Benefits of quitting cannabis

Hi everyone , well I couldn't remember where I was as I ket falling off the wagon and climbing back on .  Well today is 1pm on day 2  and my resolve i can safely say has NEVER Been stronger .   I have this feeling deep down that I will never smoke weed again , I hope I stick to that . I have been doing a bit of reading about addiction triggers and back doors left open .  Today feels like all my back doors which could let weed sneak in , have now been closed.  I don't have the inner voice in my head trying to talk me into a smoke today , it's like that voice has died, because I simply know that I can not smoke .

I hope this attitute stays with me, but even if it changes I will fight it . I believe after 11 years of this shit, I too have finally reached the low I needed to in order to quit .

I will probably post here 2-3 times a day while I get in the swing of things, but I hope to hang around the boards for a while and share my journey with you guys , seen as it is many of your journies which has inspired me to quit .

Thankyou for reading, support and advice is appreciated .

Sophie

Well It hasn't been too long since my last post. Literally only a matter of hours - but I've come back to keep myself occupied and to put a bit of structure in my day .  It's 2.15 on day 2 . I am trying to take a 12step type of outlook and tell myself I'm not going to smoke today , that tomorrow and yesetrday don't exist but for now I'm not going to go near it  today .

it's not easy , the little voice started about half an hour ago , but thankfully I soon managed to push it away and shut it up .

I have to remind myself not to sit and speculate over smoking, rather when the little voice starts into my head, I have to give it no reasons as to why I can't smoke, I only ed up rationalising those to make it ok ,  I need to give the voice a blunt NO .  No you can't smoke ever again ,NO whatever reasoning you think you may have for allowing yourself to smoke is never going to match the reasons to not smoke, so NO You can't have a smoke and NO You can't even sit and think about why you can't have one !

And telling myself these points repeatedly are what's getting me through the day .

I am now going to do a bit of work , and hopefully this evening will be here soon !

I'll be back to update before bed I think .

Sophie

well it's the end of day two , what a very long two days it's been .

In many ways I kinder feel like I've picked up from my last quit before the relapse .  It's almost like i've got the first couple of days out the way and wondered why I didn't do it sooner .  It was a true good friend who finally gave me the shove, telling me that the first 3 days are the worse. If i hadn't got her mail I don't think I would have pushed myself to make that final move, but here I am, and very grateful to her too .

I am about to go and get some rest , I hope sleep comes , even better I hope it comes quickly , but worse case I hope it actually comes , and i'm not getting out of bed a very angry tried soph in the morning .

As I keep saying  I've quite umpteen times before, and always with the same end result . This disturbs me as some of the times I have quit for 4 months+ and then still managed to return to the drug . This time something must change .I'm not sure what and it's way too early to have to disect what it is , but in a few weeks I will start putting in relapse prevention mechanisms !!!!

I will update tomorrow on a joyful day 3 , and I will NOT light up

night night everyone

Sophie

Hi Sophie, I've kinda just responded on the other thread to your comments so I won't say too much here. Just that I sincerely wish you all the best on your adventure, and well done for getting where you are now. Only those in our shoes can tell just how hard this really is. I hope today is as successful for you as yesterday. And do please keep commenting on here, both this thread and my one and any others too.... the more we talk together the more we encourage and inspire each other.

I hope you have a good day, talk soon.

Stay Positive.

Hiya all ,  nearly the end of day 3 .... no little voice in my head telling me moderating is possible for me .... YET !  Sophie knows this day will come !!! And it's probably not too far in the future , so she has to be prepared !!!!

for now my resolve to stay quit is strong, and I pray it stays that way . I am going to try and aim my addictive personality somewhere else , maybe the gym , swimming pool , work .  Just anything that isn't self destructive for me , like smoking drugs !

@New beginning - Thankyou for your kind words, I have had a look at your thread and responded there too , I will keep following your story because it actually really intrigues me .  I have never met anyone who has been able to go from addiction to moderate , but I truely hope you can , and it will be an inspiration for me to see.

I am following your success and very jealous of your 8th . Can I come round and sit outside your window that you blow your smoke out of , hehehe .

All the best , keep it up,  I will write more later or tomorrow  .

Sophie

day 4 :-)  Nothing to update as in a big fat rush , but will update when I get back later .

In short - had a bloody horrible nights sleep  , worst night since the start of the quit.

Sophie .

End of day 4. Feel like shit .  Didn't sleep much at all last night . Going to go to bed as it's 1am and I have had literally 3 hours sleep in the last 36 hours. Not good for my PMA ( positive mental attitude ) which is rapidly diminishing .

