#this blog is just more focused on weed bc i feel theres a lack of information and content about thc addiction on Tumblr

[goodbyemaryjane]

10 things I learned from 10 months of sobriety

(in no particular order)

1. Feelings can't hurt me as long as I don't do anything self destructive to make them go away. They'll pass - like clouds blowing over the sky.

2. Everything good that I thought being drunk and high helped me do - socializing at parties, making art, emotional intimacy - I'm actually better at when I'm sober.

3. Getting intoxicated was a shortcut (a maladaptive coping mechanism) to silence my self-criticism and shame.

4. It caused more problems than it solved.

5. What I really needed was to practice self compassion and let myself be vulnerable with others sober. Scary, but the rewards are great.

6. If I satisfy my loneliness by getting drunk and high, I will be too busy with my addiction to seek out real love or accept it when it comes. I feel lonely for a reason; if I just keep numbing the hunger, I'll starve.

7. I have to take all of the energy I may spend wishing for others to change for me and just change myself.

8. Withdrawals were uncomfortable but my fear of them was much worse. When I look back, I felt more joy and relief in the first few days than pain. Like swimming in the ocean: once I stopped struggling and just let the current pull me under and toss me around, trusting that eventually I would be pushed to the surface, I knew I would be alright no matter how strange and sick I felt. It was such a relief to stop fighting what I knew deep down was right and true: that I had to quit today - not tomorrow, not in a week - or I'd be using for the rest of my life.

9. Denial is a powerful and terrifying thing. Nobody is too smart to be an addict. If anything, it makes you better at coming up with excuses.

10. At some point you will be more afraid of staying the same forever than you are of changing.