300 Days Weed-Free

Hello members of the r/leaves community.

With this letter, I want to share some notes from my journal since choosing to abstain from weed just over one year ago. I’ve found great encouragement in some of your stories and only hope that this may help at least one of you along if you’re in a tough spot.

Following a little backstory, the bulk of this letter is a timeline of the withdrawals I experienced as a long-time user. I know many of you are concerned with what you’re going through and want to assure you that it does get better.

Along with an account of the physical withdrawals, I’ve also included some of the other psychological and lifestyle changes I was going through at the time. I hope you’ll bear with me as I air some of this shit out.

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Some Backstory

I abused drugs for 20 years, from the age of 16 to 36. Reefer, cigarettes, caffeine, pills, booze, booze and more booze have all been a part of my escapist repertoire at one time or another (that, and all the pornography, masturbation, sex, food and digital entertainment, of course).

About 14 years ago I started letting go of these vices one by one. Ironically, the first thing I quit was weed. I was so fucking paranoid that I’d react to shit I was ‘seeing’ out of the corner of my eye (like, ‘hit the deck!’ paranoid) which made it pretty easy to stop. Sometime after that I dropped cigarettes, and a few years later, alcohol.

I wasn’t exactly sober during this time, but I was dry and I wasn’t smoking. However, I held onto the possibility of one day getting back into the reefer. It seemed liked something to look forward to after escaping the death-grip of alcoholism.

Eventually, I did find my way back; And at first, I was loving it. But before I knew it another handful of years had flown by while I got stoned just about every night. Along with the burnout came feeling like hammered dog shit on the regular and acting like a real asshole to the people close to me.

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Wanting to ... Not Feel Like Shit Anymore

Before we get any deeper into this, I want to acknowledge that this past year was not an isolated incident. I struggled with excessive drug use for a long time. Nearly all of that time I desperately tried to control those addictions.

I’d manage breaks now and again, but would, without fail, slip right back into old patterns following that first hit. I journaled, logged, counted days, and just about every other trick I could think of to learn moderation. It never worked.

I mention this as I see many posting here about feelings of regret after a relapse. And I get it. That shit sucks. But I think most will agree that it’s a necessary part of recovery. It seems we need to feel like shit so many times before we finally get it: feeling like shit feels like shit. All I can say is to be kind to yourself and hop back on the saddle.

What motivated me to finally quit was my wife and I deciding to separate. Preoccupied with my own pain, I never really thought about what it was like to be with me. I began to truly examine how I was living and how that affected the people around me. I felt ashamed of what I saw and wanted to change.

But, even after feeling that shame, I still wasn’t ready to quit. Giving up something you’ve relied on for so long is really, really fucking hard. And at that time in my life, I was so downtrodden that getting high felt like the best thing I had going for me. I didn’t want to let go.

However, I could commit to the idea of lowering my tolerance, so that’s what I set out to do. The plan was to taper down until I felt comfortable taking a 30-day break.

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Withdrawals Timeline Disclaimer

What follows is a general timeline of the withdrawal symptoms I took note of in my journals. However, it’s important to recognize that life is complicated and everything effects everything. As such, it’s impossible to say what role, exactly, weed played in what happened over the next fifteen months.

Emotionally, my wife and I had been having a tough time for a few years. We have two young children and decided to remain living together (while separated) for a year after our second son was born. It was a stressful time. And figuring out how to move forward together was very difficult for the both of us.

Chemically, I continued to drink tea and eat chocolate every day. Stimulants have a known history of completely fucking me up mentally and emotionally. As I got further from weed, some of the lingering withdrawals were certainly contributed to by leaning into that vice.

Something else relevant from an emotional standpoint was that I had decided to practice celibacy a month before beginning my taper from weed. A part of that decision was due to the recognition that I had used sexual gratification, at times, as a way to avoid sitting with my anxieties and feelings of loneliness.

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Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms (PAWS)

Now, I’m no a clinical expert, but there seem to be two generally recognized phases of physical withdrawal after long-term drug use: the acute withdrawal symptoms (for example, sweating through the sheets and headaches) and what’s referred to as the post acute withdrawal symptoms, or PAWS for short.

PAWS are scary as hell. Depending on your history and brain chemistry, they can last anywhere from months to years. They may also come and go in waves as your brain balances out. So, you’ll have months of steady progress and then one day feel just as bad as you ever did.

It is fucking demoralizing.

