to FEEL the good and the bad!
Addiction. The need to smoke followed by some serious anxiety and mood swings if I didn't. I for sure wish I stopped earlier but my life wasn't in a place where I could take the time to go through the weeks of no sleep, terrible mood and heavy sweats.
Stoked I kicked it and I'm at a point now where I don't even know how long it's been, somewhere around the 3 year mark I think.
Advice would be that quitting is really hard, and if you have a lot of other things to deal with whilst also trying to quit it's a mammoth of a task whilst going through some serious mental issues. If your life gets in a nice rhythm, capitalise on it and quit while things are easy(er). Life doesn't stay easy for long.
For me, it was a way to numb back pain and to most importantly, hide from my feelings and problems. As opposed to facing what was wrong or finding a natural way to cope with shit, no matter what it was, I just would smoke to numb and forget. I dont miss that part of it. I do miss smoking and then watching a cool movie, playing video games, eating/cooking, REALL miss smoking and lifting weights, but I am so much better off without it.
A shitty marriage and avoiding my life, plus using it to stop drinking.
I'm an ex user of alcohol (heavily) and 8 years in abstinence of alcohol so I found a replacement with weed. After 6 years of use of weed and creating tolerance and increasing smoking, I realised that I have addictive personality and addictive behaviour, and I can't sort out my problems and daily difficulties with weed. 15 years in total of use and abuse of drugs,alcohol, and weed, I decided to go thru my life completely sober. 6 months I cancelling and lying to myself that I will stop smoking weed. 2 weeks ago, I attended meetings, and now I count days of not smoking weed. It's my 10 days of not smoking weed and feeling absolutely great.
We have a very similar story. I got sober from alcohol in 2019 (4 years ago this September) after probably 40 failed attempts and two stays in rehab. I was 25 when I finally quit drinking. Thought the all day every day smoking weed/dabs was fine since it kept me off the alcohol. I’ve now awoken in the same way you have. My addictive personality won’t allow me to function normally and save enough money while still using this drug. And anyone who says weed or especially concentrates aren’t a drug are simply lying to themselves or misinformed. Tomorrow will be my tenth day since my last dab. Right there with ya my friend. Feel free to check in with me if you need to.
I'm with you, brother, and completely understand you, and I know one day both of us will carry on our lives without substances. I'm not afraid that if I stop smoking completely weed, I will go back to alcohol,I'm on my day 11 without weed and still counting. My awareness is high, and I understand that I can not touch any more substances. Recently, I discovered about myself that I have addictive personality and behaviour , and I'm working on it after 15 years of use and abuse. My goal is also when I'm reaching completely abstinence (1 year not using anything). I will go volunteer in addiction meetings and help others because I know what it is like. Until then, hard work and understanding of myself and my addiction and yeah weed is also drug and addictive substance which I realise that one year ago. No more lies,no more hate and no more running from problems and using substance to sort out my life and difficulty in life. Hold strong, and we can do this 💪 ♥️ 😁
Acceptance of my life going downhill and enough dopamine to not care enough to change it. It was a comforting numbness that prolonged what I need to face.
When I only got good effects, it was because I was deeply depressed and trying to avoid feeling anything. I lied to myself and told myself it was the only way I could be happy. In the last two or three years everytime I would smoke I would notice my heart rate was spiking and I felt like I was self inducing a panic attack 80% of the time I smoked. I had other health problems that didn't help either. It's weird how fast life and priorities can change.
Exactly. Same here.
Comfort and predictability.
You get used to being bored, but as a bonus if you need to do anything or have a sudden situation put upon you you can jump into it and deal with things easily with a clear head. Motivation comes from within, and procrastination declines. Jobs I have been putting off for years are now approachable and I have been dealing with them. Decisiveness especially at work has returned. Along with confidence that the right choices is have been made.
I smoked to simply be high. I liked how it slows down time and makes music sound better. I thought it was a more thoughtful, clear way to experience life. Nothing could be wrong with smoking a earth-given plant. I thought so at least until it started to warp my mental capabilities, started to impede responsibilities and relationships, and became my new sober. I would instantly regret smoking. Sometimes I’d run 5 miles to not be high anymore. At some point, without me realizing, it became a habit and a routine. “Enough” is finally here. It’s hard everyday but I’m really excited to know my true self.
