Okay, so I’ve Quit. What Now?

"When we stop active addiction, even after a long period many people waste energy simply wishing that they could smoke again. Even those of us who have been taught by experience that one smoke eventually leads us back to where we started, are at some point likely to feel deprived by not being able to indulge in the occasional high.

So much has changed in our life. There are huge tangible benefits but there are also things we miss, and there is really only one way that I have found to square the circle.

I start by remembering how young I was when I first started smoking dope, and how quickly I became dependent on smoking every day. I then recall myself as the stoner – the good times, of course, but also the times when I used to smoke just because that’s what I did, that’s who I was. I remember how I smoked not because I enjoyed it much anymore but because weed had become so much a part of me that the idea of even a day without smoking was a terrifying prospect.

I then start to consider how I am now a different person to the younger me that was obsessed with and addicted to smoking weed. This allows me to look forward, to consider my understandable desire to get high as belonging to a former life, the person I used to be, not the person I am now.

Sometimes, like every ex-smoker I have ever met, I will dream at night that I am still smoking. Sometimes I will wake feeling disappointed that it was only a dream; more often I wake feeling relieved. All of this is a natural process leading toward recovery."