Hello old and new friends. I’ve been thinking about and missing you all.
I started my sober journey in August. Through my getting sober journey, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and kidney stones. I handled the blood pressure and kidney stone sober, but I relapsed shortly after kidney stone surgery. Why, because I continued to have pain and symptoms that would not go away. Nausea, vomiting, passing out and diarrhea. The pot takes care of all of that - and would provide me much needed relief so I justified it. I assumed my CHS was back, and it was self-inflicted, and then after an abdominal and pelvic MRI, I received a diagnosis that has explained my symptoms. The hardest part, I’ve had it for several years, but didn’t know because I masked it with pot.
I will be ok, in time, and after surgery and other treatments. If you need to find motivation to not smoke, I’ll offer this consideration…time to check in with your body and make sure nothing major is going on.
I’m sober again, have been for 13 days. My husband is behind me although he struggles with it too because he sees the pain I am in, but its short term. Because I am getting things taken care of medically and not self-diagnosing and treating. We are in our 40s, one kid in college and another one headed in two years. We are both successful in our careers and meaningful contributing members to our community, church, family and friend’s network. It’s so easy to allow life’s stressors to drive our decisions to keep it all afloat. We think we had it under control, but it was so much more out of our control that we’d ever imagined.
Hoping to be a more frequent poster back on the forum as my energy allows. For those of you whose paths I crossed in the past, I’ve been keeping you all in my thoughts.
Withdrawal is tough, but rest assured, the peace of mind of knowing you can achieve greater health can be very real clinically.
I’ll end with this, if you are going through withdraw and need relief, here are the few things that made a tremendous difference for me. This is not medical advice; this is purely what was successful based on my personal experience.
*Epsom bath in hot water. Make sure your belly is fully submerged. This helped me with abdominal pain and nausea.
*Pepto Bismol melts - for nausea in the morning, when I liked to smoke the most. I will forever miss Wake and Bakes, my favorite time of day. Now it’s Wake and Stretch. Watch dosage restrictions carefully, this should be a temporary thing not long term. Also helps with diarrhea.
*Heating pad - for abdominal pain. Buy the jumbo and wrap it around the mid-section. Get off your feet when you feel unwell. Game changer for me. Heat just calmed everything down. I would partner it with deep breathing to get through intense pain sessions.
*Eat Clean - eliminate the toll on your body of having to process junk. For me it was white or brown rice with a little soy sauce (not too much - sodium doesn’t help) and fresh fruit. I craved grapes.
*Drink 2.5L water a day. If you are nauseous or feel crummy this is really hard but try to sip at least every 15 minutes. It helps with flushing THC and eliminates the risk of getting dehydrated if you are having trouble with your stomach.
*Walk once a day. Even if just around block, to corner. 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, whatever, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 30 minutes. Doing that reminded me of all that life has to offer by getting my mind off my pain and realizing, it’s real but it will end.
All my best friends,
A.
