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Hello everyone. I am 30ish recently laid off young male "mary jane" addict and have reached that "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" phase of my life ... again.

No tears this time . No anger. I just want to be free. I cant continue to ignore NA. I cant continue run away from what God is trying to give me. I cant continue to not embrace God as my truth. I cant continue to wait for a "bottom" to force me to quit. I dont want to die because of this.

The hardest thing for me i guess has been surrendering. I suffer from the highest level of addiction. I understand now that my addiction doesnt stop at drug use. My addiction has invaded other parts of my life from what i eat , what i do, what i watch on the idiot box etc. surrendering for me is like trying to climb a mud-sliding steep uphill mountain with slippery shoes.

When i fall off the "wagon" , I'm on this 5 or 6 month binge of daily usage. I spend these days wishing and praying to just make it through ONE day without using. Day after day of "tomorrow i'll quit".

My brain is wired the wrong way. My brain tells me if i dont use theres a possibility i'll have a horribly bad day. My brain tells me the people around me will have a horribly bad day if i dont use. I wont have an appetite for food if i dont use. I wont be motivated to do anything unless i know im going to use once the task[s] are done. Its like a steak being dangled in fron of a dog to lead him somewhere. Remove the steak, and the dog has no motivation to follow you. So today i will see what i can do to re-wire these brain malfunctions because at the end of the day its all BS lol. I wont "die" if i dont use. I wont have a horrible day [unless i make it one].

Thank you Sober Recovery for existing.

My last time coming in sounded much like yours - no theatrics, no anger - I'm just done. True surrender felt that way to me... peaceful. I hope that is where you are.

When I finally saw the truth for what is was (that I could not successfully drink or use) without my emotions clouding it, I became free to take the first step and truly recover.

Pray for surrender, willingness, and teachability. It worked for me, and it is still working so I am not going to stop.


Welcome ((HUG)) and keep coming back.

Welcome to SR ZM, admitting the problem is half the battle, that half of the battle was Mary Jane convincing you who is boss and you accepting/surrendering to that fact.

Now comes the tough part and this is where recovery programs come into play, you mention NA, go to as many meetings as you can, when there is not an NA meeting go to an AA meeting, find a temporary sponsor, take the steps as soon as possible.

Dedicate as much time and effort to your recovery as you did getting and using your DOC! You mentioned being laid off, this may be a blessing in disguise allowing you to spend maximum time on your recovery in early recovery.

You know what you need to do, grab the bull by the horns and do it.

Is it true? That people around you will have a horrible day if you do not use?
The ego likes to make up all sorts of **** that may or may not be true. Usually it is not true. Your ego is scared, even though you may be miserable, your ego is comfortable with your "usual" activities. Change is scary for ego!

In order to deal with ego, we must be willing to challange the BS ego feeds us. It is hard in the begining. It gets easier with more practice. The program is about one day at a time. In the begining, I worked it a minute at a time. Those days were long, but those days added up and brought me to sixteen years.

Willingness, acceptance, surrendering, and surrounding myself with meetings and people who were clean and sober helped me make through those minutes and hours, and days and weeks, and months and years.

Let go and let God is what I was told. I had to stop listening to my ego, because my ego was always lieing to me. I made a list up of all the things I could do whenever I felt crazy and like using, and carried that list with me for the first five years. When I felt crazy, I could not think of anything except using, I would pull out my list and start going through it doing the things on my list. (The thing that was not on my list was using drugs or alcohol).

Much love and light to you!
~Cheryl

Hello and welcome to our SR community.
Truth is, you could continue to avoid all that stuff. However, you are seeing the consequencing of doing that and now you are becoming willing to do something different. You feel how far denial & refusal got you and now you are getting honest about it. You are experiencing the results of having a closed mind about a variety of issues, but seem to have a desire to something about it. i've made a tremendous amount of progress in my recovery relying on those three principles; Honesty, Open-mindedness, & Willingness. You can too if you are ready to take certain steps!

Why not go to an N.A. meeting today and begin getting to know everyone?

welcome to SR, ZM2.
I had to re-wire my brain malfunctions too.

It takes commitment and effort, but it is possible - and very much worth it :)

Hope to see you 'round :)
D

i thank you all very much.

I WOULD NOT HAVE MADE IT [day 1] without the advice in you guys posts.

finally after months and months of usage i made it thru day 1.

one day at a time right

Congrats on day one ZM2!!!! So when are you going to that meeting?

Congratulation ZM on your road to recovery.

thank you all for your support.

[DAY 2]

Got about 3 hours of sleep last night, freezing cold sweats, but i was prepared for that and honestly it ws the best 3 hours of sleep ive had in a while. I finally had a dream lol. I know i dream everynight but when i'm in active addiction i just dont remember then but last nights "nightmare" was so vivid and real...I loved it!

I woke up 3am like "hell yea" ...I'm living again.

Didnt go to meeting yesterday , I'll try to find out if there's one being held tonight.

Again thank you all.

ZM2..

Welcome to SR!

Recovered pothead here.. :wavey:

Instead of "thinking" of going forever without it...just do it..just for today.

It is doable.

If I did it..you can too! Hey..you are!!!!!

For me, a program of recovery is essential for ongoing support.

But do it, however you do it.

SR is here for you, 24/7.

Keep coming back.

