Hey, guys! I wanted to share a small milestone with you all, something I haven’t told anyone else.

On August 20th, I hit one year free from the white powder. After nearly two years of daily use, I can proudly say I've been sober from it for a whole year. I’ve been fighting this battle entirely on my own. I never told anyone, not a single friend or family member, until I decied on my birthday last year to stop.

I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I still think about it. My body gets chills, and I feel a dopamine rush just remembering how it made me feel. Certain songs still bring back those sensations, but I'm focus not to relapse. It’s been tough, but that's not enough to pull me back, hope so!

Now, I’m tackling weed, my biggest battle yet after over a decade of use. Hope I'll be back to share good news. Wish me luck!

I just stopped and it feels unbearable. In only a week I lost 7 pounds, and waves of emotions keep crashing over me, even about my ex who is still a close friend today. My mind doesn’t feel like my own, and I’m scared of being trapped in these feelings that are tearing me apart. Nothing brings me joy right now. I sleep only three or four hours, waking up every half hour, and even then I feel restless. I throw up despite barely eating. At night I shiver and sweat endlessly. My body fat is around 9%, so I don’t even understand how my body is still holding onto this THC.

The anxiety is relentless. I feel like my hormones are swinging wildly, with cortisol spiking to the point of explosion. I don’t want to speak to anyone on the phone. I force myself to go to the gym and to work because I have no choice. I even push myself to spend time with my best friend, but even then I feel like a burden. How long will it take before the obsessive thoughts and overwhelming emotions finally begin to ease?

I’m 9.5 months clean, quit due to CHS happening twice…and while I certainly feel better overall I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fucking miss it. Nothing brings me relief or calm like weed did. Ik im better off without it but the thought of sparking up doesn’t leave my head. I miss the tranquility…I’ve tried to replace it w nicotine and alcohol but nothing hits like weed did. I just miss feeling chill and carefree..even though I know I can never again because the CHS will always come back. How do I cope w the feeling of wanting something I can never have?

Life is better than ever! It feels surreal to think about how far I’ve come on this journey and how resilient I am. I’m forever grateful weed doesn’t control every aspect of my life anymore.

Officially my 50th day off of weed! I've been completely done with withdrawals for quite a while now. I almost don't remember what they felt like. Hopefully forgetting how they felt won't make me forget how damaging weed has been for me. I have to say it's not like my life is magically perfect now. When people talk about how great they feel after quitting it's more about how good you feel in comparison. My life isn't problem free, but I got rid of one huge obstacle.

In comparison to how I felt during withdrawals? I feel fuckin AMAZING. Even just feeling normal is terrific in comparison. I'm no longer counting my progress day by day (just sort of loosely keeping track to make milestone posts) I don't think "this is day X of my sobriety" it's just another day in my life.

it’s crazy to me that even though i know weed was a contributing factor to my psychosis, i still crave it like crazy and find it so difficult to quit. i’ve tried it a couple times since and just felt really anxious, but i keep deluding myself into thinking the next time (preferably alone) will be as peaceful and fun as it used to be . anyone in the same boat? i’m scared being so cognitively dissonant is gonna result in a relapse -

It just dawned on me yesterday that my 2 year anniversary of quitting weed came and went last week without me even noticing. It's wild to me that I'm capable of overlooking this kind of milestone considering how much of my time and self-identity was consumed by weed every day for 20 years. I think it's probably a good sign.

Quitting was something I'd been thinking about for years prior to actually doing it. For me, the major impetus for taking that first step was the fact that I began having panic attacks almost every time I smoked, and I just couldn't take them anymore. Leaving on such a bad note has honestly made it somewhat easy to remain sober, and that makes me really look up to those of you who quit while it was still enjoyable. I'm not sure I could have done that myself.

It took well over a year of sobriety to realize this about myself, but I can see clear as day now that weed consumed my life for so many years because it was the perfect distraction from some very overwhelming emotions that I didn't want to or know how to deal with. Getting sober didn't fix any of those problems; in fact, it made them all the more apparent to me. Without weed to numb and distract me from them, however, I've been forced to face them head-on and work my way through them. I did as much of that as I could on my own, and just recently began therapy to get some additional guidance on how to proceed. It was frightening and uncomfortable to face problems that had been shoved to the back of my mind since my late teens, but I feel so much lighter and capable now having done that.

My life has improved in many ways since quitting. I've placed a higher priority on my physical health, I have more energy and time to dedicate to my wife and son, I've made meaningful connections with new people, my mind feels so much sharper, I have a lot more emotional clarity, and I've begun working toward a long-time goal that I gave up on 20 years ago. I returned to college full-time right after I quit, and next year I'll graduate with my my bachelor's in biology and embark on a new career in public education.

