Day 89 sober! . One thing I want to say I am noticing- very recently- I am a "spiritually minded" person- not actively religious but I think about God and holiness and life and heaven and deep thoughts about what it all means and is there really a force of good in the universe guiding us or not. And I just tend to live in a philosophical/spiritual mindset- thinking these kinds of thoughts, my whole life really. And I have had periods of strong faith ad connectedness to a holy being, and periods where it feels like that is obstructed from my life. And much more- I mean really dark times lately with my illness- which is still a work in progress. But one thing I am noticing just in the last week is that there is more of a feeling for me- this far into sobriety- of feeling a sense of God and beings of light- and when I am stoned every day there is more of a feeling of obstruction from that. I still feel this is a harsh and difficult world and fundamentally full of struggle and full of both light and dark. I don't feel like I am enlightened and basking in the ease of God's light. But I just feel like all of a sudden I want to pray more- to thank God more, to actually cultivate a relationship with the mysterious divine. Where as when I am smoking marijuana I feel like the "high" is the thing I am cultivating the relationship with. Like the idea of "false idols"- like marijuana is a trickster- it tells me it will get me high and make me feel safe and inspired and spiritual- but all it gives me is a façade of that, and then I become its servant and it demands that I continue to worship it and feed it. As I move farther out of its grip, I find that I can feel a presence of holiness in the universe more. To me it always had felt and continues to feel that this life, this world, is a combination of that holiness plus also struggle illness work pain and difficulties! I think that is the nature of life and I hope perhaps if and when I get well from my illness life will feel less painful. But at least I can now feel something out there- a presence of light- like people talk about in near death experiences where they die and come back, I have been reading some books about this ( such as Raymond moody) and they say they encounter a being of pure light and love- some idea of God and heaven. Anyway this is my experience- that the less I smoke pot, it doesn't take the pain of life away to be sober, that is still there. But for me I start to feel a little more warmth from some force- a little more faith that there is something good. And just being away from worshipping marijuana and having it take all my life force. Life is still hard sober but there is more room for joy to come in. Still struggling with my health but I am working with someone new who is giving me hope. I feel maybe a hint of improvement and they say the new treatment I am doing takes time so I am patient- and I met another person this week who did this new treatment and had similar health challenges to me and is now fully well from it so that gave me hope. I am still well deep into my health issues ad all that takes from my life- and still find life to be hard. But there is just a little more light shining down amongst all that.