For those wondering “how will I know if I beat my Weed Addiction” I think I have the answer, at least from my own experiences so far

TL/DR: The answer is this, pure and simple: When I can show myself that I will never use weed for the same exact reasons that I used to use it for, those same reasons that kept me addicted to this fucked up daily behavior, and I am willing to suffer any form of discomfort, both big and small, that comes from denying myself of weed during EVERY situation that sparks urges to use weed, due to the fact that it became so damn habituated from all the years of my daily “practice” of using weed for all these hundreds of reasons, that is when I know I beat my addiction.

Hey Medium!

For recovering or struggling weed addicts, like myself, there is a lot of anxiety and fear that is involved with moderating or dropping our “crutch” to all of our life’s miseries, problems, and sufferings. Many people on here who are daily users of weed and are making efforts to cut down or quit, sometimes wonder along their journey“how will I know if I beat my weed addiction”.

Now that I am a month sober now and going strong, I think I have my own answer to this question and I wonder if others will see truth in this so I wanted to share.

I don’t mean to self judge or judge anybody else on here by sharing my insight. I am wholly aware that judgment of any kind only makes this weed addiction bullshit worse for all of us — every one is entitled to their own thoughts and behaviors.

I am here to show support and compassion, as somebody who is both a weed addict and has background medical training in primary care. I have seen, and been through, some fucked up shit all my life, like most or all of us who struggle with weed addiction.

I used weed for hundreds of reasons, both good and bad. If my chronic pain symptoms were flaring up, thank goodness I have weed. If my wife pissed me off, thank goodness I have weed. If my work pissed me off, thank goodness I have weed. If I’m about to go out to eat or do something fun, thank goodness I have weed. Weed users who are struggling with their weed use get my point. You understand this deeply and I don’t have to go into all the reasons.

Literally hundreds of reasons that I used weed and kept using weed, and kept relapsing, and kept binging, and kept repeating the damn fucked up cycle that sucked dry my brain’s positivity, my body’s strength, and my soul’s faith in myself and my abilities.

Now that I am thinking more clearly (with almost a year of cutting down and moderating my use, followed by a month of sobriety), now that I’m actually getting normal sleep and having dreams (that are at times pretty wild and intense, lol) and REM sleep, and now my brain is not so chronically numbed out and stressed by the daily cycles of withdrawal and smoking, I finally have the answer, at least for myself, to that question, which used to be a major source of anxiety and gnawed away at my commitment and desire to be in a MUCH better place in relation to my weed use.

The answer is this, pure and simple:

When I can show myself that I will never use weed for any of the same reasons that I used to use it for, reasons that kept me addicted to this fucked up daily problematic weed use behavior, and I am willing to suffer any form of discomfort, both big and small, that comes from denying myself of weed during EVERY situation that sparks urges to use weed, due to the fact that it became so damn habituated from all the years of my daily “practice” of using weed for all these hundreds of reasons, that is when I know I beat my addiction.

If you read this far, thank you for your time and curiosity. I look forward to any and every feedback, both positive and negative, both supportive and angry, whatever anyone has in response to my story. I will thank everyone of you for your time in reading this and for your time and typing your feedback. I will truly appreciate all of it.

I’m here logging about my weed recovery, because I know months, or years (however long it takes) down the road, I will have beat the shit out of my weed addiction and have moved on with my life. I know I’ll forget the intimate details of my personal struggles with weed, and just how difficult the first few weeks were to get to this point. I look forward to forgetting due to having moved on.

Those of us who have been struggling or having inner conflict about our weed use, some of us for many decades, I hope you too can one day beat this and move on with your lives… because there’s so much that each and every one of our lives have to offer without having this fucked up addiction to a plant issue be such a huge problem for us every single day.

I write this post right now, because I know with the changing laws, and future federal legalization, there will be a lot of weed “newbies” who find themselves unable to figure out their own weed addiction traps….. I frequent https://www.reddit.com/r/petioles with my reddit handle FibromyalgiaFightrMD (fighter w/o the e), and it seems like the newbies on there are getting younger and younger every fucking month.

Some of you may be wondering, if I am completely shitting on weed with this post. I am not. I learned to have deep respect for cannabis, through all the pain and suffering I went through in the past years, I guess that’s why the old timers say that pain “smarts” sometimes.

All I am saying is I will never use weed for the same previous reasons that got me in this fucked up state of weed addiction ever again.

In the future, when I am 100% confident that I “beat the fuck“ out of my weed addiction, and no longer have to be concerned or afraid of it, perhaps then I’ll muse about specific use cases for this amazing and majestic plant that nature has bestowed upon us. It would be a use case so rare that I don’t have to worry about tolerance or falling back into the addiction trap.

But I don’t need to think about that right now. Like I said before my past posts on Reddit r/petioles, wondering about future weed use cases that are more “safe” or “appropriate” to use this plant in “moderation” is jumping way too ahead of the gun. It’s like wondering how I will pose for photos with my marathon medal before I even finish the race.

I’m just at the beginning of my long marathon and, I suspect, so are most of you guys reading up to this point. We are in this together. Let’s get the fuck out of this together and get our damn marathon medals, However long it takes, how ever many failures it takes to get back up from, whatever our “medal” is in the end.

No matter what it takes, no matter how many failures I have to endure, I know deep in my heart that I will be successful in beating my own weed addiction, and I will do my damned best to help others with what I learned by sharing my experiences. This post is written to the hundreds of thousands, if not more, of you out there who are struggling. I say in many of my Reddit posts, never be ashamed to ask for professional help from trained addiction therapists and doctors and mental health professionals. They can become a trusted ally to feel safe to be vulnerable to… and really air out the deeper issues underlying weed addiction.

I have always said weed addiction is just a speedometer, telling us we’re going too fast. The deeper stuff involves figuring out why is our foot slammed down on the gas pedal? More posts on this to follow…

Much love to you all, I know in my heart that the suffering, that each and every one of you lives with daily, runs deeper than we can share with mere sentences or paragraphs on a single Medium story. Much love to those who can relate to what is above, going through their own struggles with weed, mental health, burn out, and chronic unwellness.

I promise to use all of my creativity, that is now slowly being returned to me in my sobriety, to make something that will help us all. I’ll be working behind the scenes. Wish me luck.

Much LOVE!

Drs R Us