(sorry in advance for poor grammar/spelling)
Weed has always helped me slow things down. I feel so hyper anxious and twitchy all the time, so weed has always made me felt like I can properly rationalize things. But somewhere, after 4 years of regularly smoking, I realized that it stopped doing that for me. Now I think it makes everything a little foggy, so that I can't clearly see what worries me anymore. It started off as something fun to do with my group of friends, but it slowly turned into this magical plant that ailed me of all my worries. So naturally me and my addictive personality began to smoke every single day, multiple times a day. My first bowl would be in the morning, and that would help me stomach breakfast and coffee. Less than a couple hours later, I would smoke up again to get some energy. That's what I told myself I was doing, I was smoking up to be more productive. In reality I think I was making the guilt of not being productive enough less significant. Then another bowl half way through the day, which would lead into the night, my favourite time. For some reason I never felt guilty smoking at night, I guess I felt that this is the time everyone relaxes, so I get to relax too. Nighttime is when I would roll blunts and joints and invite all my friends and use getting together as an excuse to smoke weed.
That was then, about four years ago when I still lived with my parents. Fast forward to now, I'm almost 25 and I live with my bf and cat. I just quit my job because it, along with weed, turned me into a zombie. I hated it after a few months and started smoking even more to cope. Eventually that led to me only leaving my apartment to go to work because the social anxiety crippled me. Then this took a toll on my relationship because my bf is active and adventurous and we used to go out all the time. Then came a phase where I was so disgusted by myself and my habits that I was a total recluse and I hid my thoughts and all from my boyfriend because my paranoid brain decided that I knew he was disgusted by me. I just couldn't help myself to be a better person.
But back to the present after 16 months of being stuck in a job I hate - I just quit 7 days ago. On the day I decided I was going to quit, I was unprepared. I was so unhappy with myself and the quality of my relationship and I knew things had to change. I walked into my place of work to hand in my resignation, and I came home and sat down and decided to make a plan. I couldn't initially fathom quitting smoking weed cold turkey. (I did not mention earlier, because I am a shit story teller, that I quit smoking cigarettes after 4 years in January this year...so that is fairly new to me as well). So I decided to create a plan, where I would wake up, work on job applications for the morning and afternoon, work out, make dinner(I love to cook), spend time with my bf, catch up on some reading, and get a good nights rest. My goal in terms of trying to limit smoking, was to limit it to the evenings only, therefore I would be more productive during the day.
So far, I had been really good about sticking to my schedule. I'd gone from smoking when I wake up to bedtime, to smoking only once my day's worth of scheduled tasks/work is complete. In the last week, my bf has mentioned to me several times that he is ecstatic by the dramatic change he has seen in me. I have gone out with him to run errands, we spent the day downtown sight seeing for our two year anniversary, and I will actually leave the apartment to complete intimidating tasks. I've been legitimately working out, cooking throughout the day, and reading non stop.....all the things that I used to love but started to become too daunting.
Today started out like any of these days, I woke up, had breakfast and began working on job applications. About an hour into doing this I started to shake and sweat. I shrugged it off as nerves and continued working on my application. I caught myself trying to read the same sentence over and over again, but I wasn't retaining anything. I took a deep breath and realized my focus is not in it today. Beyond that, I had a near meltdown texting my bf who is at school about how I'm feeling today. He is, and has always been, incredibly supportive. I freaked out about not being productive enough, not waking up early enough to get work done, feeling like a total failure and slacking off. He reminded me of the ways I've been productive but I couldn't get rid of the panicked feeling. This lead to a minor panic attack and I caved in and smoked some weed. I felt immediate relief, and immediate guilt. My work is nowhere near done for the day, and while I've always been able to "function" while high, my focus and energy is not even close to when I am sober.
I feel guilty as fuck because I want to quit, and eventually get to the place where I can smoke "once in a while" and not be addicted. Instead, I couldn't even stick to my "no smoking until the work is done" method. I successfully quit smoking cigarettes and went through a shitty withdrawal period but weed helped me cope throughout it the whole time. I'm now trying to use healthy addictions while trying to slowly wean myself off from smoking so much weed. It's fucking hard as fuck, and I wanted to write all of this here because I've been reading so many posts about people quitting, trying to quit, and relapsing and I relate so hard.
So if you read through this whole thing, bravo because I know my grammar is horrifying at times. And my message to anyone who can relate is that relapses happen. I know how hard I am on myself and I know it's not healthy when trying to quit a substance. So if you're feeling the same kind of frustration I really feel you, and good luck on your journey to improve your quality of life, I'll try to do the same.
Submitted March 08, 2017 at 03:10PM by flontru http://ift.tt/2nfvKB7
No comments:
Post a Comment