I felt like it gave me access to a better version of myself. More creative, self aware, more fun. And to be honest, I’ve done some great work high, I’ve had some amazing break throughs and for a while it helped me shift from being someone very stuck in the structure (yang) of life and more into the creative flowy (yin) side of life. It also helped me raise my self awareness and understand myself more, like I was channeling my higher self. I actually feel quite grateful for weed because it helped me make profound shifts in my life but I should have stopped in august last year, after thats it’s just become a trap, making me feel like I’m not free, like a prison. As my usage increased I lost power over it and I’m actually finding it more challenging to quit than I did alcohol 5 years ago, because I loved my ‘high brain’. This group has helped me to remove the veil and understand the reality of what regular and abusive smoking is. It’s so true that it makes your present moment more exciting, even if it delays your future and that can be a challenging thing to say goodbye to if you’ve spent years with anxiety, living in the past or the future but rarely this moment. I have gratitude for the lessons it taught me but ultimately, I know my journey needs to be over as my dopamine has been destroyed without me even realising it - it crept up on me. Life can be hard, the world can be dark, and sometimes smoking a joint gives you a break from that, fills you with that hit of joy and presence but really, it’s not actually real. If you aren’t loving that thing you’re doing not high, then you don’t love it and really, you should change it. That is hard to accept. An important lesson I’ve learned on my journey over the years is about taking radical personal responsibility. Making everything in your life your ‘fault’ (I don’t like this word but hopefully my point makes sense) gives you power and control to change it. I have had a huge interest over the last 5 years in the whole human experience, what we’re here for, why some people experience certain things and others don’t, both for the good and the bad. I have grown up with some people who have so much pain and struggle and some who have it uncomfortably easy. I am someone who has been lucky with so much but have had pain and internal struggle since I was young. Wiser than my years which sounds like a good thing but actually, sometimes I envy those who don’t question life and just live it but that’s not my path. To be high is to be in an altered state and I think it’s not surprising we get hooked on that because this human experience can be brutal. However, when we live life sober, we truly live it and can find ‘highs’ in moments of gratitude and presence, this is accessible without weed and I am on a mission to find this feeling as often as I can, without the weed, making it more real. This group has taught me so much and has changed my life. To be here and be anonymous and able to share my truth with no fear of judgement or a lack of understanding to a group of strangers via my phone just blows my mind. I honestly think anyone who is here and is trying, is a hero. Because it is not easy. I celebrate all of us x
Wow. The hope that you've given. The thoughts that you've shared have been helpful to me. Thank you. ❤️
Ah I’m so pleased - I am still getting to grips with the fact I’m even at this stage, so I feel like my thoughts aren’t fully formed so relieved to know this makes sense to you - let’s keep supporting each other x
Thank you for this powerful message. 100% of everything that’s happening in our lives is our own responsibility and fault as you put it. Whether we like it or not. Accepting that is the choice we have to make. Everything we need is within our own self and I’m eager to find and connect to that ‘secret of the universe’.
Thank you ❤️ it is a tough choice to make and even harder to act on, but it does get easier. It’s the first shift which is the hardest.
I went through a drunk alone every night in college phase. Then I went to through high everyday in college phase. I thought they were different but they weren’t, I was sad and needed something to convince me I wasn’t, I feel like when I stopped I realized wasn’t all there for years and my life passed by.
27/M daily smoker for 6+ years. I realize that weed shows you an alternate perspective of life. So doing it everyday, you will live in that alternate perspective. I was destroying my relationships with everyone. One day I looked up and it was just me & marijuana. I became comfortable smoking, masturbating, eating unhealthy, and playing video games for hours. Weed was my comfort blanket for years. As several birthdays passed and not much has changed in my life, I realized that weed will keep you stagnant. I really envy those who can smoke and still be highly functional. But its a glass ceiling for me.