I hope I feel better tomorrow .

I had my last rolly today - just tobacco of course, I will cut this out completely tomorrow , as Ive been trying to soften my mood with one cig a day to replace the need to smoke weed.

I don't want to get used to the crutch of nicotine because I find it pretty disgusting for many reasons .

I hope I can be strong tomorrow.

thanks to anyone following

Sophie

Hi Soph - My mental processes seem to work very similarly to yours.

I quit for a day or two then let my persuasive "little voice" talk me into going to my mates for a video and perhaps take an eighth home...

I think the key is realising that you don't really enjoy the drug anymore and that you REALLY are not missing out on anything by not smoking. You're missing out so much when  you smoke.

I hate the fact that I've let this sneaky, subtle addiction dominate my once lucid thoughts for so long.

Keep going Sophie.

Greg

Day 6 ........

Gregg thankyou for your warm words of support . Your advice is invaluable ... and seriously it's something I need to keep reminding myself . That indeed I do not enjoy the feeling when I smoke, rather it will be a guilt ridden stoned haze, and I'll kick myself for doing it ...Thankyou for your encouragement it means a lot to me , please keep posting, I will check your thread in a moment . 

Well last night I slept long ,  it was nice and i feel awake and thriving , I know I will pay for this by not sleeping for a long time now, but I'm not going to dwell on that for too long. Things are slowly improving . I'm still worried about relapse, but I think that worry is good, in the past I've got too complacent and everything has ended up a mess.

I will update more later tonight , I have to shoot off into town to get some things .

Thanks to anyone following, and anyone quitting , YOU Can do this !

sophie

Hi Sophie and glad to hear u digging in there. I'm smoking too many ciggies but have halved the intake the past week or so, if you are packing in ciggies too, u are doing pretty well! For me its almost 3 weeks without the weed, a couple of 'near relapses' down the line (so called friends bein utter assholes...) but  i'm still going strong. Though the want factor hasnt gone away but it's more of a thought now rather than an actual urge. Trust me, the nasty urge will subside given a straight week without and dont beat yourself up over relapses, it's to be expected.

Bear with it for a few more days, it'll become nothing more than a notion pretty soon and sleep will definately flourish! I thought weed helped me sleep...i cant beleive how wrong i was...being stoned and being tired are 2 different things completely. Lesson well and truly learned. It took a couple of weeks but i get it now.

And Hi Greg, glad u joined us here and it's a very welcome forum as I really had no-one else to confide in, so many thanks all.  You will draw motivation from others, it's a bast of a thing to quit, esp when it's an integral part of your life but following the patterns and stories of others is invaluable. Keep up the good work.

tommy

Jack The Joint at November 11, 2010 at 6:24 PM

Hi Sophie and glad to hear u digging in there. I'm smoking too many ciggies but have halved the intake the past week or so, if you are packing in ciggies too, u are doing pretty well! For me its almost 3 weeks without the weed, a couple of 'near relapses' down the line (so called friends bein utter assholes...) but  i'm still going strong. Though the want factor hasnt gone away but it's more of a thought now rather than an actual urge. Trust me, the nasty urge will subside given a straight week without and dont beat yourself up over relapses, it's to be expected.

 

Bear with it for a few more days, it'll become nothing more than a notion pretty soon and sleep will definately flourish! I thought weed helped me sleep...i cant beleive how wrong i was...being stoned and being tired are 2 different things completely. Lesson well and truly learned. It took a couple of weeks but i get it now.

 

And Hi Greg, glad u joined us here and it's a very welcome forum as I really had no-one else to confide in, so many thanks all.  You will draw motivation from others, it's a bast of a thing to quit, esp when it's an integral part of your life but following the patterns and stories of others is invaluable. Keep up the good work.

 

tommy

 

 

''I thought weed helped me sleep...i cantbeleive how wrong i was...being stoned and being tired are 2 differentthings completely. Lesson well and truly learned. It took a couple ofweeks but i get it now.''

Jack- I couldn't agree more , thankyou for your kind words ...... to answer your question ,I am indeed trying to give up nicotine aswell as cannabis , but I never really smoked cigarettes, only the tobacco that I mixed with the green ...but as I smoked so much green , that was quite a lot of tobacco when it's all taken into consideration, so I guess I have a rather strong nicotine addiction too .....

Still working on that one lol .... but I've only had one rolly again today .   Still green free and doing well though .....

Good luck to everyone , your words are all appreciated , and I am followin your stories too .

Sophie

Cheers Tommy - hope things are good with you!

