What I learned 2 years without weed, and 6 months without alcohol.

Two years ago today I challenged myself to go one month without cannabis.

I was breaking apart. My shame was at an all time high. I was in an uncomfortable living situation and feeling very, very unsafe.

In an effort to control and transmute my emotions, I once again... was called upon by God to put down my dirty little habit of smoking since the age of 14. Weed was literally so ingrained in my life, my personality, my joy... I sit here today in awe that I actually hardly think about it at all anymore.

I smoked for 15 years.

And that February 1st, 2022, which started as a "one month reset" I knew that I needed, turned into a 3 month challenge, and then a year long challenge, and then the rest was history.

I don't smoke weed anymore.

I don't need it.

Feels good to say.

Feels even better to feel.

You see back when I smoked weed, I had a lot of defenses around me. I had a lot of shame to hide from. I had a lot of pain to bury, discomfort to avoid, and weed among other things was one of the ways that I coped.

I used to talk a lot more.

Now I talk less, but feel more.

Getting sober isn't easy, and I know this probably isn't your typical story of recovery because no, thank you Jesus I never got addicted to hard drugs or took pills. Never got addicted to nicotine, or even alcohol. I was by no means the definition of an alcoholic. Actually, those first 18 months without weed I am grateful I had wine and tequila as a crutch to fall back on through the nights things got especially dreary.

But over 6 months ago now, I also got the call to quit drinking.

So I did.

That was easy - giving up weed was the hard part. And today, I celebrate two years since I've had a hit.

What I've found in my journey of giving up my vices- first weed, then dating, then alcohol... is that it really is true what many spiritual teachers say:

it's not about the drug.

It's not about the substance you're using, or the method you choose to escape with.

It's simply the fact that we're escaping at all.

Addiction is, as I've learned...

anything that takes us out of the present moment.

That's it.

And trust me - after the stripping away of weed, men, and booze... I became acutely aware of my own creative ability to find solitude and escape in just about anything. Now it's that morning routine of going to get my latte, and little caffeine buzz that occupies my mind regularly. Or the thought of going to get ice-cream later, or ordering my favorite food and binging in front of my TV... juicy.

Looking forward to a particular ritual, a ritual I tricked myself into believing throughout the years can actually give me full control over my mood and my emotions, ha.

These rituals ran deep, and I realized they occupied my mind a little too much.

All the things that I've done throughout the years to bring myself comfort, and it's clear to me now there are plenty... but they always took a back seat behind the bigger distractions, such as cannabis.

I don't miss it.

Trust me after 15 years of being a pothead, I've done it all.

Flour, dabs, oils, hash, edibles, bongs, blunts, joints, steamrollers, beautiful glass of all shapes and sizes.

I still come across it constantly, weed is everywhere. And that's fine. Enjoy.

It's not a matter of judgement, or right or wrong. It simply just does not interest me. I can confidently look at a joint right in front of me now and say no.

I know what it does - trust me.

I know what that action will bring me - trust me.

I have been there many... many times.

The growth of an addict is the realization that your comfort zone has grown dry. You're bored, it's old, and while yes you know it will be painful to break free from the habit, suddenly the pain of going through that journey is outweighed by the curiosity to try something different.

For me?

It's the dedication to liberate myself from all attachments.

I like to call that^, my new addiction.

My life has drastically changed since I quit smoking cannabis. And thank goodness I've continued, because I really hadn't seen the full benefits until about 6 months ago, 18 months in.

That's when all other addictions came into the limelight, my consciousness deepened, and I became more fully on-line with my true self and all the thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Whoa-

no wonder I had to numb.

As mentioned above, I see now how it was never really about the weed. (Though it is nice to have healthier lungs and my short-term memory back.)

It was not about weed. Or alcohol. Or men...

it was about my incapacity to sit with myself and my own pain.

I didn't really start until 6 months ago, long after I'd put down the pipe. Because as mentioned above, there's a million other little distractions, traps of consciousness, and addictions all around us we can still use to fill the void. It's just not as easy one might be used to, especially with a relationship to something as delicious and comforting as cannabis.

