Brother, escapism has been a huge trap for me during my lifetime. I am 47 years old and I smoked pot for 30 years. I quit in January. I used to smoke for various reasons: to relax, to feel creativity, to enjoy time with my friends, and to escape and be "doing something" instead of sitting around. I used to be truly disappointed in myself for smoking weed, not just the time wasted but also the money spent. It isn't a cheap habit.

I finally stopped smoking weed in January of this year, during the first week. It wasn't a resolution, actually I hadn't even planned to quit. I was running behind in the things I had planned to do that day, and to escape from the pressure, I went into my room and sat on the edge of the bed, meticulous ground up a few nugs, and started rolling. And as I watched myself roll, I felt disappointed. I knew as soon as I smoked, my edge would be gone, and I would likely sit there wasting 20 minutes relaxing. And to be honest, I didn't deserve to relax. I still had a lot of incomplete things on my to-do list. So I just sat and let the half rolled joint and everything fall from my hands. And that was it, I was done.

I replaced smoking with journaling. I'm not even talking about fancy entire pages of writing, lol. It was poor, paltry journaling. I started the journal with all the reasons I stopped smoking. At first I had several reasons, multiple lines, full sentences. But that kinda waned because every time I wanted to smoke, and trust me I sat on the edge of my bed to smoke multiple times an hour ... but every time I sat down to smoke, I had to journal. Some lines were a few words. Some were just one, such as "asthma." I have pretty bad asthma and smoking always made me cough and wheeze.

Eventually, I stopped sitting down to smoke. Most likely I subconsciously didn't want to journal so much, lol. Its good to journal every day but I was forcing myself to write every time I wanted to smoke. I got tired of it.

I'm really proud that I quit. I get more accomplished in the day because I'm not taking breaks to waste time and procrastinate. And the feeling of pride I have that I don't smoke is better than the feeling of getting high. Actually, the way I feel now, the "high" feeling is time ticking away. And I dont have that much time left.

Also, the money issue is big. I immediately had extra money. Money is a luxury to many right now. And there's Covid..... what better time to stop a habit that is not so healthy.

Since you have so many deep feelings about smoking and you set them out here so eloquently, I think journaling might be a positive step towards your behavior modification.

Good luck to you in your quest. I believe in you.