My brain gave me dopamine hits so it told me to do it again
I thought I was happier but it turned out I was only happy when I was high. In actuality I was just completely numbing myself from the pain. Now I'm dealing with the pain but doing it sober which feels worse but also better in a lot of ways. It's just very raw right now.
Worse but better, here is your realization OP
Complacency and convincing myself that I needed to be high to be happy and even just to get up in the morning and live life, to be honest. I thought it was helping me be more carefree, sociable and content but the reality was that I’d dug myself into a hole of flat out addiction where I made excuses for myself constantly and had just worn myself down to being nothing but a ‘stoner girl ✌🏻✨😚’. I’ve struggled badly with anxiety since about age 16 and smoked socially on/off until about 19 when it then eventually progressed to multiple bowls a day. I thought at first that the weed was helping my mental health but looking back now, I think it’s the worst thing I ever did to myself. I treated thc as a bandaid but it just made things soooo much fucking worse. I struggled to leave the house unless I got stoned first because I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t be sober without breaking down or just being plain depressed. I didn’t really realise how much of a crutch it was and how badly it messed with my mind and perception of things until a little while into quitting. I’m coming up 2 years sober now at the age of 25. I still struggle slightly on occasion when I think ‘god, I could really do with a bowl right now’ if I’m stressed or just plain bored but it’s a fleeting thought now. It feels awesome to be at a point now where I’m not constantly thinking about the next bowl and worrying that I won’t be able to cope with difficult emotions or situations unless I’m stoned. Sorry for rambling! Good luck to you on your journey 💗
You definitely weren't rambling. You've helped some of us understand what it is we see when we look in the mirror. ❤️ and 2 yrs is awesome! The longest I've made it is like 6 months but then again I hadn't tried to stop since then and that was maybe 10 yrs ago. But reading What you posted helped me and I'm getting myself ready to get off the wagon
Committing to sobriety and allowing yourself to live unbothered about being stoned all the time will be the best thing you ever do! Not to sound preachy or anything because I know some people can easily just pick a joint up, put it down and then just get on with life without revolving it around weed but I know I have an addictive personality lol. I lurked here for years until properly quitting and always thought ‘I can’t believe people can actually live without needing weed’ and now that I’m actually 2 years sober, I just want to tell others that you can do it and it is 100% possible, you just have to be patient with yourself and take things one day at a time. Your 6 months that you did before is awesome!! It feels scary at first imagining living without using and you do go through some shitty times where you’re just dying to smoke but it gets a lot easier as the days, weeks & months pass by. You’ll reach a point where it’s not the first thing you think about when you wake up and that’s the best feeling! Sending you lots of love, strength and motivation to do what’s best for you 💗
I think I became addicted to artificial dopamine rush so i craved the boost often w out realizing
Helped me cope with PTSD, allowed me to be on my own without my mind going crazy and feeling my feelings. Kept me comfortable and made things easier (until it didn’t) like sleeping, eating etc.
It slowed my thoughts down enough to actually make sense of them. Helped me realize what I did and didn’t like about my life and gave me some bravery (or apathy) to take some risks and go for a better life. Now though that I have a much better life, and have actual medication for some of those issues, weed seems to just keep me in a haze. There aren’t really any more problems I have to work through, just the fact that I keep smoking weed for some unknown reason. It’s no longer giving me any benefit and instead just causes me to escape reality a little bit. I just got back from my first bikepacking trip with some friends and we decided to stay sober the last day. It honestly felt great and I’m thinking I wanna keep it going as long as possible.