I mention this in case the terms PAWS is new to some of you (I first read about them after tapering off a massive daily caffeine habit and going into a seven-month depression) and also to acknowledge that beyond the acute phase, the withdrawals were all kind of happening, in and out, all the time. I’ve simply organized the following in a logical way based on reading back through my notes.

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Month One Taper: Alternating Days

My first plan of attack was to take every other day off from getting stoned. It seemed like it would be easy. I was wrong. It was brutal.

» (get a better symbol) I became extremely depressed and remained that way for several months, without respite

» I felt disoriented and disassociated from the external world – this was pretty damn scary and lasted about a month

» I’d wake up dizzy and feeling sick with extraordinary physical fatigue during the days

» Night sweats would come and go throughout the tapering period (about 90 days in total)

» Bitching headaches (good god, the bitching headaches) that would last for three or four days, ramping up in intensity at night, and making sleep nearly impossible

» Ringing in the ears, seeing spots of color and other visual disturbances

» Wild swings in libido: one day I’d want to hump a brick wall, then go for days or weeks with zero sex drive

» When I did sleep, I’d have these anxious, vivid relapse dreams about getting all fucked up, drunk and having sex with god knows who

In other words, real good times. I think this journal entry sums up that first month well:

‘I fucking hate this.’

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Month Two Taper: Back to Getting Stoned Every Day

Fed up with the misery of the past month, I decided to change tack and started getting high every day again; This time, weighing my edibles and slowly tapering over the course of the next two months.

As the dosage decreased, my chronic social anxiety began to lift. And even though I felt like shit, I could look people in the eyes and talk to them again, which was nice. I even made a few journal entries about seeing someone and feeling a lot better afterward.

While the taper made the withdrawal much more manageable in terms of intensity, the symptoms were nearly identical: intense lethargy, whacked-out, disconnected, dizzy, ill, libido swings, anxious, irritable, as well as the occasional headache.

However, there was some good news. My dreams became much less stressful and I actually started to enjoy the fact that I was having them. It had been years since I’d dreamt. I even had a few moments where my brain kind of seemed to work.

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Month Three Taper: ‘So, There’s A Reason I Get High All the Time?’

At this point, with a low dose of THC and the withdrawals not being so physically debilitating, I began to recognize that, yes, my college girlfriend was right: there were underlying issues to my drug and alcohol abuse. I can honestly say that at 36 year old, I did not get that before.

I began to feel very lonely. I was tired, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, and desperately craving connection. I needed something to look forward to and was feeling very sad and depressed. The better days were just kind of ‘blah’ as I did my best to be around others.

Physical symptoms:

>> Fucking OUT at night. Sleeping like a rock. Intense, vivid dreams. Waking up in physical pain from the blackout and feeling like I was ‘still drunk from the night before’

>> Crushing physical fatigue

>> Still feeling weird, dizzy, disconnected and disoriented. It’s like I could see life all around me, but wasn’t a part of it. I didn’t know if I ever could be again and it scared the shit out of me

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Month One Clean: Back Into the Shit Storm

The first month clean – even after tapering – was a major kick in the nuts. I thought I was about to peacefully walk off into sober bliss. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. All of the original withdrawal symptoms came back with a vengeance.

>> Headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, tinnitus

>> Intense physical fatigue (it felt like my body weighed 1,000 lbs.)

>> The libido has left the building

>> All day, every day depression – burnt out, low and sad (I would start crying throughout the day for seemingly no reason)

>> Insane, vivid dreams (I’ve heard of others having intense nightmares for months after quitting, but mine were more of the anxious variety)

>> A brain fog so thick it felt like I had been lobotomized. Total inability to focus

Good times.

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Month Two Clean: Going Through Changes

It was around this time that every so often I’d notice the beauty of the trees and sky. However, I still wasn’t feeling anything in the joy department. It seemed the only thing that kinda, sorta helped was being around others.

I was still blacking out at night and dreaming like a mother fucker. But these days, the dreams were more enjoyable and featured things like intimacy and love, which was a pleasant change. My body began to feel more well-rested, but I was still pretty messed up in the mornings and having trouble seeing.

But despite being in pretty rough shape mentally, I began making some big lifestyle changes.

We had found my wife a new pad and were both healing and letting go of the resentments we carried in the last part of our relationship. I also retired from a 20-year career as a professional musician which was a big move for me. I didn’t have a plan going forward, but needed to set that behind me and move on.

