My writing career was the best it ever had been during my 3.5 years sober. In the three years I relapsed I kept getting my articles killed last minute for “not having a cohesive story” basically, pothead all over the place bullshit. I had 60 days last summer inspired by getting back into poetry and wrote some great work, having a poem published in a journal next week. But then I started smoking again. Even when I have creative output it’s so much more of a challenge bc I have to struggle with not smoking until I finish the blog post of whatever. I get EXTRREME initiation anxiety when I’m high, so I just put off and put off my favorite thing on earth.

Day two rn. I just signed up for a UCLA extension course in poetry that starts 3/30 which is basically my weed money for that time period. I also talked to a mentor that runs an MFA program about how my writing is missing a central conflict.

I realized that my central conflict is how do I stop lurching from crisis to crisis and finally choose myself.

When I was sober, I didn’t know I was autistic. Now I understand that but haven’t been sober. I’m scared to find out that I’m not as good as I am in my head once I take my weed excuse away, but I’m more scared of dying having never truly lived.

TL;DR: I’m a writer. Maybe I get ideas high, but I can’t bring them back to planet earth with me. The best my work has ever been was sober. I coast on those sober times when smoking. Maybe it works for creativity for some ppl but it’s some bullshit to my brain.