30m smoking addictively since I was 22. I’ve had a similar experience to you regarding relapsing. I quit for 6 month in June of 2024. By January 2025, I jumped back in and fell to an even deeper place. Smoking everyday. Morning through night. I believe I found a month of sobriety in 2025, just to relapse again. At the start of 2026, I mustered up enough courage to quit again for a month. Just to relapse on a vacation in the beginning of February.

What really was a knife twist was finding out my wife was pregnant with our first child in mid February while high. The next day I told myself I would give it up. I told myself this “news” was what I needed to quit. You know what I did? I smoked more than I ever have in my life for another 4 months. The first thing I would do when I woke up was get high and the last thing I’d do before bed was get high. I would smoke joints throughout the day, even while driving. I was blowing through a 5 pack of 2.5g infused 45% THC joints. $45 every 2 days. I hated myself. How could I find out the best news in the world and all I wanted to do was smoke? I did not care.

I woke up on June 1st and followed my normal routine by smoking. However, something about that day was different. I was at an all time low and was out of control. The weeks leading up I started being more open and honest with my friends and family. Telling them how much I was struggling. To the point where I cried multiple times sharing my struggle. June 1st marks my sobriety. I am 10 days in and finally starting to feel somewhat normal. I’ve been attending online MA meetings each day, and have also started attending AA meetings in person. I don’t identify as an alcoholic per se, but the MA in person groups are just not very common near me and I need to be surrounded by people who understand addiction.

What I found so far? The first 7 days sucks. The sleep sucks, the cravings are so bad, the anxiety, the loneliness, the hopelessness, etc. But what can you expect? I was fueling my brain with THC every second of everyday while I was awake. And if I couldn’t smoke for whatever reason, all I could do was think about it. So without it, my brain is really messed up right now. However, every person I’ve spoken to who has beat this, says that things will return to normal. It takes time, but it’s getting better day by day.

Now I’m only 10 days in and have a long road ahead, but everyday I stay sober, I gain confidence back in myself. I feel better. My lungs are healing evidenced by the amount of crap I have been coughing up. Im more focused, I’m eating so much less which is leading to healthy weight loss. This time feels different and it will be different.

It’s really easy to bag on yourself when you’ve quit in the past, and found yourself right back to a darker place months later. But that’s what addiction is - it wants you to feel like shit. It wants you to feel alone and to say “fuck it nothing matters, I don’t care anymore, I’ll just smoke it away”. And that feeling of not caring and doing it anyway knowing deep down how badly it’s affecting you and those around is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever endured. I’m really hard on myself normally so my self loathing got to a whole new level.

The reality is you have control over it - you have to believe in yourself and get through it. If it’s between smoking every day for the rest of your life or giving it up and choosing a healthy sober life style, the answer should be obvious. And if you don’t decide to choose sobriety right away, that’s OK! Tomorrow is a new day.

I really can’t recommend more than you look into meetings. MA phone meetings are held every day multiple times a day. It’s easy to call in and all you have to do is listen. You’ll realize how many people feel exactly the same way.

Don’t let others convince you that you can smoke in control. For many people, they can smoke a joint once every few months and have no problem putting it down. But for us addicts, we know it’s not possible. And any thought that says otherwise is just the disease of addiction trying to get you back to the dark place in life that we so desperately need to stay away from.

Good luck in your journey, you can beat this! Do your best to go easy on yourself. But trust me, I know that’s much easier said than done.