I was feeling extremely lonely, and became aware that I had started abusing drugs to fill that void and feel ‘love.’ Seeing this, it became very important for me to sit with that loneliness and experience it without the escape of vice.

On that front, I refrained from pursuing a relationship in any way. I knew I was not ready to bring what I wanted to the table and needed to continue to heal. I was thinking about sex constantly, but decided that was just another ‘hit’ which wouldn’t bring me what I truly wanted. So, I learned to set those thoughts and feelings aside, which was major.

Instead, I began reconciling my past and the beliefs I had been carrying with me that led me down this path. I started making more of an effort to get out of the house and chose to apply whatever creative energy I could muster to my existing relationships – i.e. my family. It became my guiding star.

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Month Three Clean: Aimlessness is a Vice

At the start of the third month I noted that I was pretty stressed out, but feeling noticeably better than the prior months. My libido was starting to come and go with more regularity, which I saw as an improvement in my overall physical wellness.

Sleep was inconsistent and some nights I’d black out for nine or ten hours and then lay awake all night on others. Once or twice I woke up in the middle of the night crying, which was something that had happened a handful of times over the past few years. Also (and this might be TMI), I started having wet dreams pretty frequently, sometimes without an erection, which was pretty damn uncomfortable.

With the PAWS, there would be days where the withdrawals were pretty tough. I was still damn tired and having trouble seeing. On the harder days, my base desires went haywire looking for some kind of boost. I started slipping back into drinking tea and eating chocolate more excessively which increased the anxiety. I was also mindlessly eating all day.

This was around the time that I started facing the many behaviors that I would run to as a distraction from remaining present with that anxiety. Along with all of the obvious ones, I also began to see excessive thinking, daydreaming, and even ‘studying’ as a form of escapism and procrastination.

I began to view all thinking that didn’t move the needle on solving my problems in the real world as vice. When I caught myself drifting off (admittedly a small fraction of the time I’d do it) I’d redirect that awareness to my surroundings, the feeling of my body, or apply the energy to something around the house.

I also started to paying attention to my stress responses (as a father, for example) and began to recognize that none of that reaction was happening outside of me. Instead, I worked to own the fact that my environment was simply revealing my inner weakness to me and did my best to take steps in a better direction.

I also began rearranging little things about my lifestyle that I felt were isolating: driving, for instance, was something I did alone, so i started walking places. Noticing things in my language that pointed to self-centeredness, I made it a point to ask others what they would like to do.

I kept putting myself out there socially and made some more connections with women. One to overthink social interactions in the past, I just focused my mind on the fun that was had and held good feelings for others in my heart. A few growing friendships gave me something to apply myself to creatively and I did my best to remain patient while continuing to work through this.

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Month Four Clean: PAWS Back with A Vengeance

The fourth month may have been the most discouraging in terms of the PAWS. A lot of the original ‘shell-shocked’ withdrawals came back which, as I mentioned, were almost certainly exacerbated by leaning into the stimulants.

The most discouraging part was that, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t shake the brain fog. I was sleeping long nights, dreaming like a madman, and waking up scattered, dizzy, disoriented and disconnected. One night, I got up to take a piss and could barely stand I was so dizzy.

I really wanted to relapse. After three months tapering down and over three months clean, it felt hopeless. For six months straight I felt like total trash and needed something to feel good. I just reminded myself of how miserable I was before and stayed the course.

I was beginning to get pretty stressed out financially and was starting to run out of dough. At this point, I was still playing the trumpet for something to do, but decided I could no longer continue to do that healthfully and that it was also acting as a distraction from finding work and putting my life in order.

Socially, I was still feeling pretty lonely and made a point to spend more time with my family. My wife and I were feeling a lot better around one another and I started spending more time at my in-laws place. It helped. I did my best to contribute to the hang, but wasn’t exactly the life of the party.

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Month Five: Make the Iron Hot by Striking

The fifth month was crazy. I was still pretty fucked up mentally, but the stress of having very little income was in high gear; We’re talking, like, diarrhea for weeks high gear.

I began to make a serious effort to focus my mind despite the fog. Feeling I had a pretty good shot landing work as a copywriter, I put the pedal to the metal creating a portfolio. I was working 10-12 hour days finishing an online course for my music education business, while also studying and practicing copywriting.

