FlyingDutchMan

Hello fellow combatants of marijuana addiction!

I started reading this forum a couple of weeks ago and it was the last push I needed to take the plunge. After 22 years of pretty much daily use I decided to call it quits three weeks ago. I quit smoking cigarettes too at the same time. This is my day 22.

Because reading the stories of other people gave a feeling of not being alone in this experience (smoking but not wanting to, making appointments with myself and constantly breaking them, quitting and getting lured back in by the moderation-thought, etc) I feel somewhat obliged to share my experiences. It's also a testimony to myself. And I hope it will be fun to read back on this a few months or years on and read about the process I went through. In my mind I am very focussed on quitting. No way I am going back to the old lifestyle. Not for my kids, not for my girlfriend and not for myself!

A little background information and a quick sorry for all the text. I'm feeling kinda energetic.

I am a 39 year old male from The Netherlands. I first tried marijuana when I was about 16 years old and I started smoking pretty much daily when I turned 18. By that age they allow you in a coffeeshop (the place where they sell marijuana legally) so supplies were no longer a problem. When I eventually moved out and got my own place it became a lifestyle.

I'm a guy with a lot of energy and a very busy mind so initially the marijuana was a big big success. I gave me a relaxed mind I don't have naturally. I felt completely stress-less. It took a long time before I started noticing that I might have a problem with it. And that I couldn't quit it, even if I wanted to. It started out as a social thing with friends but over the years I secluded myself more and more. Marijuana always came first. And then the rest, maybe, if I felt like it.

But it wasn't all bad. I was able to combine it with pretty much everything I did. Finished my education, got a good job and a greater job after that. I have a fantastic girlfriend and two beautiful children and I ride my race bike a lot. Not your typical problem-smoker, but then again...who is?

I wasn't content with my "habit" anymore when my girlfriend became pregnant and I started to smoke outside. No more three puffs from a joint and putting it in an ashtray but planning and scheming. "When will I go outside, how much will I smoke? The movie we're about to watch is long, I'd better take a few puffs extra to make it to the end of the movie comfortably!" The last few years I started to drink with it as well. Not extreme amounts but say 2-3 bottles of beer in the evening. Just to get the buzz going. And every evening. Weekdays and weekends.

These last years I became more aware of the bad influences it has on my character. I enables me -to an extreme level- to let things be. Nothing really bothered me. My girlfriend was running the household pretty much by herself and I hated myself for it. I made a mess everywhere in the house, I would hardly contribute to cleaning, when I was done wrenching on my race bike the tools would lie around in the kitchen for four weeks afterwards. Those kinds of things. You probably know what I am talking about.

I tried to quit so many times before, some attempts were more successfull than others. I tried to moderate so many times before and I every single time I would start up a discussion with myself and question my own decisions until I caved.

So how am I doing today? I don't have cravings and I haven't been tempted to pick up the old lifestyle. But boy, I now am extremely unable to put things aside in my mind. All these impressions. I see the mess I made in full scale and sometimes I just don't know where to start to clean it up. Today at work was terrible. I felt like crying a few times and that is nothing like me. I just couldn't calm down my thoughts and it drowned me. So many things to take care of, so many open ends I left. I just cannot simply imagine how I was able to ignore all this for so long.

I guess this is what I have to go through after not dealing with so many things on so many levels for so long. I sure hope it is transitory though!

Thanks for reading, I'll let you know how things progress from here. Until that time: stay strong! If I can, you can!