I’ve been taking the Stop Overdrinking course for a week and I really love it. I have a bunch of questions about my personal situation (because I’m a special snowflake) and I’m having a hard time separating the facts from my beliefs; any coaching and insights y’all have are welcome!

My goal is to decrease my desire for weed and food so that I’m no longer buffering, while having the freedom to use these things when planned on special occasions. I currently use pot to relax nightly, I’m a new mom with a full time 9-5 job that I love, and when I’m done for the day I like to unwind with a bowl on the back deck. I feel like I need weed to relax, but I am learning how to relax with other techniques like meditation and thought work. I don’t think I can fully relax without weed just yet though. I also use pot when I’m bored, frustrated, and/or upset as a way to numb from the intensity of these feelings.

When thinking of the question “Do I like my reason for smoking” I have to think no, but it doesn’t feel it’s like a choice at this point. I really do think I need pot (or food) to relax. I feel like I’m resisting most urges instead of allowing them, I’ve accumulated 13 allowed urges in the 5 days that I’ve been following this program, and am starting to get the hang of what it is to “sit in the discomfort” and not think that something has gone wrong which has helped.

Does pot really help me relax – the answer is yes, but it’s temporary. It causes “discussions” with my husband (who is a recovering alcoholic currently in AA for 6 months), of which are NOT relaxing. Weed makes me fuzzy headed so I can’t focus on reading, which is an activity I like to do to relax. I get too tired to do yoga and I’m constantly fighting off the “munchies,” so that leads to feelings of frustration and depravation; which also aren’t relaxing.

Do I want pot to be responsible for my relaxation? No, but I don’t think I can relax without it. I’m so tense in my daily life (riddled with anxiety of raising a toddler, being a good wife and mother, and struggling with addictive/buffering behaviors) — look at that. I can’t quit drugs because I’m too tense from dealing with addictive behavior… oh the mind is so funny sometimes!

A new thought that I’ve uncovered just yesterday is the “belief” that I have to smoke in order to be on the deck (it didn’t occur to me that I can just sit on the porch with a lemonade and good book, apparently). Whenever I look out on the backyard, I notice that I have a strong urge to smoke a bowl, so I’ve started doing other things on the deck like working and reading, so as to disassociate the deck and smoking. So the reason I smoke is to relax and unwind from the day. Does this mean I shouldn’t smoke after work because I associate the end of the day with smoking?

My current meal plan is on weekdays to smoke one bowl after 8pm – after I’m done eating for the day and my son has been put to bed. On the weekends (this is my first weekend) I think I’m going to have one bowl in the afternoon (probably around 3pm when I’m pulling weeds in the garden – another fun stoner hobby of mine) and then another one after 8pm after kiddo is asleep. I have a thought that a good mom doesn’t smoke weed, so I feel less guilty smoking after he goes to bed.

I feel like my life without pot would be incredibly boring, and like what’s the point of living a life that’s so dull? I think that I’d be a tense ball of anger (I can be a bossy-pants control-enthusiast) without my nightly smoke break. In the recent past, I smoked a bowl as soon as I got out of work, all evening and all weekend. Is my current plan too lax or strict? I have strong black-and-white thinking patterning, so I have a tendency to go way too strict, get all pissy and all rebellious, then fuck it and quit. Then beat myself up for quitting and re-resolve to do the whole cycle again on Monday. And so forth.

So that’s my special snowflake story; any insights or guidance are so very welcome and appreciated! I really appreciate the advice in advance.