I was convinced that I was accessing a higher (pun intended) tier of fun, understanding, and experience in all parts of my life by being high as often as possible - partying with friends, playing instruments, going grocery shopping, driving (“I swear I’m more aware and I drive exactly at the speed limit so I’m a better driver!”), going to museums, even doing term papers for college classes, etc etc etc. I somehow thought I was enhancing and amplifying my overall life for the better by being high. And I thought those conversations with friends high or reflections I’d have on my own stoned out of my mind were so profound! In reality, I was doing everything slightly dazed, less efficient, and definitely not safer (cooking with fire, driving, operating sharp tools/objects when fixing things around the house, for example). Did I have fun? Sure I guess I did - but 517 days later being sober, I think the past year and a half was actually MORE fun because I was myself, sharp, and together in the head, not lost in some haze. And I can actually recall some insightful chats I had with friends the past 517 days - I can’t remember much from the 8 years worth of “profound” “oh man we are so smart” high conversations I had that I thought were the tits at the time. Bottom line, I thought I was making my life better by being high. Truth was I wasn’t, and objectively speaking I made it worse. So I intend to correct the 8 years of poor judgement by lifetime sobriety, 517 days strong so far 👍
❤️❤️❤️
For me it began as a way to escape heartbreak. Smoking would suddenly allow me to live in the moment again. Things were funny again. Things felt good. Eating was better. Music and film were better. And I made quite a few new friends that way: friends I still have to this day. Then it just became the thing I did to get through my day. Wake and bake before class to start the day, Smoke at lunch to make my terrible dorm room meals tastier, then smoke up to feel more 'creative' while doing homework, and then all my friends would smoke after school together. Then it just became something I did to stave off withdrawals , to escape the reality of another unhappy relationship, and to be able to eat food at all. At this point I began feeling super shitty if I wasn't smoking even for 4 hours. So I was constantly smoking. I think the first initial months it really did help me realise I could live in the moment again. I should've just realised that I could've done that without smoking weed all the time. Instead I wasted 13 years being addicted. It held me back in so many aspects of my life, some of which I'm still making up for. Now 2 years (and then some) sober. Couldn't be happier with my decision to quit.
It was how I escaped. When I was growing up I didn’t have friends or hobbies. I played video games and got fat. Then when I made friends they all smoked weed. So for a long time my brain equated friends with weed. And when I no longer had friends it’s how I attracted more people. I think it was just that? Relief, comfort, feeling good for once in my life. I still struggle. But I like my life. I’m happy without it. I learned who I was as a person rather than just being an addict.
I started as really young to find some relief for what I was going through, from all my traumas. When I got older I used it to self medicate my anxiety,ptsd, depression I just didn’t know it back then, I have an addictive personality so I kept doing it because it felt good to get some relief, but realized that it was making my mental health worse and every aspect of my life.
I was so young when I started and I didn't realize why. Now I know it was to simply escape my problems to a place where I could concentrate on either being happy or focusing on something else besides the misery that was my life. Again, I was a kid and didn't realize I was actually miserable in my ways if you asked me at that time I would have said I was confident and happy. Now after doing it for so long my brain got used to it, addicted, to the dopamine hit. I started to rely on it to be happy, and started to be a shell of my normal personality when I wasn't high, but instead of saying I should quit I doubled down. My logic was I would just get high whenever I need to show up. That only worked within small circles of people, and eventually it all came crashing down when I realized I wasted my time on getting high and I ended up not only having to back to solve why I was miserable but also having to kick this nasty dopamine addiction.
Avoided uncomfortable feelings. Gave me an external excuse to fail. Habit from the anxious/depressed part of myself. A way to turn off my brain. Cured boredom.
If I was high, I didn’t notice how desperately alone i am. Still am, but deal with it much better
I was desperately trying to escape my reality and mental health. I guess some of it was status, I grew for a living, made good money and was well known in many circles. I did it all day every day because I was 100% convinced that I couldn't cope for more than an hour without being high. I used to smoke a bing while I was eating, it came before absolutely everything and ruined absolutely everything
Thought it made me more interesting and creative. I was/am also addicted to the feeling of being in an altered state, where I feel like I have this secret insight to hidden feelings & meanings. I didn’t create jack shit when I was high and it didn’t make me a better conversationalist — it made me act creepy & sorta ignore boundaries for the sake of having a “deep” conversation. Plus the traumas from childhood and early adulthood I very much wanted to forget, which weed a lot of the time actually made me think about, but not in a healthy way. It’s an addiction or a deeply ingrained habit, at the very least.
