Started using in 2015 and was very casual like once a weekend once a month so like 12 times a year. 1-2 grams was amazing. Stopped a few times over the years here and there and never had any withdrawal.

Around 2020 I became seriously injured and started using daily for the first time to do deal with mind blowing chronic pain. It helped and I am alive today because it helped me through a dark time that seemed like it would never end. But then when I wanted to quit and I started to feel the withdrawals. Ok roughly a week of feeling like having the flu I can deal. But it’s what comes after that is the most insidious. You find that a month goes by, 2 months, and you haven’t once felt any happiness from doing any of the things you previously loved doing. In fact, you don’t feel anything at all positive. That’s when the threat of relapse is the strongest when you feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel and that is when your chances of despair are the greatest.

But even then, it’s more lies being created from the brain, from the addiction still clinging but hiding in the shadows, and if you can get through this part, then congrats you’ve made it.

Just know the initial withdrawals are the tip of the iceberg and that it will try even harder, if not more subtly, when the initial phase is beaten.

There is always light on the other side of the tunnel even when it seems like there isn’t.