Although I haven't been active in this sub for the better part of the last year, I owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who posts their stories here. Withdrawals really put me through the wringer for 3-4 months right at the beginning. Being able to read about the similar experiences of others showed me that I wasn't alone in my experience and that better days were ahead. This was truly instrumental in the maintenance of my sobriety. Thank you all so much.

If you're in doubt about leaving, please just do it. It probably won't be very comfortable or easy, at least not at first, but you'll thank yourself down the road.

Hello everyone I hope I can stream together enough of my consciousness to make a semi cohesive post.

I, (30 year old, male) am a successful member of society. I am a nurse practitioner in psych (of all specialties) and I have smoked pot every single day; except when I needed to pass a wizz quiz for a position for ~8 years. 1-5 blunts per day. I smoked all day on my days off and at night when I worked.

At first pot was the thing that helped me cope with life in general. Stressful day, smoke. Going to see parents, smoke. Test tomorrow and need to get some sleep the night before, smoke. It was a great thing for a long time. It is my favorite vice and probably always will be.

Things have changed. Life has become more complicated with the passage of time. Once a drug I could use to have a good time or to fight boredom consumes most of my off time. I just gotta be stoned before I go do this or go do that.

My social life has plummeted. Its not like I dont have friends, I do, but not very many. They are all busy with being an adult, kids, and a career. So I spend most of my days off riddled with boredom and FOMO. Im single. 30 years old. Homeowner. And i live by myself with my two huskies. I have made a great life for myself but pot makes living in the shitty parts of your life okay. So I ignored the part where I was alone, by myself.

I used to have a large circle of friends in college. They all smoked. We had the best laughs and the best times. Hell i was prom king in my highscool....I was always liked and have never struggled with friendships. After college, my circle disappeared. People moved away or moved back to their state they came from. I lost the ability to just walk over to my friends house and hang. College made having a social circle so easy.....However, I must have skipped the class where they taught us "adult" ways to make friends after college. It appears everyone else had that course but me.

I dont know how to make friends as a 30 year old besides asking "do you smoke?". I also recently got out of a relationship and honestly she had most of our social circle so it filled up that void for a long time. Now, the lack of social outlets is weighing heavy on my shoulders.

Friday I was at home alone. Smoking. I get Invited to go out with friends and what do I do...stay home cause im lazy. This isnt the first time...

Saturday night I was rolling my nightly blunt when I decided that it would be my last. I finally see the effects. The changes to me and my life and it scares me. I feel like If I keep going down this path I will be alone for the rest of my life...smoking the pain and loneliness away.

Here is to day one. Im at work and I expect after 12 hours in a psych ward I will want to go home and immediately toke a fat one. Ive decided to go the gym instead.

Here's to being present. Living through the boredom. And finding new passions and people to enjoy them with.

-Your local Shrink

Today is day 60 and I have been struggling mentally to keep going the past few days.
While the first few weeks were tough physically, now I am facing mental challenges. It feels like all the boredom, angst, and emptiness I used to use weed to avoid is all right there still waiting to be felt and moved through.
Getting high is a great escape but it doesn’t actually pay the bill it just puts in on credit until a later date.

Well now I am 60 days in and feeling empty and bored and angst. All I can do right now is make this post to keep getting through it.

Being sober is hard but way easier and better than using drugs. ❤️🙏💪🏼

I’ve found myself really saddened and ashamed of how addicted I was. I smoked daily, multiple times a day for 10 years, and it’s overwhelming realizing how differently it made you live your life. For years I justified my use and even glorified it, I was “the peaceful stoner”, always the one everyone went to for advice while I was silently escaping my own pain. My whole life revolved around my use, for years, and it makes me so sad for my past self. I didn’t even know how bad it was. And now, coping with that realization has been its own grief. It’s like I’ve remembered how precious life is, and I was just numbing it all. How do you cope with this feeling and not spiral into shame and grief every time you think about it?

26M after 8 months of consuming thc in various forms i finally turned sober right before my last year of college. Previously I have used for 2-3 years straight and was able to catch a 5 month break before the 8 month streak started again. Yesterday I went out with some friends and definitely wanted to take a hit of the pens they had but I didn’t because ik I deeply want to be sober. One thing that I have noticed is that things have got louder and faster which is a strange feeling. The thing that’s throwing me way off is that for the past two years I have been training 3-7 times a week and it was way easier to train at 5am the days I’d smoke weed in comparison to now being sober feels like I’m carrying extra weight on my body. I hope I can shake this off because I’m sleepier than ever before.

