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Ok, so back again with an update. Last post I mentioned starting from there that I will stop weed other than once a week on a Friday. It's been about 2 full weeks since then plus into the third week 3days in so about 2 and a half weeks. I have been doing ok, wouldn't say great though, as it's obviously not the easiest thing to do.

The first 'week' relapsed quite a bit smoked 4/7 when meant to b 1/7. Still an improvement on the 100days+ straight before that.

The second 'week' relapsed the same 4/7 but I thought at least I'm getting somewhere.

The third 'week' which is this week will hopefully be better still, I relapsed on the Saturday (doh!) but since then nothing and am not anticipating smoking at all till Friday, which means this week will be 2/7, I'll update whether this came true or not, but I think I am slowing gaining more mental control over things.

Also during the last week I decided to quit cigarettes for good, and moderate my alcohol intake ie quit other than in a social scene, not me getting trollied every night (at least 10 beers/shots etc) before I got stoned. Good thing is that tomorrow I will have gone 7 days without smoking or drinking even a drop.

Usually in the past when I have tried to quit weed (ie the past 2 years) I have just substituted it for alcohol and like mentioned by others in earlier posts, this is not quitting anything as I am just passing the addictive mindset onto another substance.

During these last couple of weeks there have been so many side effects from chronic insomnia, anger, angst, anxiety, tachycardia (rapid heart beat especially at night), sweating, headaches, not to mention the standard cravings for the drugs, coughing, which is my body trying to expel the tar and that sort of thing from my lungs, lack of apetitie, overall malaise, crazy crazy vivid dreams/nightmares the whole night (from the weed mainly I think, has happened before). For anyone here with the same issues I have found doing exercise, in my case running helps A LOT. I can actually feel the weed toxins sweating out of my forehead. (no I'm not crazy ) and I also feel more calm and less agitated. It feels as though recently my body has been hyper-agitated (if that's even a word) not having any depressants to calm it down.

It must seem stupid to go through some of this all over again every Saturday (after smoking on Friday), but I'm pretty sure that once a week will not be in my body enough to cause those symptoms above, and that It's the fact I've never really stopped at all for a couple years now alcohol included that's probably catching up on me, so I'm hoping these withdrawal side effects will slowly ease off even with myself drinking on occasion and smoking once a week. Well that's the plan anyway .

Yes weed is illegal where I'm from and doing it even once a week is illegal, and I guess not exactly how a good person should act but I find the legal/illegal arguments too clouded by political forces to be correct/incorrect so not really looking for any comments on that side of things.

I haven't been to a meeting, I looked them up even found out where the buildings where, but like stelow said, I'm not really sure if they are right for me, especially in the city I live and the other people attending at the meetings... I am trying through just mental strength (mine isn't the best), and through the support of my partner, another friend and this forum. It seems to be going ok, I always expected to relapse, as that was the case on all previous attempts at quitting my extreme use. This time I just thought I'd accept the relapse deal with it move on and try again the next day. It has been working for me.

On a side note, being off these substances has really opened my eyes to the world how large it is how wonderful and diverse it is. Especially nature seems to be almost magical. I guess God is within all these things and I was stupid to be clouded and missing out on all the world has to offer locked in a room drinking and smoking till I died I guess, I didn't even have a job due to the recession and that kind of made things worse as you can do that all day everyday and you never have to be sober or anything to face anyone or anything.

Thanks for the help so far.

Well here I am again. Third week ended. I did what I said, after saturday I didn't smoke cigarettes drink or smoke weed untill Friday. Had some bad news about a job, I was meant to go to the trial Friday morning, then Thursday night they called me saying they had better candidates, not the best news to have the day before I smoked, as the main reason I used to smoke so much was to try and get away from problems. I could see this at the time but went ahead with Friday anyway, it ended with me smoking weed, [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]ing off my friends, I even got into a fight with a main friend of mine, I'd made a fool of him in front of a few people, I thought was funny and harmless I guess he didn't think so, it ended with him tryna nail me, although I didn't fight I'm not really into physical violence against other people, I still got what I deserved, I just left, but this was all after/during the day of smoking weed. So I went home, smoked some more, got up today, and just couldn't take the immense headache/highover, so ended up smoking all day today, and even bought a bottle of wine to down, back to the old ways, I hadn't even drank a drop for 11 days.

I can see that you all are right about it not being good still smoking once a week.

I am just here now to say that I will take that advice, and next time ie tomorrow when I wake up even with a headache from the drugs I won't go back onto it. I can see that the once a week doesn't work due to the fact that the day after you feel totally crap and want to relapse. I get stronger everyday after the fact, and the funny thing is there has been a major urge for the last 2 weeks as I got closer to Friday that I wasn't keen at all, because I knew inside on that Saturday morning it was like hell going through all the motions again. I can see that quitting totally is the only way now. In regards to alcohol, having a beer or two going out with friends isn't a problem, and I personally don't like it when people abstain fully because of a past addiction as there are too many reasons/positives for moderate use, but on the weed side I think that's it, same with cigarettes, although I have no reason at all to go back to smoking.

I'm still not sure about the meetings, I know you'd like to say that it is very important me going to these meetings, and like I said before in my city, I don't think it's the best idea. The meth epidemic here is unreal and those meetings would only put me in a worse place, I can have 'meetings' with my partner who can support me and provide the same sort of help as the NA meetings.

It's been a long three weeks but I'm glad that since I started I've made progress and had more days clean then the rest of the year combined. You might think I told you so etc, but I find finding out for myself is more real, making the mistake is more real than to just accept others opinions. I have seen it now, that once a week is not a good idea.

Dan, still trying.

I can see it won't work in the way that I wanted it and also it shouldn't. Because even once a week is still in a mindset of addiction. I have now decided to just stop. I'm still not sure whether to go to meetings, but I'm considering it, I see what you mean about the meth vs std hospital analogy, I guess I just thought many would be there not because they want to be but because the court made them go, and that being the case might do me more harm then good being around them, but I'll look into it again. Things are already better I had a few bad things related to jobs happen and almost went back to the old ways, for a week there I was just having a wine bottle or more a day and half a 50bag. I could see when I was in it was was happening, but did it anyway. It's been over a week since I stopped that destructive pattern and am feeling better again. Especially without the weight of knowing I am going to smoke again on Friday and having to go through the motions all over again. I'm having to distance myself from a lot of my friends that still smoke, because they are not really helping at all, but I still have other people I know who don't do drugs, and visiting my family and relatives more often also helps.

What are some good passages in the bible dealing with mental strength ie holding out against these addictive thoughts and actions. I need some help with this, I'm on the right track just need to stick to it.

Daniel

It's been just over 2 months since I last posted, for the rest of October I didn't do so well, but at least cut down the amounts I bought from average $100-200 to $20-50. I did well the first half of November keeping the purchases to a minumum and only smoking half the days, but went a bit astray during the second half by smoking most days. December has been the revelation and that is why I finally have confidence to come back on here to explain what has been going on. I stopped on the 2nd of December and haven't smoked since, that is still not that long but it is the longest I've done since I've started smoking. And on top of that obviously haven't bought any since November 23rd, almost a month now, and at the same time as quitting weed I said I'd stop cigarettes and drinking everyday, because I usually just substitute drinking with smoking weed. I now only drink in a social setting, not at home everynight, and even when I do drink it's like half or even a quarter the quantities, and cigarettes are gone fully. I won't smoke weed for the rest of this month, and then will think about revisting it in a small way as in once or twice a month and now that I can see I can stop and have been able to I think I will surely be able to stick to that and not lapse back into the daily routine of drinking and getting high. Thanks for the help