It feels good to meet my goals. To achieve what I set out to do. Today I celebrate that. A successful completion of a 40 day cannabis free challenge.

I started using cannabis when I was in high school. It was a novelty at first. A fun thing to do every now and then when other people had it. And then I started buying it to get high with friends. And then I started buying it to smoke on my own.

It was a quick relief. It would transport me to an altered state, and facing overwhelming sadness that was welcome. I remember being in high school. I would come home from school, sleep, play guitar, and smoke weed. A bit of a vicious cycle.

As I began practicing meditation I started to value discipline more and more and would try limit my intake. I also started feeling huge amounts of guilt about the substance abuse. I’d feel that on and off. Speaking honestly, I still do.

I went through periods of extreme discipline, followed by periods of relative debauchery.

I once had a band called Toke 2. The joke was that we’d smoke before during and after. It wasn’t a joke though.

My relationship to cannabis would cause a lot of guilt. Eventually, the high would come with a lot of anxiety. I’d overeat and oversleep too. I became very aware of how negative the substance was for me.

That being said, I would still use. It is, it was, it can be hard to say no.

And so this completion is a beautiful celebration for me. It is a commitment to my health and strength and will power. And it is with a smile that I cross this finish line.

I’m not sure where I stand now. Part of me would enjoy smoking. I’m glad that I have the option to, but I’m not in a rush. It’s not like I’m waiting for the first chance.

I still feel like I’m better off without it. But I’m okay to have it in my life. Getting to this point I wonder what my relationship will be going forward. I may fall right back into old habits. I may not.

To be honest, I didn’t really have a single craving for the substance while I was sober. I did experience a couple desires to join friends that were smoking around me once or twice. But it wasn’t so much a craving of the high as it was smoking with them.

I’m glad that the forty days happened. I’m glad that I have written from a place of sobriety. I notice a lack of cohesion in my writing when I am high. It is more fragmented. More random.

I’m happy with myself. Not only have I been free of the smoke, but I’ve been exercising and am in great physical shape.

I wonder if I should continue the rejection, or give into desires. I think a lax attitude will serve me well, but it is such a slippery slope, and sometimes it is easier to just say no all together than to say no selectively.

I’m not too stressed over it. I feel like I will handle what I’m faced with.

A part of me is thinking, you made it to the 40, why not just push a bit further and go to the 66. I like that idea, but I’d also like the freedom.

Anyways, you can see that the issue is unresolved. And right now I’m okay with that.

Today I am proud of myself, it is a much better feeling than guilt and shame.

People challenge me to go into my shame. To see where it comes from. I wonder if they are trying to get me to justify my drug abuse. Sometimes I think the shame is an indicator that I am doing something that I really don’t want to be doing. I wonder if smoking one joint will produce shame? Or maybe 2? What about 10? Where is the line? Am I capable of approaching but not crossing?

I’ll tell you, the joy I feel now of exercising my discipline is better than any high that the cannabis can give me right now. I think that may hold my answer. But I may be afraid to confront that just yet. The 40 days had been somewhat easy because there was an end in sight.

Now that I reach the end, and wonder if it’s really the end, or just the beginning, I have a brand new challenge. How to hold myself in this new world.

Time will tell.