Hello everyone, I just wanted to share how I have decided to finally quit weed for good after almost 40 years of off and on use. I am a 52 year old woman who started smoking weed when I was 14. There have been times when I smoked everyday and there have been times when I did not smoke at all, like when I was pregnant. A common thread through my history of use is usually some kind of stressor, like a relationship ending or a big change. In fact turning to some kind of intoxicating substance to deal with pain has been my crutch for my whole life. I have also struggled with alcohol addiction. My father was an alcoholic and I come from an abusive family where there were a lot of secrets and a lot of addiction.
More recently I started using delta 8 to deal with the stress of my 20 year marriage ending. I think I was high every single day in 2021. We recently legalized recreational weed in my state and I have been using that and telling myself I would only smoke on the weekend but inevitably my weed use creeped into the weeknights.
Though I consider my use to be mild to moderate (maybe I am fooling myself) and I have been able to stop when I feel my use is getting out of hand. I have to be totally honest and say I always feel like I am playing with fire when I use THC of any kind. I always push the boundary of what I intend to use. I have noticed that over the years marijuana just makes me really tired and foggy headed and I don’t need that, especially now. I already have a hard time sleeping with fluctuating hormones and I am still in the middle of figuring out how to negotiate my divorce and I need to have as much energy and the clearest mind that I can. I realized a couple of weeks ago that marijuana just does not do me any favors anymore, maybe it never did.
I am lucky in that I don’t have a lot of noticeable withdrawal symptoms but because of the other stressors in my life I do take supplements to help support my mental and physical health. I take a b complex, vitamin D, DHEA and a magnesium supplement called Calm to help me sleep. THC really messes up my sleep badly so much that I don’t dream when I am high. Now that I am sober I dream more vividly and I do feel more rested. I am only two weeks sober though and sometimes I still feel really spacey. I hope to feel more clear in a month or so.
What has helped me the most to face this tendency to medicate myself has been studying buddhist philosophy. I don’t want to proselytize here ok, I just want to share how I am learning to deal with the pain from an abusive childhood and having two marriages fall apart. I am learning more about how to extend compassion to myself, how to be truly loving to myself and how to face my pain instead of running away from it. I really resonate with many of the books by Thich Nhat Hahn. Different spiritual or philosophical paths work for different people. I just want to encourage you to seek out something like this to help you face pain if you struggle with addiction of any kind. Also changing to a very low carb ketogenic diet has done wonders for my waistline and mood over the past few years. I highly recommend Ivor Cummins books on this topic.
I am not sure why I hung on to using weed for so long, maybe it felt like a security blanket, or maybe it was because I started smoking so young. If you are young and reading this just don’t go there, there are so many other ways to handle anxiety and pain. Get out, be around people, get out into nature, read an inspiring book. This is what I have been doing more and it has done me a world of good.
Also, just my two cents here since I have been around a while, I have noticed that any time the mainstream culture, or the government pushes something, it is usually toxic trash. Maybe not always but often enough that I have learned to be wary. Just because something is legal does not make it healthy or safe, best to be cautious. Also for anyone struggling with anxiety consider quitting caffeine. It’s also a very powerful drug, one I am super sensitive to and I have felt much better since I stopped using it. The book Caffeine Blues has a lot of great info about how caffeine affects our bodies.
I hope all of you can find joy in the present moment.