I certainly went through a journey with food this last year, and caffeine, and social media... God was putting it in front of my face over and over again so loud that I couldn't ignore.

"you're doing it again."

F*ck!

what am I running so voraciously from?

Oh, that's right...

it is me.

The pain that I have felt in my solar plexus this year as I've surrendered and chose to fully give up control, admit I am helpless, and lay on my couch with nothing left to do other than feel this decades-old wound and finally honor it for what it has to teach me...

was intense, to say the least.

Like someone stabbing me in my abdomen over and over again.

I cried, I journaled...

I spent endless nights alone.

But I did my little girl a solid and I finally became the parent I always needed in life.

Going through that pain has created new neural pathways in my brain in which I now have enough positive-reinforcement to anchor in the belief that I can actually sit with my pain now, and be okay.

My capacity to go into the negative emotions, rather than let my brain run to the next distraction is much, much greater than I ever knew possible.

And no-

I don't think I would have gotten here if I didn't quit smoking weed.

But also-

I don't think I would have gotten here if it wasn't for many other mental hurdles and spiritual exercises, beyond just quitting weed.

Read that again.

Just because someone quits a substance, doesn't mean they are recovered.

We are in a world of addiction. A sea of unconsciousness. Most people have something they use to distract themselves away from the present moment, whether it's a mind-altering substance, like drugs, or not.

The true definition of addiction - is, again:

anything that takes us out of the present moment.

That's it.

How present are you today?

Do you really have the capacity to sit with the totality of self?

How quick are you to jump into conversations and fill the awkward pauses when things grow silent?

How tempted are you to over-explain yourself to people when you've already said what you want, and laid out your boundary?

Ahah-

therein lies the root of your healing.

Because the silence to follow is inevitably going to bring you back to that pain. That pain that lives in you but is so smothered and so used to being brushed over, you forget that it's even there. You run your life on a subconscious programming completely surrounded by the need to cover up this pain.

It's a memory, and it doesn't matter whether or not you actually remember where it happened, how it started, or that exact painful picture from the past.

Truthfully, it's probably a plethora of memories and repeated lessons stored inside your spiritual body that got built up over time from primary care givers.

Often times, it just comes down to one fundamental societal wound we all seem to have:

not feeling safe.

We develop a life-long programming of having to compromise our authenticity in order to gain access to safety.

Enough experiences as a young child, especially before the age of 7, of being trained to deny what you really feel, push down who you really are, and bend to the will of the caregivers around you so that they may first feel comfortable, so then they may meet your needs...

yeah,

pretty typical.

Also,

pretty tragic as well.

We all need something to distract us from the soul-shattering pain that is self-abandonment we were forced to experience over and over in childhood... until we lost ourselves completely.

It's as if a life without substance, escapism, and pleasure-seeking could never be possible.

So why even bother.

And so many people along this journey, never fully recover or even gain awareness of their authentic self, who they really are...

and the sad reality of how it was lost.

The greatest gift of my sobriety,

has been her.

Shannon.

My little girl.

The girl whose true wants and needs were denied, so long ago.

Oh gosh - how I didn't know.

I had no idea the depths to her sensitivity, the true power she held all along. I had no idea all the years, decades even, I spent smothering her with cannabis and substances of all sorts... that I was abusing myself over, and over again,

long into adulthood.

long after my parents...

were gone.

Damn.

I'm sorry, Shannon.

But! -

I gotchu now girl,

I'm here.

I hear you, I see you...

and I can no longer ignore in my body when you want or need something. I'll listen now. Fully present, fully online... and fully committed to no more escaping.

The deeper I go into my discomfort, the more I surrender to the present moment, to whatever I am feeling at any given time, no matter how painful...

the more I have uncovered this truth:

Escapism is the greatest betrayal of the self.

On the surface, it only looks as though we are escaping from pain. But in my journey of recovery, the deeper, more tragic truth I've found is that it's not that I was escaping from pain...

it's that I was escaping from her, all along.

#Shayshine ??

If you'd like to talk about addiction, I'm doing a live webinar on this topic tomorrow in my private community on Circle. Sign up here.