Marijuana Addiction & Recovery Support Group
This community is dedicated to those looking to overcome their addiction to marijuana, a drug produced from parts of the cannabis plant. Join the group to find support among people who are also looking to cease their habit of smoking marijuana, share your experience, and get advice. It's not easy to kick the habit, but together we can.
So it's been a long time since I've posted at this site and I think I need to now more than I ever have. It actually wasn't too hard to stay quit when I first got here and I felt I'd be fine without this online support system. I made it six months before I started slipping. Since I didn't do anything to work through my relapse like figure out why it happened and how to not do it again I've found myself slowly working my way back toward my old life style.
It's amazing how a person can be so determined to leave a part of their life behind them and be very confident in their decision, and then how fast their thinking can revert to justifying their return to self destruction. The past few weeks I've been smoking a little here and there, but I know that if I don't do anything about it it will not take long for me to be right back where I started.
I realize that quitting again after I'm settled into my stoner ways would be much harder than just dealing with this now before it progresses any further. I've tried to smoke in moderation and proved time and time again that it's not an option for me. So why the hell am I so drawn to something that I know I'm so much better off without? I guess that's why they call it an addiction. As soon as I gave in to the monkey I realized that it's true that he'll always be there doing push ups, waiting for me to cave. As soon as I started smoking again I found myself trying to convince the other half that it would be different this time and I'd be able to keep it under control.
Some times I guess I need a healthy reminder of why it is that I'm quitting. I need to remind myself how it was the waking thought of almost every day. How I would steal pot from my best friends or scrape their pipes just to stay numb to the world. How much money I spent on it. How I put it before so many other things that mattered more.
I really really hope that I can get myself back on track. I'm gambling with more at risk than ever before. I'm back in school and I'll be twenty five next month. I feel like if I let myself go and manage to screw this up it will be near impossible for me to muster up the courage to try again at getting into a real career. I've fucked up a lot of things in my life, but I can't let this be one of them.
If you have any thoughts on my current dilemma then please feel free to advise me. Thanks for reading.
Nate
It's amazing how a person can be so determined to leave a part of their life behind them and be very confident in their decision, and then how fast their thinking can revert to justifying their return to self destruction. The past few weeks I've been smoking a little here and there, but I know that if I don't do anything about it it will not take long for me to be right back where I started.
I realize that quitting again after I'm settled into my stoner ways would be much harder than just dealing with this now before it progresses any further. I've tried to smoke in moderation and proved time and time again that it's not an option for me. So why the hell am I so drawn to something that I know I'm so much better off without? I guess that's why they call it an addiction. As soon as I gave in to the monkey I realized that it's true that he'll always be there doing push ups, waiting for me to cave. As soon as I started smoking again I found myself trying to convince the other half that it would be different this time and I'd be able to keep it under control.
Some times I guess I need a healthy reminder of why it is that I'm quitting. I need to remind myself how it was the waking thought of almost every day. How I would steal pot from my best friends or scrape their pipes just to stay numb to the world. How much money I spent on it. How I put it before so many other things that mattered more.
I really really hope that I can get myself back on track. I'm gambling with more at risk than ever before. I'm back in school and I'll be twenty five next month. I feel like if I let myself go and manage to screw this up it will be near impossible for me to muster up the courage to try again at getting into a real career. I've fucked up a lot of things in my life, but I can't let this be one of them.
If you have any thoughts on my current dilemma then please feel free to advise me. Thanks for reading.
Nate
Don't look back and make this a part of your recovery.
I was in the same boat. Smoking recreationally is simply not an option for me......Once I start, sooner or later I'll be in the same boat I was in before (if not worse).
Thanks for sharing. I can relate to those struggles. I'll go 3 to 6 months, start to slip, and then slip big-time (while the monkey has been doing push ups - that was a nice touch). Then I won't even try to abstain for a few years, all the while smoking with a self-destructive flair as though there shouldn't be any tomorrow.
