30 days. How I quit weed after over a decade of daily or heavy usage.

One of my barriers to quitting weed was devaluing my experience with addiction, partly due to the normalization of smoking weed and the culture surrounding it. The mentality of "it's just weed" is quite harmful, but while weed isn't as physically addictive, the weed available nowadays is definitely not the same as what I smoked in my youth or what our parents used. While the "it's just weed" mentality may be true for many, it wasn’t for me. I would often tell myself that smoking wasn’t a big deal, ignoring how much it had held me back in life. On the other hand, marijuana did help me cope during difficult times when I had no other way to manage my mental health. The fact that it was helpful at certain points in my life only contributed to my denial of its harmful effects.

I started smoking weed at the age of 15 and immediately fell in love with it. By the time I was 16, I was smoking everyday.  When I first started using weed everyday, it was mostly for fun. At the same time, it also helped me feel normal in a life where I often felt uncomfortable and didn’t know how to cope.Growing up, I never had many friends, and weed made me feel like I was part of a community of stoners. Smoking weed became part of my rebellion and made me feel cool or like a badass. This sense of identity grew over time, and I even wore those popular "huff weed" socks to Christmas dinner with my family one year. Looking back at pictures from that Christmas, I can't help but wonder what was going through my head to think that was appropriate. I do understand how my sense of self was connected to being a pot smoker, but over time, it stopped feeling cool and instead gave me a sense of shame. 

I was not a high-functioning stoner. Getting high was an excuse to do absolutely nothing, living a life of instant gratification. This led to neglecting my responsibilities, which caused issues with money. I would struggle to keep up with conversations; at times, I would get so high that I became mute. Weed also impaired my memory, which negatively affected my school and work performance. The worst part was how my memory issues had affected my relationships, especially when I couldn’t remember important things that friends and family had shared with me. But the saddest part was when my friends would reminisce about cherished memories from our youth, and I had no recollection of them.

For a long time I was stuck in a cycle of abusing weed and recreational use. The times of recreational use were very short-lived since most of my life, I’ve either dealt with chaos or the aftermath of it. I found myself using weed mostly to escape my reality. I’ve quit twice before, having hit multiple rock bottoms, but each time, I found myself back in the same place, where my entire life revolved around my weed usage. This most recent rock bottom was caused by the worst depression I have ever experienced in my life. I lost my job, my boyfriend, and couldn’t go back to school this year, which was the last chance I had to complete my program before my credits expired. This meant I would have to start over from the beginning if I wanted to graduate from my desired field. Before all of this happened, my depression started with anxiety about going back to school, trying to find a placement in order to go back, and not feeling fulfilled at work, which led to my weed usage going up. That anxiety and dissatisfaction lasted a couple of months. This was when I started to bed rot. At first, it was just on my time off, but as I lost my job and couldn’t go back to school, I was stuck at home, completely depressed and hopeless, which made me live from my bed. During this time, my suicidal ideation became a lot worse. Fortunately, my survival instincts kept me alive.

It took another two months of this bedridden agony for me to want to live again. It took me a long time, but eventually, I reached a place of acceptance, realizing I had no choice but to keep going. Once I accepted this I knew I had to get all the help I could get my hands on. I started attending meetings with other addicts, but I had no intention of quitting weed. After all, weed didn’t seem like the problem—it felt like the solution. I was too far in denial to admit that cannabis was also contributing to my depression. I went to the meetings because I wanted to be around others who were suffering or had suffered. I didn’t want to be alone with my pain, which helped me get out of my isolation. Eventually, I started to see a way out by watching other people start over their lives after addiction, finding happiness without the use of drugs and saw that I could do the same. This became the catalyst for reframing my situation—from thinking my life was over to seeing it as a fresh start. At the same time, I was getting help from a psychiatrist, seeing a counselor for the first time, and leaning on my friends. I switched medications and received the empathetic support of my counselor. Weed stopped working long before this shift in perspective happened, which helped me stop smoking at first. I was smoking batch bowls of the strongest weed I could get my hands on, but it stopped giving me any effect, which pissed me off. I even tried other drugs that are considered to be harder, but nothing would compare to the high I once got from weed and I was left disappointed. I knew I could have kept experimenting with different drugs until I found one that worked for me, but deep down, I knew it would only lead me back to the same place. When I eventually stopped smoking, since it wasn't getting me high anymore, I would tell myself there was no point in trying to smoke knowing it wouldn't give me the high I wanted. Realizing that I wanted to change my life more than I wanted to get high became the crucial competing interest that helped me take the first step toward quitting weed. There are times when I minimize how much addiction has held me back, convincing myself that smoking wouldn’t be a big deal and that I could control it. During those moments, I tell myself it’s just an experiment, reminding myself of where the last 10 years of smoking have led me and to see how much my life could change if I didn't smoke for a year. Realistically, I know I’ll have to abstain from cannabis for the rest of my life, as controlling it has never fully worked for me. I also can acknowledge that going back to weed would only continue the cycle that has held me back for so long. I honestly do realize that weed isn’t the only thing that's held me back, it was myself and the circumstances that led to my usage that was also at play but one thing is for certain I can’t keep living life the way that I have anymore. It's hard to accept that I have to give up one of the things I love most in this world. That’s why setting a one-year goal feels more achievable than telling myself I can never smoke weed again. 

Being able to quit weed gave me the momentum and the hope that my life could change. I've felt better in the last 30 days than I have in a really long time. Within the span of a couple weeks, my outlook completely changed, and I started reconnecting with myself. I began to take care of myself physically and mentally. I restarted using the coping skills I've learned throughout my life. I also started re-evaluating what kind of life I wanted to build. The uncertainty is scary and yet exciting at the same time. I finally accepted that I had been living my life according to what I thought society expected—following that straight and narrow path: go to school, get an education, work a 9-to-5, get married, buy a house, etc. Instead, this time has been a time of exploration, figuring out what I want out of life and how I personally define success. There is a lack of security in trying to pave your own path but not giving it a shot doesn’t seem like an option. Long story short, if I had to describe the last 30 days in one word, it would be liberation. There are multiple ways you can recover from addiction and depression. This just happens to be how I got to a place where I could live life again. I did get lucky since getting back on my feet was not the long uphill battle that I expected, nevertheless I do still have moments where I struggle, it's just not as painful as what I’ve already been through. If you're feeling weighed down by life's challenges, trust that no matter what your brain tells you, there is always a way out.