I am already benefiting from the forum. Gives you a kick in the butt when you're waining!

Roll on today.

Greg

Glad to see more and more people on here, it seemed like there was only myself and one other guy on here 2 weeks ago... now the support is flourishing. I've not posted on here for almost a week (finally caught up on my thread for anyone interested), but I'm glad to see people still going strong and making positive changes. This site definitely helps in a number of ways - and every contribution is a little gem of wisdom in itself.

Stay well guys, be back soon.

Archie.

well it's been a week  - a LONG week ... But a week none the less.

I have not much to report other than increased anxiety and anger problems.  Hot flushes, which seem to come in bouts with the anger problems.

Sleeping better but not perfectly .

Not very motivated as I thought I would be when i quit , but determined to continue . Keep getting the little voice in my head suggesting I try moderation, but I know this is a crock of shit and something I will NEVER be able to do . I have to cast my mind back to the times I tried moderating and how it ended .  If I had a bag in the house I would smoke daily until it was gone, I would convince myself I was still achieving something because I would not smoke anywhere near as much as usual thanks to my lowered tolerance, but one of two things would happen ... the addiction and amounts would creep back up , or I would stick to smoking a couple of times a week and in between all I would think about would be the fact I had weed to smoke.... well I could not take pride in those moments that I was over the addiction, not when it was constantly on my mind in between so called moderation - No way ...... My moods while trying to keep that up where actually 10x worse that when I just quit completely , because it was like teasing myself .

Real moderation to me would be if I could just toke now and then at partys and what not, and I just sadly know that is never going to happen . I wish it would/could, but it can't/won't ........ SO now I accept complete abstinence. I accept I am never going to be able to smoke again without giving in to my addiction , and I accept that's exactly what it is .

I will update more tomorrow or later ,I am in a bad mood at the moment .  First complete tobacco free day too ....ergh , lung cancer, throat cancer,  copd etc  fuck off..... my lungs are going to be clean living organs from now on .

Muchos besos .

Sophie

Great post Sophie - if you think moderation would never work and you can see the patterns that are likely to evolve that clearly then I think this post is bang on.

I'd be the same - PRETEND MODERATION - kidding myself that I was in control cos I might be able to wait until the evening but still thinking about it all day as the "reward" to a hard days graft. Then when you have the joint...the empty feeling and the inability to do anything of real use for the rest of the day apart from roll another.

Keep going - in your heart of hearts you know you're doing the best thing. You've accepted addiction and appear to be addressing it with a new mindset.

Bad moods are temporary - Hope it passes before you know it.

So, here's to healthy lungs and minds.

Sleep well.

Greg

85-  Thankyou for your kind words, I think we're of similar mindset .

The little voice that tried to sneak into my mind keeps getting knocked back with a big stick....... it's been 10 days since I quit ...... a week and 3 days ..... I'm glad I named my name 6th november quit , because I've stopped obsessinbg over where I am on the quit scale, and rather just accepted, or working on accepting that i'll never smoke again .... The allias helps when i need a marker to remind me how long i've done .

Well my mood has been better - my sleep has not ... I find I need to get myself absolutely exhausted to be able to fall asleep , but part of me thinks this is also due to forgetting the effort that 'normal ' people put in to go to sleep . we all take it for granted , that we smoke weed, get monged and fall asleep , without being monged sleep comes only with effort.  I'm starting to get he hang of it ... Lord how stupid does that sound, starting to get he hang of going to sleep !

My key is to tire myself out through the day , yes einstein sophie , you have to be tired to sleep .... but I guess for the decade I was smoking weed I wouldn't have realised this , nor needed to be actually physically tired to sleep , a night of toking would always see to that .

As it is I find I sleep well every other night, because I'm so uber exhausted from the shitty nights sleep the night before ..... as it happens tonight it my good nights sleep coming up , so I'm happy about that lol ... I slept like shit last night, partly due to no cannabis, well the majority due to no cannabis, and the rest due to my partner snoring like a mad man all night . I swear the tiredness combined with non smoking anger was nearly enough for me to punch him in the face.  Thankfully I didn't .. and he got a good nights sleep , unlike me .  I am actually really looking forward to getting my head down tonight though , because i'm reallllllllly tired. It's such a uniqe feeling to be tired without being stoned.Someone covered this earlier in another thread... i think it was 85heisan .  Being tired is so different to being stoned, and being tired without being stoned feels really nice .... well it does when you know the opportunity to sleep is looming ! Which for me it is after fiishing this post and some pizza.