In my late teens and early 20’s I was a super heavy smoker, i would go meet people to smoke, hook up, wasn’t a great friend/partner and was always out doing something that was not aligned with my values.

i went through some really big trauma and loss in the last 5 years and gained this really big sense of self awareness, desire to improve, and also got sober in the last year or so. i also became really reserved and untrusting of others.

i often miss those times when i felt so free. i’m not sure how to create balance between this self improvement, sober self and the bubbly wild person i used for be. i know this doesn’t 100% have to do with quitting weed, but i thought others on here might relate. how do i create balance, not feel shame over my past? it’s just been hard. i can’t go back to who i was because I’m fundamentally different for good but also sometimes for worse.

i just am looking for others who relate, advice. it’s been tough. I knew i needed to get sober for a long long time and now feel complete conviction that sobriety is best for me and no desire to go back. but i miss those times.

Hi all, I’ve been a daily smoker for the past 10 years, with 9 month breaks for a few pregnancies. I weaned off weed for those times, so I don’t remember feeling anything drastic and would do anything for my babies. I was smoking probably 6-8 times a day, and recently lowered it to 3-4. After that, I decided to cold turkey as I had a trip coming up. Well here we are, on said trip. I last smoked Friday, and today is Sunday night. I think I’m kind of a depressed/anxious person all around, but after going cold turkey I feel like a walking textbook definition of depression. I can’t find joy, happiness, or slight interest in ANYTHING. Old hobbies, new hobbies, sex barely does anything. I’ve scrolled every streaming service looking for a show or movie but can’t watch anything. I can barely look at my phone because it’s just pure boredom. I can’t really explain that one. It’s like even the addictive dopamine scrolling crap can’t peak my interest. I’m at a loss of how to even function. I really am putting on one of those smiley faces to cover my blank stare.

My appetite is low of course. I’m trying to continue working out 3x a week as I have been. Just wondering if this is something everyone/some people experience(s) and how long it lasts. This just really sucks.

Fuck my nipples raw bro. I (27M) have 19 days under my belt. Honestly my brain feels sharper, my word recall is getting better, my sleep quality has improved, my morning nausea is gone, the night sweats and dreams have subsided along with most other side effects, besides some moodiness, but the worst part is just beginning... the boredom. The mother fucking mundanity of day to day life. Fuck me, what a terrible thing. Pandora's box has been opened by my stupid 15 year old self and what am I left with now besides pain in my sober state? Cursed with the knowledge that I cannot be content on it, or off it.

I was naively looking to my quitting weed to help me with my lack of motivation and general malaise, but it hasn't helped so far, I feel the same, and I find myself thinking "this isn't going to fix you and smoking would feel soooooo nice right now", but I have persisted in my sobriety, despite myself. I tried drinking to help fill the void, but alcohol sucks assholes, it's not the same man. I'm almost two years off nicotine and quitting weed has made me crave that poison again, recently, though I haven't given into that either.

I told myself that i'd allow myself to smoke after five weeks, but I know I'll just fall back into my daily pattern, and will continue on this 6 month bender - 1 month break bullshit I've been doing for the last 5 years. Days off are hard without weed. What a terrible bitch marijuana is. Fuck her. FUCK HER AND FUCK THIS.

I continue on this journey, but today was hard.

In the past maybe half of my T-breaks/quitting were because I was dry but with the loophole and my state legalizing it recently, it feels like a whole different ball game. Of course, I've done this before with alcohol and nicotine. Fought the cravings at parties and was still able to have a good time, albeit likely still at least high, I guess I just wanted to acknowledge it to myself and help my self awareness stay on top of its game. As always, any tips and advice/similar stories is appreciated. Stay strong out their friends.

5 days cold turkey and struggling to sleep, but when I have been able to manage to get to sleep, I've been having the most intense nightmares of my life. Any idea when these will subside? It's making an already difficult time almost unbearable at this point Cheers

Day 60, and I am still in the thick of it.

Feeling bored, lonely and unmotivated. The perfect storm for using cannabis.

Waves of cravings are hard, but so much easier than the cravings and toll of coming down and being in the active addiction of daily marijuana.

I am happy to sober and keep going one day at a time.

Last night I had a pretty vivid dream that I was smoking a joint. I have been off weed for nearly 9 months (8 months, 22 days). I was convinced that I had relapsed when I woke up. Ugh, not recommended.

28m here, think I’ve finally reached acceptance that weed does more harm than good for me. I’ve always been a bit of an anxious person and weed was a hit or miss for me whether I’d spiral into a panic attack, but in the past, my other drug use sort of went well with the weed and they balanced each other out. Now I seem to want to curl up into a ball 90% of the time after smoking and sleep the anxiousness away….so I’m done, I can’t do that back n forth stuff any longer.

Long story short, I’ve been through the wringer this year. I used to be addicted to harder things + nicotine but quit both of those several months ago along with getting back into the gym and eating healthier. I can honestly say I thought things were getting better until I completely stopped weed on Friday.