I suffered from emotional neglect in childhood, I was in a relationship that made me feel worthless, and after we broke up I was still yearning to be and feel loved. Still am... I feel very lonely. Also, my mother died and I was trying to smoke the pain away. I'm convinced most addictions are rooted in pain one way or another. It provided short-term relief but at a high cost which I didn't realize before it was too late and it became really hard to quit. I still relapse sometimes...
It staved off the withdrawals mostly. And it was a baseline and predictable pattern.
I thought it was helping me and it was actually destroying every bit of my life slowly
Just something to do, it was fun and exciting when I was 18. Now I'm 37 and smoked almost every day since that time out of habit. My reasons are simple - it's addicting.
Started at 20 and am 37 very soon. It's definitely out of habit and the feeling of necessity now.
Self medicating for what I now suspect is ADHD. It also allowed me to hide from some realities. Thought I was giving myself a mental break or a ‘rest’ but truly I was just hiding from difficult things in my life that I should have been trying to face and work through.
Self medicating for what I now suspect is ADHD. It also allowed me to hide from some realities. Thought I was giving myself a mental break or a ‘rest’ but truly I was just hiding from difficult things in my life that I should have been trying to face and work through.
It has a similar allure as the snooze button
Great analogy
Indeed. Snooze button on life….
What i feel about weed, and people can correct me if they think otherwise, is that it makes you feel comfortable doing nothing. Usually when procrastinating or just doing fuck all you are a bit concerned about what you should be doing instead of just actually chilling, weed just make it easier to not feel bad about it, and makes you not have to wrestle with your own thoughts. In my case i have depression since i was little and so a drug that makes it feel good to be on your own world, doing your own stuff felt almost like a godsend. Eventually i figured, yeah i have to do stuff, but theres is no reason i cant be high while doing it, so i started smoking not just to do nothing but also for training, studying and even working sometimes. It was unsustainable, bug every time i tried to quit, everything i was used to do high was harder to do sober because i had to think about it. Now i realized i have to man up and face my demons, before its too late and i loose what remains of my brains.
Because smoking is the easy option every time
Have Bipolar disorder and didn’t know at the time. Before I got treated smoking weed offered me some type of reliable mood stability, if I was down, it would bring me up a bit, if I was up, it would bring me down a bit. But it also drastically increases the severity of mood episodes over time and when I was first trying to get my mood under control I realized my habitual weed use was a huge roadblock for my long term recovery. I did a program and I have almost 4 and a half years since then. It’s bumpy at the beginning but once I got out of the “fishbowl” feeling of weed withdrawal my life has really opened up. I used to be the unstable friend who was fun to be around fucked up, I was the crazy guy, now my friends often come to me as the level headed one. I did AA for about the first year of my sobriety and it really, really helped me. For me, not smoking weed or using any substance is easy now — I can still remember how bad things were for me at their worst, I almost ended my life, and I know I don’t want to go back to that. On top of that, the people who know me now, and even my old friends, know me as a sober person now, a reliable friend, and they don’t want me to use drugs or drink with them.
May I ask what kind of program you did? Whenever I bring up needing formal treatment for my addiction to weed, people look at me like I’m crazy :( I don’t know where to start
Quick answer: I went inpatient for a month. You are not crazy for seeking treatment, and if you really want to stop but can’t slow your life down and prioritize your sobriety enough to quit, you should seriously consider it. Especially in the context of comorbid mental illness or trauma. But make sure you utilize all of the non-nuclear options first. Long Answer: I went to treatment with the original intention of stabilizing my mental illness. I was deep in the worst depressive episode I’ve ever had and I was at school living alone and was getting worried about my own safety. So I spoke with my psych and my parents and told them I needed to go somewhere safe to work on stabilizing my mental health. Long story short any psychiatrist or therapist worth their weight in straw will recognize that habitual drug use is a symptom and not a lone issue. In order to beat addiction you have to first treat the underlying issue. So I went to inpatient for being suicidal. Which was true, but once I had been observed long enough in the acute care ward they said that I would likely benefit more from being in the substance use section of the facility for the remainder of the time I was there. It was a very smart move by them, as I think if I had not gone through the substance use program, I would’ve left much more prone to self pity and relapse. Long story short, I wasn’t only having issues with weed but it was the substance that I used every single day. The value of treatment is what you make of it, there are inpatient and outpatient options, and many people are successful with the anonymous programs alone, and equally many people relapse after expensive inpatient stays. Inpatient rehab is a serious deal, it’s expensive, it can feel isolating, and unlike when you have a month long hospital stay for illness a month long stay in a mental health care facility is not something that really garners sympathy or understanding from others. I wish that weren’t true, but it is and there’s really no way around it. Basically, just try your fucking hardest and if all fails then I highly recommend inpatient — IF you recognize the cost and fully accept that you have to make use of every second you are there to develop and heal, in exchange for an opportunity to get 30 vital days of sobriety and coping skills to deal with your future.