I aint smoked any baccy now for 2 days .... well onto day 3 of no baccy really as it's 1am lol .... and I'm not missing it anywhere near as much as i thought i would . The first day was more of a toughie , but its definitely not been as hard as saying bye to the weed.

My diet aint the best , I know most people advise to eat healthy during detox, well i've not been eating healthy really . I've been eating a LOT less, because I don't have stoner munchies, but i've not been forcing myself to eat particularly healthy , afterall , I've got rid of cannabis and tobacco now , all in the course of ten days, so I want to make this baby steps .... tomorrow ( monday ) I will watch what I eat and start planning healthy meals for the family and I ......

I also plan to get in much more excersize this week , if i can focus my addictive personality somewhere worthwhile that would be much better. 

Going to get myself back to the swimming pool at some point in the week ... it's my goal for the week , to get back in a swimming costume lol

Anyway this has been an incredibly long ramble , much longer than I originally intended, I guess I had much more to say than I thought ......

I will update again tomorrow .... off now for my pizza and SLEEP mmmmmmm

I have a sense of humour back ,and don't need weed to laugh anymore , but anxiety ... ergh do I have anxiety , and badly , little things go wrong, and it feels like the bottom dropped out of my world . Even if someone looks at me wrong , I don't like it , and it plays on my mind , when im stoning i dont think i even notice someone 'looking at me wrong' ... in fact people don't look at me full stop when im smoking weed, because I stay away from people . lol ... it is like being re born , like learning to live again .... but already it is starting to feel worth it ...  Most my mental energy is going into reminding myself not to get complacent, and re instating the fact I will NEVER smoke again .

Thanks to anyone listening .

Sophie

I'm listening! (thankfully not to any snoring!)

Sounds like the resolve is standing firm. Get running if you can - I'm a bit of an "addict" and it burns hundereds of calories! Even if it's only one mile on your first run.

Hope you had a good kip last night.

I had some mad dreams last night - check them out on my post - first I've remembered for months!

Greg

Hi everyon ,  Hi 85- thankyou for your words of support, I can't tell you how much that means to me .

As for running, the last time I tried running has to be about 10 years ago , and probably for a bus before I learned to drivbe   If I ran I'm sure I'd do myself an injury or give myself a black eye .  But I agree with the exercise.... I need to get back into the water , and swimming again .  My new healthy eating starts today , which I'm hoping might help a bit with the weed cravings .I've been reading a lot about nutritional disorder having a large impact on addictive personalities, and non stable blood sugars causing 'us' to crave for different things to self medicate 'our' moods...... I believe this could be partly the case for me , in any case it won't hurt to try .

I think it's interesting that a lot of people with addictive personalities have the ability to become addicted to something positive or negative.... like 85 said with the running .... it is so true , I used to be a complete pool addict , swimming over a mile every morning, and I mean EVERY morning, and if I didn't swim , I wouldn't sleep , and would be pissed off most the day ... possibly not the healthies relationship with the hobby , but a far healthier hobby that putting smoke in my lungs day in , day out ......... so this week I will try my best to fulfil my goal of a.) sorting out my blood sugar , and b) getting back in the pool if only for an hour .

85- DREAMS , wowowowow , I have been having some of the most amazing , some of the most terrifying , and some of the most vivid dreams I have ever had in my life . It's like we're learning to dream again isn't it ...... I am about to plod over to your thread and have a look at your dreams .....I don't think I could write my dreams here without either losing all respect of the forum or getting myself sectioned lol ..... but my partner said he woke up to me saying obsurd things to richard whitley - whose not only someone ive never met off a geeky game show ( to those who don't know ) but also dead !

Good luck all , I'll update again later

sophi

how u going now...?

thankyou for asking 85 --- I am still going well .... I had a relapse dream last night , and not unlike you , I woke up feeling relieved it was just a dream . I remember in the dream after I'd smoked I was wondering how I was going to tell people, and really dreading it , when I woke up it took me a couple of moments to realise I had been dreaming, and had nothing to fess' up to .

PHEW !

So I am still going strong'ish ....It's about 2 weeks today !  And I am more just going with it this time. I am trying to make it not into the 'big thing ' I normally turn it out to be , and i think in taking this approach it's had huge positive effects .

I have started eating healthy as I planned to get that kicked into touch this week , I also vowed to get back in the pool , though this hasn't happened yet , it will next week

Baby steps I say, baby steps.....

I am going to take a look at your thread now and see how you are doing , I wasn't actually going to write on this site today as I didn't have much to say , but when I saw your question I thought I would leave a quick update.

Thankyou for following 85, and thanks for caring to question my progress It means a lot .

Sophie