Things went really fast and within a few weeks I landed a couple of interviews. By the end of the month I landed a solid gig freelancing for a business-to-business marketing agency. I took solace in the fact that even though I still felt out of my mind, I was able to pull a career change out of my ass. I took it as ‘proof’ that things were working.

With my social goals, I continued to find small opportunities to connect: walking more, saying hi to people on the street, shopping at neighborhood markets, etc. It made a big difference. I continued to place the possibility of any kind of romantic connection on the backburner and instead focused on my work.

This daily routine also helped to organize the day:

·      Wake up, meditate, cold shower

·      Walk at least an hour (total) throughout the day

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Month Six and Seven Clean: Still Searching for a Hit

After all this time, my brain was going absolutely ape-shit looking for a hit. This mostly manifested as compulsive eating, which is something I still struggle with when feeling overwhelmed. I felt pretty shitty as a result. I also got into a funny habit of spending frivolously for a short while.

Beginning to realize that consumption was taking a lot more than it was giving, I tried to be productive when I felt uneasy. Cleaning the house or doing some chore I had been putting off, getting a bit of work done – little things. It always feels a lot better than giving into some kind of compulsion.

In terms of the withdrawal, caffeine was still an issue and I suffered those lows a bit. Plus, the brain fog remained. However, I made two notes that seem relevant: first, that I had ‘feelings of joy and contentment with my sons at the grocery store’; and second, that I went for a run. Compared to the nine months prior, that seemed pretty significant.

This was also when I really started to unplug from the electric world and would just sit on the back porch at night watching the fireflies. The weather was warming up and my mind was starting to clear a bit (fucking finally!). I felt myself having ‘summer thoughts’ and was beginning to feel more love in my heart.

Things were turning a corner.

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Month Eight Clean: Life Starting to Get Fun Again

Month eight was a major breakthrough. I began to feel more relaxed, even-keeled, and wasn’t dead tired by 7pm which was huge. In fact, this was the time that I related to a friend that I was ‘enjoying life the way I did when I was a kid.’ It was incredible.

I became effortlessly social. I don’t know what changed. I just wanted to be around people and they started unloading into me. I learned a tremendous amount about the people around me very quickly.

There were also some breakthroughs in my thinking such as:

‘I am not dependent.’

This was a huge realization for me. And what I mean by it is that I’m not dependent on a drug to ‘function normally.’ I was hardly functioning normally. Instead, I saw that after going through a few long-term withdrawals in the past, I was traumatized by the depression and scared of going back. Seeing this helped me hedge my caffeine consumption and go into the lows without fearing them.

I also realized that:

‘I am not a loner.’

In the past, when I was feeling mentally unwell, I would run from interpersonal relationships. Over the years I had developed this kind of ‘lone wolf’ identity to protect myself from the social anxiety. However, feeling better, I realized that it simply wasn’t true. I have a family and tons of friends – I just hid from them now and again.

I also wrote that:

‘I am ready to love someone. I am ready to be a better father and a best friend.’

What I meant by this was that I had healed enough to not need to be so self-protective. During the past year, I went through periods of being harshly judgmental toward myself and critical of my value in a partnership. After thinking on it for some time I determined that the best I had to give was my attention, acceptance and support. I felt ready to do that.

I also cleaned up my diet (in a way that works for me) and turned 37.

Month eight was a good month.

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Month Nine Clean:

At this point, I had a woman on my mind. I let myself dive into the deep end and took a spin through the emotional meat-grinder. I also may have gone temporarily insane.

So, that was cool.

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Month Ten Clean: More Rested

At ten months I also noticed significant improvements. I began to sleep much more consistently and felt pretty much rested throughout the day. It took 13 months (including the taper) to get here. Incredible.

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Month Eleven and Twelve: Finally Substance Free

Just over a month before the end of the year I had my last bit of caffeine. As the pressure starting building up behind my eyes it didn’t bother me. Because I was making moves to be a healthier, happier version of myself. And that’s some true shit.

I’m doing it. Right now. I’m caffeine free. I’m sitting here at the cafe and doing OK socially.

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Takeaways and Tips

I will say that a year later, the habit of getting high every night still feels very close. Like, yesterday close. And to this day, going to bed sober feels like a major accomplishment.

If you’re a long time user – and, it seems, particularly if you started at a young age – the withdrawal can really suck. There’s no getting around it. You just have to slog on through. However, you will learn many valuable skills along the way.