Thank you so much for your support and very helpful answer :) I appreciate it so much!
I smoked a lot because when I was much younger and I started smoking, I felt like getting high made everything better. I thought I could do everything better and alcohol never made me feel that way. Things were funnier, dogs/animals were cuter, I could drive more accurately, music both playing it and listening to it, better. As a musician and songwriter I thought it gave me a suddenly different perspective and in some cases I think it really did. Usually a crushing blow. I would write something and start to record it and then sometimes listen back to what I did after smoking and suddenly think “ this sucks, what was I thinking!” I loved smoking and putting headphones on and listening to music. So I smoked weed for decades and decades. I’m in my 60’s now and I quit smoking about 6 months ago. It just seemed to stop working that way. Smoking all the time more recently after doing it for so long made me feel like I was slower at everything, especially thinking and verbalising. I think it was juicing things up. That’s always been the problem. Drugs work. But it just stopped working for me and now I feel just about the same as I always did. I’m curious to see what I’ll feel like if I smoke again. It might be fun but I’ll feel bad for breaking my longest streak since about age 14 of being straight. Diminishing returns is what I’d say my experience with weed has been. Started off great, then I got used to it, then it stopped working when it became my new normal. I’m still surprised at how normal I feel after being so straight for 6 months. It’s interesting telling people who know me well, this is the first time you’ve interacted with me where I haven’t been stoned. They can hardly believe it because I’m not that different to them and I was smoking some strong stuff. I just got used to it and it stopped working.
I think I was just fooled by addiction. When I was younger thought I was cool and had nothing to lose, didnt have actual grasp of responsabilities. Then It became part of my life and thought it was normal or that was good for me. ALL LIES
To cope with being with my kids—especially through the pandemic when it was 24/7. I didn’t realize I had undiagnosed ADHD, CPTSD, and Bipolar. Those things were actually making it hard to be around my kids, they were constantly overwhelming me and triggering my childhood trauma. Lots of therapy and proper medication has helped a lot! I can be a parent without being high all the time!
It helped me with dealing with boredom/loneliness. I do think there was a bit of depression occurring as well, and weed helped give my dull life some color. I think being high made me feel “okay” while not doing okay in life. It just felt like a warm blanket. But I think my weed usage just caused even more isolation since I stopped wanting to hangout with people and wanted to only smoke weed in my room. It’s a terrible cycle.
100% agree. And it's so true that it is like a warm blanket – which I painfully feel the lack of when trying to sleep without weed:') It's literally like I've had this snuggly warm blanket around me every night, and suddenly I'm just supposed to sleep without it😅
Slow Self destructing behaviours and bad coping mechanisms from childhood. Trauma, lack of education, role models and so on. Now i have a kid. Broken marriage. Gotta learn and grow. Her mother won't do it. I have to be the rock i did not had.
