1 Year Sober/PAWS

First, I just want to start by thanking all of you for this forum. Recovery from 5+ years of excessive cannabis abuse and PAWS has been the hardest thing I have ever gone through, nothing even compares. I’ve been to hundreds of AA and NA meetings trying to get through it but never found a community that seemed to fully comprehend what this forum does.

What you all describe is exactly what I have gone through: intense waves of depression, anxiety, low sexual drive, inability to feel happiness etc. My sobriety date is Sept 24th 2020 and I can without a doubt tell you my life is SO MUCH BETTER a year+ in. The first 90 days were literal hell… like a special place in purgatory designed just for me. I woke up disappointed to be alive and have to do it all again, but also knew I couldn’t smoke weed anymore. I had a daughter on the way and never wanted her to see me like that. After many mornings of genuine surprise I didn’t relapse, the suicidal ideation has gone away about 90%. Months 3-9 were better but still hell and then somewhere around month 9 the utter misery wasn’t as miserable.

The only analogy I can think of is starting out on fire and the flames are burning at 1000 degrees for the first 3 months then they come down to 800 degrees until they are about 300 degrees by month 9. Does that make sense?

Today, at almost 14 months, I would say those flames are below 200 degrees but I am still uncomfortable, that’s for sure. Something really cool recently happened and I had over a week of feeling decent! Nothing horrific happening in my head at all! But the last week has gone back to uncomfortable but nothing like it was when I started.

I’m so tired of feeling this deep depression and anxiety, days have felt like weeks and I honestly can’t believe I have as long as I do. We just found out we have another little one on the way and that is even more motivation to keep going.

I will conclude by saying I am absolutely positive this will end one day… and that’s thanks to all of you on this forum. Even when it’s hard, it’s so much better than a year ago. There are zero days that are anything like that… just a lot of discomfort and frustration but constant improvement. It’s not always day to day improvement but if I look back at 30 day chunks… I’m always a little better. The bad days aren’t as bad and the better days last longer. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your posts, I hope this can help someone going through weed PAWS. It’s elongated pain and suffering but we CAN get through it.