That’s when I realized how much weed was masking my emotions because I’m so freaking irritable at people randomly for the stupidest reasons. I started tapering off slowly last week and already felt the anger…burned a few bridges with friends and almost got fired on Wednesday. HelI… I can’t even genuinely be happy for anyone, not even my best friend. Didn’t realize how unhappy I truly was with my own life until today. I haven’t even dreamed in years until last night and it was one of those weird and scary ones that you burst out of bed, heart thumping. This is all probably structured terribly and I feel like my head is all over the place so I’m sorry to whoever has to read this mess.

Part of me just feels angry at myself for not being further in life at this point and I’m probably also extremely lonely but don’t know how to express it. Been single for 8 years now, just working and going home to play video games has been my life. And now I barely even feel like turning on the PC, would rather doomscroll and sleep. I’m not sure what I want the meaning of this post to be, sort of just venting and putting my story out there in case others can relate, maybe looking for some guidance along the way. Thanks.

Hey folks,

Been on an over 2-month streak after being on/off for a few months and daily smoking for a year+ before that -- wasted so much time and destroyed my brain and ambition, fuck.

So tempted to get a 100 mg edible today since I have nothing to do today or tomorrow and am stuck home due to covid.

Would that be so bad? don't wanna fall off the cart-ridgem.

Here’s what I learned if people around you smoke stay away lock yourself away for the first 3 weeks yes it sucks I did it because my brothers smoke in the same house… get as much exercise as possible tire yourself out so when it comes to going sleep your actually tired I used to hate those sleepless nights sweating because I had no smoke… getting rid of that anxiety talk to people more. In the street in the gym wherever you are be comfortable not being high I smoked so much in the past I wasted 17 years of my life and I used to struggle to talk to people… best part is if anyone offers you smoke just think why did I stop in the first place decline it and be strong we all got to start somewhere if I can stop you can definitely stop I was the biggest pot head going you got this 💪 ❤️

I used to have dreams a lot before I started becoming a daily smoker, and I didn't realize how much I missed them. Today after bartending a brunch shift, I came home and crashed. I had such a good sleep, and within this 2-3 hour nap, I had an intense dream. It's been about 2 months since I stopped smoking. I had massive CHS so I had to stop or I would die. I hope this means that the cannabis is actually leaving my system and I'm recovering. Did y'all ever lose your ability to dream, if so, at what point did they come back?

TLDR; If you’re thinking of quitting as a heavy user, do it sooner than later for the sake of your sleep.

If you’re on the edge of quitting, but deep down you know you need to…

Do it sooner than later.

My story: I got addicted to edibles. I was taking 250-500mg plus, daily. Eventually, I went through a traumatic personal event, combined with my finances, I decided I finally needed to draw a line and quit.

There are a lot of side effects people talk about out when quitting. I experienced all of them to a degree, but the worst one by far was insomnia.

If you browse this sub, you’ll see people saying depending on how much you take, that side affect will last 2 weeks to 3 months at most.

For me folks, it lasted 6 months. I’m a half year sober today, and only in the past 2 weeks have I been sleeping normally and dreaming again.

6 months without sleeping. 6 months tossing and turning….

…6 months thinking I should take edibles again just to fall asleep. Of fighting those thoughts as hard as they were because I knew that would put me at square one.

So basically, my advice is, especially if you are a heavy user like me, start sooner rather than later. It will suck at first. No sugarcoating it. But I love waking up with genuine energy now for the first time in 4 years.

I quit cold turkey back in June and I’ve just been bedrotting, binge eating at night and not getting an ounce of exercise.

Doom scrolling my days away, just feeding my cats, laying in bed all day long, and boom. It’s already SEPTEMBER. i quit back in JUNE. Whole summer wasted.

I will say though, thanks to sobriety- I am feeling really fucking fed up with myself and it only pushes me to want to do better, like asap. My plan right now is to find a job (ive been unemployed for a while now) go hiking at least 4 times a week and go on a walk everyday, and explore new hobbies/interests.

I know setting a routine and schedule to follow everyday is definitely the first step but how do you truly achieve self discipline? Do you gain it by following a set routine and keeping up with your word everyday? Honestly i’m losing all control of my life right now and my brain keeps saying “Hey at least u quit smoking” like ??? Okay girl life doesnt just end there, you gotta start living and move forward. Im so sick of myself lol

Oh, and i also started therapy last week so there’s that too.

To my fellow bleeders,

After you quit, was your period different? I stopped about a month ago. Just got my period and it’s like…really different. This might be gross but it looks like boogers now, whereas before it was just like, blood.

Sorry if this is TMI but I can’t think of anything else that would have changed it? Confused. I’d ask my gynecologist but I just moved and don’t have a new one yet.

Thanks!