Personally, I learned that all of the shit in my head was just that: a bunch of shit in my head. It’s a tough lesson to learn that all that life you thought you were living was really just you sitting in a room alone, fucked up; And all the things you know, and think you can control, are not actually real.

There’s also a lot to go through psychologically. Not only are you confronted with the underlying issues that you have been self-medicating into oblivion, you’re also going to realize some uncomfortable truths about yourself. But the thing is, letting go of addiction finally makes learning how to deal with those feelings and changing your character possible.

On that front, accept yourself, learn from your mistakes, and do the best you can moving forward. Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be and create small behavioral changes that move you in that direction. Experience teaches the mind how to be. In time, your daily changes add up to a healthier identity.

Another thing: when you notice patterns in your life that are self-destructive, examine your thoughts and challenge those beliefs.

When I saw that my biggest problem was no longer getting stoned every day, but rather a lack of connection I found the ‘lone wolf’ thing. When I questioned my excessive caffeine drinking, I found that I thought of drugs as the solution to my problems, rather than the cause. Digging up these thoughts and exposing them to the light makes the first steps easier.

Being able to lean on a support network during this time is huge. It might not be easy to make new friends at the moment, but if there’s someonethat will hang out with you and let you be brain-dead in their presence, that’s a win. Just making it out of the house to see and be seen became a great foundation for what came later. Walk, walk, walk.

A lot of us feel lost during the detox. Developing your focus helps. Turn on a timer for 20 or 30 minutes and start cleaning the dirtiest part of your place. Guide your full effort to the task until the timer rings. You’ll build up some brain power and get a little boost from the productivity. Aim for an hour or so per day, total.

In terms of the benefits:

The daily feelings of depression have gone away, as has a chronic anxiety that I did not previously understand. (I used to be so paranoid about environmental toxins that I would avoid going downtown – I was convinced the cars were going to give me lung cancer. Before having children, I projected this anxiety on my relationships and was fearful of commitment).

The other thing with living in a veritable hell-scape of your own making is that when you find your way out of that mess, regular life starts to seem pretty good (maybe so long as you remember how shitty things used to be). It’s a weird thing to have to learn to just be alive and happy.

Of course, not being high isn’t a magic bullet and I have thought in the past that sobriety would be like the best of that life without the downside. Like, life would be as ‘high’ as a drug makes you feel. But the fact is that life is hard sometimes. Rejections, feelings of loneliness, occasional stress about the regular shit ... it’s all there and it comes back around.

I still miss getting high. I do. But all-in-all life is much better without it. I romanticize being able to moderate, but that is not something to even consider anytime soon.

But being able to bring yourself fully to those ups and downs is a hell of a lot better than running from them and continuing to be weighed down by [a heavy blanket] and never improving the things that are [making your miserable].

Connection ... you start to feel good and it makes it easier for you to do good. You can be there for others. Life is good and by being there for others it sure gets a heck of a lot more fulfilling. I’m a big fan of the idea that maintaining your highest level of physical and mental health is the ultimate gift for those around you.

Best of luck to you on your journey. If you need someone to talk to, feel free to shoot me a message. We’re all in this together and wherever you find yourself, someone else has been there done that and made it through to tell the tale.

You got this.




Random Stuff Unrelated

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

Strength is where we help one another to become the best versions of ourselves.

Be like a rock in the storm.

How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?

It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.

Worry not thatr no one knows of you; seek to be worth knowing

Think no vice so small that you may commit it, and no virtue so small that you may overlook it.

Even though we know so little, we don’t realize it, because we tell ourselves a coherent story about what’s going on based on the little we do know.

Hindsight gives us the illusion that the world is understandable.

‘Doing nothing for a time is better than doing something stupid in the moment.’

‘we experience a powerful reluctance to narrow our options – even at the expense of good opportunity.’

Most people, when confronted with something they don’t understand do not realize they don’t understand it because they’re able to come up with an explanation that makes sense based on their own unique perspectives in the world, however limited those experiences are.

If we believe that we are unique, complex, different, with our own story, challenges, and struggles, how is it fair to assume that another person doesn’t share the same level of uniqueness and complexity, with their own story, challenge and struggles?

Letting go of the desire to be understood – p.22 of so you want to talk about race

Don’t worry about what you have to offer. What you have to offer is who you are. That’s why it’s so important to continue to work on yourself.

‘the afternoon knows what the morning never suspected’