Sapling

I'm sure you are getting something out of it...It's funny...I liked weed...But I couldn't stop drinking to save my life...Finally figured that out...And weed...Never even thought about it. Just quit. No effort. Funny how the brain works in different people.

defyinggravity

It is weird...I don't even think about alcohol anymore (this was not always the case - for a few years I drank constantly - but that was really before I had discovered weed) unless I'm completely desperate for an escape. Weed on the other hand...on my mind CONSTANTLY.

Well...I shouldn't say I don't think about it at all...it's not easy to be around drunk people enjoying themselves but that's more about my having trouble being the only sober one and less about my actually craving the alcohol per se.

ReadyAndAble

So, what about the "friends"? Because those people obviously care nothing for you and your desire to stay sober. Hopefully one day they will see the insanity of their lives. But you should not be anywhere near them.

We may not even know each other's gender at SR, but we're a lot better friends than those folks. I'm really glad you made it back to tell the tale.

defyinggravity

I spoke with the friend who invited me over today and told her in no uncertain terms that I had no desire to ever be around drugs or alcohol like that again (I told her I wouldn't mind if, for example, we went to dinner and she had a glass of wine - after all, she isn't an alcoholic). Apparently the acquaintance who brought the coke-guy over was disgusted and is not seeing him anymore. I also reiterated that I didn't want to be around if they were going to be smoking weed (which she does on occasion - maybe once a month or less) and really drove home the point that I want to live my life clean and sober from here on out. She was very supportive - she really is my closest friend here and while I won't be hanging out with that whole group again (I simply don't care for some of the people that were there), I do intend to maintain my friendships with her and her boyfriend.

ReadyAndAble

Well you are a woman of action, I'll say that. I don't know your friends and spoke out of turn. I imagined the whole group saying, "Hey, DG, glad you're here—now have some coke!"

It's great that you are setting boundaries with your friend. The fact she isn't an addict probably makes it hard for her to understand the situation. Maybe if she hears about the needles and bloody paper towels you cleaned up, she'll understand better? A picture like that is certainly worth a thousand words...

I hear you about the weed. Sometimes I think in a way, it's the slipperiest of the drugs, precisely because it's impact is so subtle. It's so easy to say, "It's only weed." But addiction is addiction, at least for me. It may not destroy my liver or stop my heart, but weed still robs me of the chance to live the way I want to live, and to be the person I want to be.

defyinggravity

I've heard "it's just weed" a LOT...even my psychiatrist and my therapist have said in the past "well, it's not *great* but it's not coke so if you're going to do something...." which in my mind is a license to use freely. Weed is not "just weed" to me...it's really taking my life away - as you said, it's really subtle and it happens very slowly, I think. And I'm not going to OD on weed (which I think was probably my psychiatrist/therapist's point - at least weed isn't going to outright kill me like coke could) but I'm not living the life I could be living - I'm not happy or satisfied or even moderately content...I'm miserable because I'm not living...I'm just getting by.