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Nerd in Transition: On the Wagon (Again-Again) [BEST OF FaN]

Originally published 02/24/11

I’m back on the wagon. That’s right I fell off again. I spent December through most of February stoned. It started slowly with me trying to control my smoking only to quickly spiral down into my full on addiction again. Thankfully I had set up some safety traps along the way that helped stop the cycle early.

When I started drinking shakes as a way to lose weight it was just that, a way to lose weight, but what I was really signing up for wasn’t the shakes, it was the personal coach. Each week I send in my food log and each Monday Krissy and I talk on the phone for about half an hour. Her focus is my diet and exercise and that is the way it should be, yet my focus is the complete package. Forcing myself to admit to my negative eating behaviors, many of which are intensified through smoking weed, gave me reason to start exercising control over what goes in my mouth.  In order to do that I had to stop smoking. Without even realizing it Krissy has become an unwitting make-shift sponsor.

While working from home may seem like a stoners dream, it has been a part of my addiction nightmare. It’s easy to let my addiction convince me that I can mange a full time internet job from home while being stoned all day. Yet it  was only after I got multiple angry emails and IM’s from my boss that I realized I cannot be high and expect to accomplish a very simple job. If I want to hold on to my health care and regular paycheck I had to let go of the joint.

Friendship is already a difficult endeavor for me, so locking myself in a house all day while watching reruns of The Office wasn’t helping to foster already tenuous relationships. I am pretty sure I lost at least one person in this latest relapse. Every time I let my smoking take over I lose a friend or two and I don’t have that many to begin with. So I put genuine effort in to going out, or even just returning emails, whatever I needed to do to stay on the good side of people. Like I said though I do believe I have lost a friend this time and I’m just tired of that happening.

Maybe the biggest thing that saved me this time was my dogs. I still have three dogs and they MUST be walked every day. These stupid creatures get me out of my house daily forcing me to interact with people, even if it’s just a passing nod, at least I was stepping out of a fabricated world. Being stoned all the time makes me a nasty bitch, I rarely have anything nice to say. So when I would go out it became more and more important to be nice and polite. Everybody in the neighborhood knows me, I’m the only white chick walking a dog here to begin with, but walking three dogs at once? I’m a circus act. So people want to talk to me. Every store clerk knows me on the main drag. I have to be nice, more importantly I want to be nice.

As if these weren’t enough I’ve become very selfish regarding my happiness. Simply put I want to be happy. The constant flow of THC in my blood stream makes me angry, paranoid, easily irritated and desperately depressed. The only cure is to remove the THC, that happens with the removal of all marijuana from my house. Without it I become witty, pleasant, focused and happy. Imagine that, being happy without trying.

I’m incredibly optimistic about my recovery this time. I just feel like I’ve seen enough of both sides to weigh the issue fully. On the one side is a dark empty room where I wallow in anger and depression, leaving my dogs to grow bored and fat. ON the other side is happiness, opportunity, friendship, playful puppies, good health and so much more. Really I don’t ever want to smoke again. I’m just ready to move this transition forward and I’m ready to never write another addiction blog again. Wish me luck!