Benefits of quitting cannabis

Day One:

This is likely to be a lengthy post, I feel I need to write down how I have come to this point in my life to understand better why I have made the desicion to stop. It's a desicion I never thought I would come to, thinking I would give up tobacco and continue to smoke weed on its own. Through trying to quit tobacco several times unsuccessfully, I have realised that I don't really enjoy a spliff/pipe with no tobacco in it, and even the smallest sprinkle of tobacco gets me hooked again very quickly. I have also come to realise that I am as hooked on weed as I am addicted to tobacco, and that they go hand-in-hand. If I'm ever going to kick tobacco, I need to conquer the weed first.

I am no good at moderation, so I have decided to quit smoking weed all together. I have spent the past year trying to cut down (only smoking in the evening) and resisting the urge to have one as soon as I wake up, some days I have been more successful than others, I find it easier if I have somewhere to go during the day where I can't smoke (I work freelance so not always on the same schedule and often work at home), but as a heavy tobacco smoker find it all to easy to add 'a little seasoning' to my rollies.I live on my own and without anyone looking over my shoulder I can often get away with smoking all day. I am informing everyone of my descision so that my responsibility is not just to myself, but is known to those closest to me so that they can support my feeble will-power!

I come from a family of enthusiastic wine-drinkers, and as a teenager my parents wanted to adopt the french method of giving wine with water at mealtimes from around the age of 12. My rebellion was to refuse the wine and take up weed instead. I remember accusing my Mum of being an alcholic around this time and she replied with " I don't drink at breakfast, so I'm not an alcoholic". This has haunted me over the last few years as I have smoked in the mornings regularly, and one leads to another, meaning by 6pm I am totally unable to focus or make converstion, and often have kidney ache, from the smoking or the munchies, I could never tell. Somehow the weed and alcohol cultures are different in this respect, as many people I know smoke in the mornings and it's not considered a taboo in the same way it would be to have a drink at that time of day.

The first place I lived when I moved away from home at 18 was a house that doubled up as a grow-house (the landlord's enterprise, not mine) and so I would often have weed freely available to me. My landlord spent all day in his dressing gown on the sofa smoking weed, if I made him a cuppa, he'd give me a bud, that was the deal. Smoking all day and doing little else was 'normal' here. But at this time I could still take it or leave it, and if I didn't have any I wasn't too fussed. I did notice during this time that when I didn't smoke I would have bad nightmares, and that smoking stopped me dreaming, and so it became regular for me to smoke before going to sleep. I have always been a person who wakes with the light, and during my twenties got into the habit of smoking if I woke too early to get me back to sleep for a couple of hours. You can do that as a student, and following university I squatted and lived in artist communes, where you could also get away with it.

I will be 32 this year, and that equates to 20 years smoking cannabis, and 10+ years of addiction. I dare not think about how much money I have spent on it over the years! During this time I have argued the toss with my family, who have tolerated my using it, my mum now refers to weed as my 'magic flowers'! It has been tolerated because the concencus of opinion is that it is not an addictive substance and I have convinced everyone that it is something I have under control. In reality it has come to control me. It has effected my self-esteem, my social life and my ability to be an honest person. I hate having to hide my habit, and have become more and more aware of the potential risks I pose to other people just by smoking it on their property.

Over the past couple of years I have had jobs that I have needed to travel for, by plane, and staying in hotels. The first few trips i left the weed at home, but suffered from insomnia and when I did sleep, nightmares. And so on later trips found ways to smuggle weed with me. In hindsight this was a really stupid thing to be doing, not only could I have found myself in a Turkish jail once or twice, but would also have lost my job and professional reputation. This really brought it home to me how dependant I have become. I now have a job that I stay away from home for 3days a week, staying in a camper-van in a pub carpark, and have become accutely aware of how exposed I am and the implications it would have to be found out, not just for myself but also for the licensee of the pub.

I am about to embark on teacher training, and know that I cannot continue the lifestyle I have developed if I want to have a career as a teacher. I have been in a relationship for the past two years with someone who has little interest in anything but smoking weed and listening to reggae. He has never had a job and has always grown/smuggled weed to make money. He now has his 9yr old daughter living with him and social services are involved due to her alcoholic mother. Growing weed is now no longer an option for him, and his CV has nothing on it so he's unable to find work. We have been deeply in love and for the past year I have been hoping that we would move in together and get married. But although he loves me and knows that he needs to move out of the flat that he shared with his daughter's mother for us to be able to live together, and get a job so that I can take maternity leave, he never pulls his finger out. After a year of second-chances and the hope that something will change, our relationship has come to an end. He is 10 years older than me and has lived his whole life on benefits, this is not the life I want for myself.

I want to be able to live my life without always having secrets. I want to be proud of myself for being strong instead of berating myself for being weak and dependant. I want the motivation to go out and do things in the evening instead of always wanting to rush home to smoke. I want better memory and conversation skills. I want a good man, I want a family, I want a life.

 I had made a promise to myself that after my Christmas stash was finished I would not get any more, and that came to an end last night. Tonight will be my first night without a smoke, I have not smoked today and have thrown out all my emergency stashes, king-size papers, roach materials etc. I'm not looking forward to it, but know I'm doing it for the right reasons.

Thanks for reading my rant!

Sorry Moderator, can I just say: having an advert for a dating site for smokers with a picture of a woman smoking on it next to my post is REALLY hard to deal with, and I can't minimise it. do your sponsors get assigned automatically? :-( that is my only criticism of this amazing site which has otherwise been the most helpful thing I've been able to find so far on the net . xx

Day Two:

Got my first night out of the way, which was what I was really dreading. Wasn't as bad as I thought, actually felt tired naturally and slept till morning without waking up, Was a bit sweaty, but nothing too serious. Felt good to wake up feeling 'awake' if that makes sense.

In all honesty, I drank quite alot of wine, something I am not repeating tonight as I don't want to substitute one bad habit with another. I am smoking far too many cigarettes, which I need to keep an eye on.

No dreaming yet, but maybe the wine kept that at bay last night, we'll see how it goes tonight. I've kept off the caffinated drinks this evening and have dosed myself up with camomile tea.Realised I couldn't drink as much caffine as usual without getting the jitters, which I suppose is usually counteracted by the weed.

Today was fine, quite productive,and nice to be able to work into the evening without constanly making stupid mistakes. I felt pretty tired early evening, and although was worried about coming home and having an evening without getting stoned, I just got on the phone and kept myself occupied talking with friends and family, great to be able to make conversation, and be able to finish the majority of my sentences and not find myself getting irritable/oversensitive.

Just about to go to bed now, hope it will be another easy one. have taken a herbal sleeping tablet just in case!

Really feel i'm doing the right thing here, even realised I missed a bit of weed belonging to my friend when I did my purge yesterday, but not really too tempted, it's thai, and I prefer the green. Feel proud of myself to be able to resist even second-choice smoke.

Looking forward to waking up fresh again tomorrow :-)

Hope ur still going strong, hang in there...and congratz !

Staystrong- Let me first congratulate you on making it this far and welcome you to the site.  I am glad you are finding it useful and I apologise for the insensitive nature of the adverts you have experienced.  I hope it will reassure you to know we are currently working on changing our servers  which will also see our current sponsors replaced with ads directly connected to the website.

Good Luck with your progress , 

Bruno8)

nice one staystrong. that was a great explanation of how you've come here

I hope you are doing ok.

watch the herbal sleeping pills. for me they made the initial dreams just too lucid and full on. but maybe that's not the case for everyone though. i might just be weird like that.

all the best

s

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