Day 4 Weed free and struggling

[naturegirl]

Deff and Mr. Prankies, thank you! Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm turning 49. I think I've been reminiscing and missing that fuzzy head feeling. I will write more later, but I wanted to say thanks. Mr. Prankies, I am proud of you. I think the stress of trying to lift my students up has made me miss numbing out my thoughts. I have 32 students now, and it's a lot. But I need to just take it day by day and remember that they're ten and there's only so much I can do. Yet, they're motivated and I know they want to learn. It's easy to want to fall back to old habits and old ways to deal with life. I knew that this stretch was going to get hard. Last time, I caved at 3 months. I will try to stay on track and rethink what got me started in the first place. It is astonishing to me how hard this is to quit. I've been missing that deep deep sleep that I would get with smoking. I'll take some melatonin tonight and see if that helps. I do need to post a bit more to keep me accountable. Thank you again for checking in and I'm so glad that the school year is going well for you. I can do this. I just need to reflect a bit more on why I started in the first place.

[wakinglife]

Hey Naturegirl,

Reading through your thread I was reminded of similar times during my first year weed-free. As a fellow teacher, I can totally relate to your desire to be a role model. It sounds like you really have your work cut out for you (32, with such a high proportion of ELL/ESL -- don't know which acronym you use in Cali). Having a clear brain is a surefire way to step up your teaching brain. If you're ever close to caving, just remember those smiling faces that are relying on you. They need your assistance to reach their full potential. You're making such a positive difference in their lives.

I also wanted to chime in some words of encouragement as a long-time "quitter." It took me MANY attempts to quit, but once I had the right mind set (committed: doing this to improve my life and the lives of those I interact with) it's just continued to be something I stay away from. Probably the closest I came to relapsing was during the first year. If memory serves, it was at around 100 days off the weed that I felt like I could POSSIBLY go back to smoking on "special" occasions. Thankfully, I had kept a journal of my previous relapses during the ten years I'd tried to use in moderation before finally settling on total abstinence from drugs. When I look back, I am so grateful for this forum; quitting weed opened new doors in my mind. Now, after over a decade off the green stuff (now 44 years old), I am getting into excellent physical shape, forcing myself to be more extroverted, putting myself out there (karaoke at an event last weekend, for example), and dealing with my low-level underlying anxiety. I am only now growing into the adult male I have always wanted to become: strong, compassionate, and ablaze with life.

In my own experience, it takes about 6 months to feel totally THC free. One year off will also feel like an amazing accomplishment, and your brain will feel like it did before you were a smoker. Each year that passes after that, it gets just that little bit better, and the cravings lessen to the point that you can almost laugh at them after a few years. You should be very proud of your progress so far, and I wish you the happiest of birthdays and continued clarity and meaning in your life.

I intentionally avoid spending too much time online (causes me to procrastinate and avoid the pile of high school English marking that seems to permanently replenish itself in my teacher bin), but I do look forward to reading more of your well-written posts that get right to the heart of your experience.

Sending you good vibes across the "inter-webs."

Take care,

WL

[naturegirl]

Wow, so it has been a long time since I've visited this forum, and I am ashamed to say that I failed. So much has happened in the past year, and I wish I could be more positive. Teaching was tough. I had a rough crowd. It was too much for me. I could go on and on about my challenges. Finally, I got so stressed out that I caved. I am one hundred percent back to smoking, and I don't have any plans to change my mindset. I feel sad that I am so weak. And I will repeat, I am a weak person. f***ing weak. That's about all I have to say for now, but I will write again tomorrow. I don't know where to begin. I do want to get some thoughts out of my head. Knowing that this is an anonymous site will give me the bravery to confess a few things. I need to talk to someone and I don't feel like I have that in my life right now. Anyway, I hope people are well out there. For those who have maintained their sobriety throughout the year, I am proud of you.
Before I go, Wakinglife, thank you for the thoughtful words. I think that is what I appreciated so much from this site was the honesty and words of encouragement. Hopefully, one day, I'll figure it out. For now, I am not a happy person. I got to get right with myself. Sucks!

[tokeless]

Hi,
Don't beat yourself up for lapsing. You're not weak, you're human. It happens a lot. At least you're honest enough to say you're not ready to change it yet rather than feel jumping back on the wagon is the only option. It seems that stress lead to the lapse? If so, that's where the 'work' is in my opinion. Weed itself doesn't manage stress but your belief it helps deal with it makes the decision the thing to do. Did the stress go or did you just block it/forget about it for a while? Look at the stress in your life even if whilst still smoking, plan how to deal with it differently and once you've identified how, you can then look at stopping again when you're ready... sh** happens, how we deal with it is what counts. You're human... You'll get there but sometimes the journey has stops instead of being an express train.
Best wishes