So I can also relate to those moments of clarity - of KNOWING that the right thing to do is abstain. Given my patterns, given the tendency to slip and the tendency of these moments of clarity to fade, I am on guard more than ever to be sure to stay clean this time.
OH man, I also know what it is like to scrape my friend's bowl, or to pinch a little bit from their bag. How low is that?!!!!
Suggestions then? I'm just barely out of the gates of being sober myself (a couple days shy of 100 days this time), so probably am not the best one to give suggestions. But here is what I have:
1) While you are in a phase of knowing you need to quit, seize that inspiration. Set goals on Daily Strength, join a local support group (like NA or MA, on MA online if you are not around a local group).
2) Plan on doing something every day which affirms to commitment to sobriety. An MA meeting would probably cover this base. For me, I journal each day (not online), and spend 2 hours meditating/praying. Each day I am sacrificing lots of time and energy to feed the spiritual side of me, which fills me up. Because of this, I am achieving satisfaction from these pursuits and so am not craving as much. On top of this, the practice of meditation is the opposite of smoking weed, and the two do not coincide. As I gain benefit from the meditation, I am also giving myself a daily reminder of another good reason not to smoke. If you want to learn a great technique of meditation, which has a gazilion proven benefits against addiction, check out www.dhamma.org
Read the link on the left of the home page: The Art of Living, for a good primer.
Also, anyone here that is curious about the benefits of this meditation and the studies within the therapist/scientific communities on addiction and recovery, just google Vipassana + Addiction. Or go to:
http://www.vridhamma.org/uploadedfiles/ep129.pdf
and
http://www.vridhamma.org/Vipassana-Meditation-and-Drug-Addiction.aspx
and
http://addictionsupport.aarogya.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=256
and
http://www.events.dhamma.org/presskit/2006-05/eu-release.shtml
There are tons are articles and rehab clinics and prison systems that teach this technique of meditation to help people transform themselves. For a good read about prisoner rehab: http://www.prison.dhamma.org/
3) Journal. Get to know yourself and your habits and your advance warning signals that you are going to relapse.
4) Throw away all drug paraphernalia.
5) Tell your friends and weed dealers that you don't smoke anymore
6) Stop hanging out with people that smoke. If you don't have any non-smoking friends...get a good book!
7) Make sure to be gentle on yourself, but firm at the same time. Rest well, but also make sure to exercise.
8) Read some older posts in this site about how to quit smoking weed. There are lots of great threads on it, that have helped me.
Because I have given so many links about this meditation practice above, I will also pause here to give the disclaimer that the meditation only works if you actually practice it, and a couple hours a day is a big commitment. Whenever I attempt to be sober and practice meditating, I do pretty well at staying sober. But as soon as I let the meditation/spiritual practice go due to agitation about job changes, or moving or some other external factor, the gates are open to the weed again. It isn't a bullet proof technique, and I admit that sometimes in the past I've been too lazy to meditate, and so then after awhile the urge for a quick fix at peacefulness comes in and the weed creeps in.
So, on top of being vigilant about staying sober, I am instituting a very strict schedule to be sure to meditate and journal.
I'd realized pot had become my higher power and found my spirituality, and sought a relationship with a REAL higher power. I finally found the rooms of MA and from there I have not had a drink or drug since (4+ years).
I think if logic worked there wouldn't be such a problem for addicts to get clean. I think there has to be something greater. For me going to 12 step conventions and meetings gives me a sense of being part of something much bigger than myself that can help me stay clean and sober one day at a time.
Slip is my knick name as well...and I always end up right back where I was when I was "at my worst" and each time, that worse gets a little (or a lot) lower.
I never thought that I had made Marijuana my HP...but it totally makes sense. It goes along with what I was thinking, which was, you and I need to admit we are powerless over Marijuana.
I did it with Alcohol and now have 13 months free.
More power to you (us).