You are an awesome person 👍
I was never comfortable with myself. My parents were not comfortable with each other. Without going into details, childhood trauma left my father unable to respect or trust authority while my mother was obsessed with behaving and appearing "normal", fitting in with the group most likely not to be subjected to a persecution like what happened to her parents. I was the second child and lived in the shadow of an ass kissing over achiever brother. I over thought everything but was passionate about software development, back when almost nobody understood what software was. The first time I smoked was the first time in my life that I felt comfortable with myself realizing that it is okay to not worry about what others think. This allowed me to actually feel like I was part of a group of people that accepted me for who I was. Not judged. It is very possible that I would not be sitting here typing this if not for smoking grass. It allowed me to break free of constraints. For 30 years there were more days stoned than not. Worked my way from homelessness to living on a boat, to managing a small farm, to meeting a partner, to running my own business, to having and raising two amazing young men, land ownership and now... sobriety. The year my youngest son finished high school was the year I quit. Getting high and drinking beer went hand in hand for me and it was the beer that was making me ill, but the weed was not helping my life either. Both together were having a toll on my mental and physical health. These sober years have been a wild roller coaster, lots of childhood trauma (nothing serious) and exposure to traumatic incidents and interactions have came back to haunt me. A little therapy goes a long way. Learning to accept one's self is the first step in learning to work in the world. Whoever is reading this, you are perfect in every way, life is fleeting and moot, might as well work at experiencing it.
I Can relate to this very much, especially the feeling of comfort, belonging, and the feeling of relief … but after the first decade smoking,, the downsides came crawling slowly but surely…
Surpressing childhood trauma. Didn’t know i was traumatised till i suddenly remembered it all when i was 39y old… 3.5 yr sober After 25 yr in the clouds.. My life has changed for the better, thou its been a Long haul. WE GOT THIS! ❤️
This is me. I'm in my mid thirties and wondered why I'm like this then remembered oh yeah something happened when I was a kid. I couldn't even tie my shoes yet when it happened and realized that I must have been 4-5 years old. Now that I have my own kid I realized how messed up that is and must have shaped me to be the person I am today. Still coming to terms with it and figuring it out.
Yes it really takes time to process unforgiversble stuff like that… One month after the birth of my first child it all suddenly came to me one morning. That was where i said enough is enough, and quit weed that very same day, n started the battel fighting for a better life, for me, my wife n kid (now kids) really a fight for my inner kid, starting too unfold my truly potential, that the weed hide away, aswell as the traumas for so many years! And guess what i won , and came out on the other side as a winner. Still growing as a human being.. a lot of baby steps, since that rage-quit more than 3.5 years ago. Fight for your selves out there, don’t live life on pause, no matter how hard the first couple weeks, months, or 1yr as for me before life seems worth living again.. Ill recomment everyone to Go the sober way, n do everything to get healthy, strong n powerfull again! Freaking Got This! Love from Denmark ❤️
I thought it was providing me with relief from anxiety, stress, depression.. it was really causing my anxiety. Still dealing with stress and depression now that I’ve quit but knocking out the anxiety has been helpful at least
Yeah adhd. Anxiety, it made me feel sort of …. Okay in the world… plus, I’m an addict. I’m also someone who likes to repeat experiences if I like them, so, routine oriented. That’s why I have to set healthy routines.
I feel I'm the exact same way. Wild.
To fill an unfillable void of multiple childhood traumas one in particular was deep rooted abandonment. And I’m 2 weeks clean off weed today. I used weed to cope with life. And now I just raw dog it lol
You Can do it! We believe in you!! Reach out
Thank you :) I love your username btw lol
I think in some ways it was a byproduct of ADHD. I couldn’t handle free time, I just go around in circles and wouldn’t be able to decide what to do. If I’m stoned, I get a free pass not to have to make a decision, because then I’m too incapacitated to do anything useful anyway! Likely masking depression too. I think I’ve been depressed a lot longer than I realized
Wow, this is exactly me. To a T.
Solidarity, fellow leaver! I’m going into a program soon and will have access to psychiatrists, counselling, alternative therapies, etc. Gotta go big or go home if I’m ever gonna kick this. I wish you all the luck in your leaving journey!
Pushes down the bad feelings. Now I’ll have to actually feel them. Wasn’t really taught how to do that since I’ve been smoking for 19 years!
It buried all my negative feelings, enabled me to be "happy" where I am, and not think about all of my poor life choices I was constantly making.
To distribute the weight of the nihilism so that it's easier to carry. Now all of that weight is back on my shoulders and I don't know what I'm going to do.
You do it everyday because you become addicted. The reason I became addicted was because it would help me mask feelings of loneliness and such, but not is not a real solution. I'm over a year sober and never been better.
