What helps me staying clean...
I first tried cannabis around the age of 12.
I smoked more and more frequently untill the age of 15, where I had an extremely frightening (but also very insightful) experience with psilocybin mushrooms. This experience scared me off all drugs, even alcohol for some time.
A couple of years later I was at a music festival, I had taken up drinking again after about 6 months after my bad trip, and felt like I was doing good. In reality I was not. I had been arrested a few weeks earlier because of acting drunk and disorderly in the streets and flipping off some cops I felt provoked me. Yea I know... stupid. As I was arrested I severely injured my knee, something that would later give me many problems.
So I'm at this festival with a bad knee and multiple concerts to attend. One night as I was drinking myself down, I was offered some weed, and decided that I was gonna try it to see what would happen, maybe it would make my knee pain a little less annoying. I was kinda scared because of my earlier experiences, but I figured that was a long time ago (think I was 17 or 18 here)
This time the weed made me feel different. It was an amazing experience. I felt that everything made sense again and that all my fear and anxiety these past years, since quitting, had been unnecessary and silly.
I continued smoking as I returned home, and it became a very precious thing to me. I felt there was absolutely no problem with this drug, and that it was helping me immensely. I had started to selfmedicate. My anxiety got better, and my physical and mental pain was easier to ignore. For a couple of years life actually got better. I started socialising more, and felt more passionate about life in general.
As time went by things started to change though. It was a gradual process. The selfmedicating thing didn't work as well as it used to, as my tolerance for the drug skyrocketed. I started to use alcohol more often. I even took some breaks a couple of times (which was extremely hard and always a tremendous battle) and started looking into how I could heal my body, mind and soul in different ways.
For shorter periods of time I was feeling ok, but overall there was no real progress. I still felt anxious, depressed and isolated very often. I started doing other psychedelics again (LSD, mescaline, DMT, 2CB) and many other different kinds of drugs (ketamine, mdma, cocaine) in an attempt of getting closer to the core of who I was, or rather what THIS is. I had many eye opening experiences, and I truly do believe some of these trips helped me to realise what I had to do to get better. I was confronted with my own suffering in a way that made it impossible to ignore.
My cannabis habit didn't get any less though. I was smoking more and more, and I also started drinking more and more. This was the start of my isolation (starting around 23) I didn't like to be around too many people, and whenever I got drunk going out with friends, crazy things happened. I figured I will have to just stay home and indulge in my selfmedicating, here at least I am safe.
Eventually I lost most friends and relationship to my family was at an all time low. My body was aching. I was drinking everyday for a couple of years. Alot... Insides of my body was in pain, I became very scared of organ damage. I was unable to have a job, get education etc. I started having severe withdrawal symptoms when I wasn't drinking (hallucinations, extreme panicattacks and pain) and eventually I realised I had to quit. This was around 7 months ago.
3 months ago I started to notice that most of my problems was actually caused by the alcohol, as I started feeling like I did back when I was a kid before alcohol and weed. I wanted to be free from cannabis also.
This is the process I am in now. Getting the green dragon off my back. I have been clean from cannabis 96 days today, and I have never felt better and more at peace for as long as I can remember.
I have developed a strategy to deal with the cravings and depression that still get to me some days (nowhere near as bad as the early days of recovery though) and it goes something like this:
It's 7 different components of life that has to be addressed. If one of these is not taken care of, we will most likely feel craving for smoking again.
Light (going outside in the sun, sitting close to a window etc)
Air (going outside, taking deep breaths, running/walking close to a lake etc)
Water (drink plenty, drink green tea, buy nice bottled water etc)
Nutrition (cook healthy food, smoothies 60% leaf greens 40% fruit, avoid junkfood, get enough fibers, maybe supplements can also help)
Exercise (whatever sport you like, walking, running, swimming etc)
Relaxation (chill out, give yourself time to calm down, meditate, watch a silly movie anything that can make you relax )
Sleep (make sure you get enough sleep, avoid too much caffeine, drink camomile tea before bedtime, avoid violent scary stuff before going to sleep etc)
The days where I do feel intensely bad is usually because I am lacking in one of these aspects.
Hope it may help some of you.
Peace