Day 3

So far so good. Dealing with life on lifes terms. Learning how
to "live" again. I'm careful not to submit to addictive behavior
like blowing up on someone who doesnt deserve it, selfish /
self-centeredness "what about ME!", exercising poor judgement ,
etc.

Didnt use. Working the steps. ...unfortunately didnt go to meeting today. I will have to go before i slip. ...I have to.

Former MJ addict here too. Wow, never thought I'd be able to put "former" at the begining of that sentence. It's been almost 3 months for me. I still strugle with some drinking issues, though nothing like the 24/7 pot smoking I did for 20+ years. That is not to minimize the alcohol issue, but to say what a incredilble struggle it was kicking the pot.

I identify with everything you have mentioned. I had really forgotten what it was like to dream every night. Some of those dreams haven't been so good, but at least I remember them in the morning when I'm NOT reaching for my bowl. Sleep was a tough one for me too, but it does get better, and really fairly quickly. Within about a week, I was sleeping more and better, as I was actually getting sleep rather than a drugged out stupor.

NA can offer some great support, and one of the best things is that you can find a group of folks to hang out with who aren't going to dangle the prospect of "just one more time" in front of you. That was tough for me when I first quit, I couldn't hang out with the same people anymore. I ended up moving about a month later, so that was helpful, but I don't kid myself thinking that I will make the "right" decision if it is put in front of me. I hope to someday be there, but for now I make sure I keep myself out of situations where there is any posibility of pot being around. It's not that hard really. It's not like alcohol that is available everywhere, you pretty much have to be looking for pot, or at least putting yourself into situations where it is possible to be found.

Anyway, congrats on your 3 days. The early ones are the hardest. Don't get complacent, it's kinda easy with pot, as so many write it off as "not that addictive" or "no big deal". For many folks, that may well be the case, but for this ex-stoner I can definately say "one hit is too much, and 1000 never enough". Take care, and welcome to SR!!

Hi and Welcome.....:wave:

[QUOTE=ZM2; I woke up 3am like "hell yea" ...I'm living again.[/QUOTE]

Many of us can identyify with that. A great feeling no matter what the clock says!

Congrats on day 3, how are you doing the steps? Do you already have a sponsor?

ZM, I don't think your brain is any different then the rest of ours. ;)

I believed as well that unless I was drinking feeling whatever was going on in my life was going to be bad, bad, bad!! You know, I was actually relieved when I'd hear other people in the program say "life can get real ugly sometimes, bad days? Oh sure, there will be plenty of them." Because I saw so many sober people on this "pink cloud". For me, I also knew that the road I was going to travel was going to be a rough one. Not to get into it, but not a lot of help from family and unfortunately I am not "bad" enough to receive benefits or state help, so it's been a struggle.

ZM, I feel I'm a perfect example of someone who can go through the ringer and still come out doing ok. I have been struggling a lot for the past several months but I just fight through it. I feel like I've succeeded so many times in just doing that.

I've been sober almost two years now, my anniversary is right around the corner, WOO HOO!!!!! Things are different today. It has taken a lot of work on my part, a lot of patience and a lot of perseverance but I've done it!! The reward is my succeeding.

If I can do it and many of others have done it, you can too.

Glad you found us, SR is awesome!! :)

Day 5 [didnt have time to post on day 4]

still holding strong. To be honest im only working first 3 steps and i STILL dont have a sponsor yet. This will need to change.

I need some advice.

During my drug use i had a habit of taking midday naps after the "morning high" ...but now that im not getting high i still find myself "trying" to take these so called cat naps without actually sleeping...I'm just laying there like "what the hell am i doing, I'm not even sleepy"... I know this is only another form of addictive behavior that i must change but HOW. Its not a depression / just wanna sleep the day away thing. Should i drink more coffee or what? Because I HATE taking naps now that i dont have a high to come down from. :headbange

My advice is do what your body is telling you to do now— lay down and "pretend" nap if that is what it is. Your body will work itself out. You mention surrender in the beginning of these posts. That is so important. An important aspect of surrender is taking things as they come and a part of that is taking yourself as you are. I found that in very early sobriety I had one task to focus on and only one— stay sober from mind altering substances namely my drug of choice (for me alcohol, for you pot). I took crazy naps; doing a lot of emotional and physical change tires you out. I watched so much television. Sometimes I would feel guilty about it because if I got into a space of thinking about it I would think like you, this is totally addictive, I am substituting the tv for alcohol. But the reality is that tv was keeping me in my house at night during those times I was usually out getting loaded. And in the end I now see I did not suffer from it. I think you need to be gentle on yourself. Surrender. Don't judge everything your body and mind are choosing to do to cope— ultimately if you stay sober and keep working on recovery it will work out. Try to accept everything that you do with love— I guarantee it makes recovery so much easier.

I also wanted to say this:

I don't think that is a statement or thought that needs reprogramming because well, it is true. You will be sober one day and on that same day have a horrible day. In the same way that I am sure you have been high on a day and also had a horrible day. You can't control reality. It is a shame but it is the truth. Better than trying to reprogram that sentence is to try to get to a point where you can accept it. If you can accept "I can be sober and have a horrible day and survive it sober," then you are good to go.

You are working NA so that should help. For me Buddhist mindfulness techniques have helped. A good book which melds the two is Kevin Griffin's One Breath at A Time about the intersection between the 12 steps and Buddhism.

Kevin Griffin - One Breath