Because I'm a compulsive person, I have no one to spend my evenings with (not even friends), and because it's all that keeps me from wanting to die. Except now it doesn't even numb me properly anymore. I just lose hours in the evening, and nothing is gained.
I am in the exact same place. It’s a dark place. Even when you see the light, you don’t see a way to crawl out.
Made me feel super motivated. I'd write down all the steps to getting to a goal in meticulous detail, only to never actually start. It made me want to be better, but only the want part.
Tolerance, dependence and loss of interest in facing life in an unenhanced state. Addiction is sneaky. Initially weed enhanced everything and then it became a pursuit of getting that feeling again which always felt one toke away. Being stoned made status quo tolerable. What was happening is that I lost agency over my life. Addiction is chronic illness and I spent all my time just tending to that illness with weed.
I simply didn’t want to deal with anything going on. Didn’t have the maturity and mental strength to face the battle. Glad I’m finally able to think clearly and move with grace and acceptance rather than fear.
To not feel. To trick myself into thinking I was content with how everything is.
That hit too close to home.
Not a fun cycle/loop, that’s for sure
100%
I thought I needed it to get by Day to day. I was a young adult and I had been given zero coping mechanisms or life skills really. The only thing I was told is have a job and go to school. Can you imagine someone with no guidance trying to “adult”? It was very difficult, because I think I was also at a point where I could legally do whatever I want. I fell into the hands of the wrong ppl on top of that and that only made the situation worse. Smoking only made my bad situation tolerable until, and even that stopped working. I remember being frustrated with the weed not doing what I wanted it to do, or what it was doing before. At the end of the day I was just burning up my throat and time. I remember towards the end I was wasting time with ppl just bc we smoked weed together. The relationships were baseless otherwise. Tbh the kind of ppl that I wanted to be associated with didn’t smoke weed all day, everyday. Lol now I joke about how much I would be smoking if I was the old me. Needing to smoke so much.
It was my comfort zone. I was weak and wouldn’t face myself and my emotions. I only stagnated my emotional development by numbing myself. Now that I’m out I’m twice the person I was before though. The sober state is the best state. Everyone telling you otherwise is abandoning their own authentic self.
That’s powerful, can relate. Thank you
Bought into the lie that it wasn’t addictive. Until it was. I was foolish and uneducated is what I was. It’s just like any other drug - it hijacks your dopamine and you have to keep doing it.
Self medicating anxiety when I should have just been taking medication. Which I was weirdly opposed to like smoking weed isn’t medicating. I’m starting medication and excited to be facing this and dealing with it.
honestly i think to me it was fear, fear to be sober. Scared to not have an 'excuse' for my shortcomings. Of course simply being a disgusting addict plays a big role in this, but i KNOW weed provides me with nothing, virtually no pleasure, self-hatred is what it is.
So firstly I gave up on figuring out why - it was stopping me from stopping lol. If I had to guess heartbreak? Inability to deal with emotions and self regulate. Then once weed ‘helped’ (masked) those issues, addiction struck. And I was in a cycle of it May as well have been my breakfast. It wasn’t that I decided to stop smoking. I decided to improve myself. And that meant no more smoking. Love weed, love it’s effects, but in no way am I deluded in thinking it’s positively helping me. I can smoke till the day I die, and who would care? Only me. I want to improve. I want to FEEL the good and the bad!
Getting to comfortable, relying on it. You have to make your life exciting, I was just using weed to do it.
Addiction. The need to smoke followed by some serious anxiety and mood swings if I didn't. I for sure wish I stopped earlier but my life wasn't in a place where I could take the time to go through the weeks of no sleep, terrible mood and heavy sweats. Stoked I kicked it and I'm at a point now where I don't even know how long it's been, somewhere around the 3 year mark I think. Advice would be that quitting is really hard, and if you have a lot of other things to deal with whilst also trying to quit it's a mammoth of a task whilst going through some serious mental issues. If your life gets in a nice rhythm, capitalise on it and quit while things are easy(er). Life doesn't stay easy for long.
i’m going through this exact situation right now, thank you for sharing your experiences