(Drug Addiction) From the bottom of my heart.

From the bottom of my heart.

It’s been 6 months now, I've been toking it up around the clock. Every day. I've always had a way to get it. Always had some elaborate scheme for money, usually a dark scheme. I never actually worked for it, and rarely sold it. Anyways, this path has been an interesting exploration.

Exploration of a negative perception of life. I reached my personal rock bottom with weed. I used this herb to help numb myself to what I was doing the whole time: Destroying myself. Bringing others down into my mess. And I did, I destroyed myself and destroyed others. Weed didn't destroy me; hell, it did nearly nothing on it's own. I chose to focus in the ways that it made it easy to- negatively. I learned the ways of taking pleasure in a negative life.

Now what? Well now I've awakened. I realize that this is not the type of life experience that I prefer. I prefer to be genuinely positive, and not just positive about negative things. Sure, I considered just giving up and smoking weed for my whole life. There are options here on Earth to pursue that path; places where I could grow more than I could ever use, for my whole life, without any legal trouble. But is that what I want? No it isn't. I can do better than this.

If there's anything I've learned from using weed to help me be more of a piece of shit without feeling it, it's that it doesn't actually work on a permanent basis. I always thought "if I have an infinite supply of weed, nothing else really matters". Well, I attained that multiple times. Infinite supply. All I could possibly use. And guess what, it didn't change anything.

Once you've reached the bottom, nothing can make it ok. All you can do is smoke, and smoke, and smoke. More accurately, dab and dab and dab. Then when you put the bong down, you better throw back some tincture/edibles, or you'll realize seconds later that you still haven't moved from rock bottom. What is rock bottom? For me, realizing that everything is pointless. Including life.

You know those little patterns of thought you develop while high? The whole "well I could do that, but nah no point, fuck it", mindset? Well, turns out that can take hold of everything in one’s entire perception, if one decides to let it. And I did. It was funny at first. The whole "not caring" thing. It was funny until I started seeing my whole life in that light.

To conclude, it wasn't the weed that did this. It was me. I used weed to help me destroy myself emotionally. I could have used any drug, but I'm glad I chose weed. Because now I can stop. I couldn't dig myself "too deep" with weed, it wasn't even possible. Believe me, if it was, I'd know. I feel as though if I reached to something a little stronger, perhaps even alcohol, for my self-destruction, that I would not have made it out of the withdrawal from the substance without killing myself.

My new life begins. June 1, 2016. No more weed, no more dark pleasure. The time has come for true change in my life. It is time to start expressing who I really am; to move past these fears that I've been living in, succumbing to. I deserve a positive life simply because I choose that I do, and I shall pursue it in the way that I know how to. I am ready for this. I've been on my way out of "the hole" for the last three months, and now I'm finally there. The light is right in front of me, and I'm going for it.

Very few people realize the only way to quit is total abstinence, detach from it, say the final goodbye and never touch it ever again, sounds tough? ..It is ! Make sure you don't lose your guard, the danger of relapse will be always lurking.

Weed is just masking reality with numbness, you become indifferent to life and the only thing that matters is more, more and more weed. A downward never ending spiral wave that needs a giant effort to stop it. When finally you decide to quit then you come confronted head on with the critical first hours, the critical first days, the intense withdrawals-the sweaty nights, the intense dreams, the mood swings, the depression of not having a smoke ...the shits we all have been there, the place you don't want to visit again.

Good luck and lots of strength to everybody who's on the path of quitting, it's the hard, confronting and lonely road of recovering from addiction but very rewarding when you start seeing the sober days piling up on your calendar, the first day, the first week and hopefully the six months, the one year and the two years. The feeling going to bed sober, waking up sober, doing the daily chores sober, listening to music sober, Saturday night and sober, the feeling of being 24/7 awake, sober and present is hard to beat.

I just hit yesterday the 10 days mark, might sound a little but still feels as a couple of small steps, still can't sleep well and short memory still not functioning properly -guess some permanent damage there- a grim reminder weed addiction is not a joke ! Slowly life's becoming more extrovert and more social but still need a lot of work to reconnect with the outside world after all these days of isolation smoking alone in my house, it takes time...

Because I also don't drink, now I see how difficult it is to live drug free in a world where drug use is encouraged and socially accepted, almost everybody needs some drug to loosen up, this shows the spiritual poverty of our societies where drugs are used to fill up emptiness.

Must say-thanks to Drugs-Forums, since I couldn't find much support from any institution or people in my place-reading the stories of the handful of people there who've cold-turkeyed gave me a lot of support and strength in my total abstinence effort, I tried quitting numerous times before, unfortunately without success but I'm determined this time I won't make the same “just one puff” mistake. "Once an addict, always an addict", that's why we need to be extra vigilant not to succumb to the tricks of the mind that we have it under control so we can have a smoke.

By the way ! There is never a "danger" of a "relapse" when one is aligned with their decision. One will never "beat" addiction by being hyper vigilant of it. That is the same concept of fighting fire with fire, or trying to scare yourself out of being afraid. It doesn't work. It's not in line with human psychology.

Addiction is something to come into an acceptance of. Realizing why you chose the path to begin with is very important in this acceptance; because typically, "addicts" view their behavior as self destructive. We forget that we were initially just wanting to feel good, or feel relief. After I realized my primary intention with all of my addictive behavior was comfort - I started to ask myself if there might be a more efficient way to achieve that.

Surely enough, I explored meditation and psychology and learned much about how the mind works and how I can work with it. It was a long (maybe not so long in comparison to others) back and forth of exploration between weed and meditation. Which achieved the most comfort most efficiently?

Eventually, I crossed the consciousness/awareness threshold where meditation is most certainly “more pleasurable”. The decision was a no-brainer at that point. I'd honestly never recommend anyone to give up any addiction if they truly feel as though they are leaving something positive behind. Instead to ask themselves what is really positive about it? Is it the drug, or the feeling? We all deserve to feel good, and feel relief when we want to.

I have simply applied my consciousness and made a decision that's in my best interest. Although, I've explored so thoroughly, that that consciousness is not fleeting. I hold a steady, unshakable if I wish, awareness, that what I am choosing is the most pleasurable choice for me. I feel no relapse lurking over me, like I used to, towards the end of my exploration when I "wanted to just be done."

Love yourselves, my friends. Love yourselves out of your addictions, don't hate yourselves out of them !!!

It's time to close this chapter and move on.

This is my story. This is closure for me, for this chapter of my life.

Goodbye MJ,

Thank you for everything.