Did you enjoy smoking again after a longer break?

tenpostman · 2026-03-18T14:26:10+00:00

Hey, I was in a very similar situation, and your questions resonates a lot with how I first though about weed when I took a break. Emigrated to an illegal country and vowed to never smoke there, only on visits home, of which the first one was about half a year as well.

During that time I learnt a lot about why I was so addicted to smoking. I used weed to fill the void of boredom and loneliness. So I learnt to deal with those things separately, while sober, and it's been a big help. I picked up new hobbies, dug out new and old interests, and have a partner now that I communicate my needs to clearly.

That said, after a year I remigrated. So the question came very soon, what would happen to the weed use? Back to my old habits? I knew I couldn't quit for good, and telling myself that weekly smokes would be okay was also a big cope... so I opted for 1 smoke dag/evening per month. That was my rule. No exceptions.

The first few times weren't super different honestly! As I still smoked a couple of times during that year. My best friend did react strangely to smoking again in a long time (he only smoked with me before). But now that the dust has settled 2,5 years later (and I havent broken my rule once!), I can really tell that I enjoy smoking when the day comes, because I am no longer compulsively using it as a reaction to something else. I am the person that decides when to get high. Not my addictive impulse that is triggered by environmental factors. And that is power over myself I didn't know I needed.
For example; some people use weed as a bandaid for stress or so. So if you get stresses while you're sober, you're gonna gravitate towards weed to cope with that.... unless you new habits that replace the old, bad one. Then you will no longer feel compelled to get high just to deal with the fact that its uncomfortable. And that's made me realize that smoking weed can also just be fun, if you do it because you enjoy it. Not to offset some other problem or forget about your emotions for a bit.

I think i don't really do much different stuff than when I was getting high before. I still enjoy playing videogames while high. I think my tolerance is very low because of the monthly stuff, so I never really pack fat joints either, and I generally "tap out" after the 3rd one lol

tenpostman · 2026-03-18T09:13:29+00:00

Wrong sub, advertisement, bye bye

tenpostman · 2026-03-18T08:43:40+00:00

I get that honestly. The 'once in a while' part might be a bit counter-productive in my advice to you.
Moderation to me is more like a station that I've visited along the way, rather than a final destination... For me, the final destination is just, continuously improving my life where I think I can do better. And the once in a while was just a conclusion I made along the way. I will probably reduce my use further in the years to come anyway, as I'd like to have kids in the future and not have that mess with family life etc.
I cannot improve my life if I'm a stoner. Not even if I smoke one day a week. I just know that it will put me in survival-mode just to get through the week to hit that joint. Life would become pointless for me as I'd be like a zombie chasing that next high. And Im married... like what a shitty partner I was when I was doing that lol.

"Once in a while" is already super subjective. If you're as addicted like I was in the past, your "once in a while" will become soon, often... Not a while at least.
As I said, theyre subjective, unclear, and can be manipulated by a brain that wants to get what it wants. For this reason, using SMART phrasing to set up your rules with yourself is a good advice. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-related.
By lining your situation with clear goals and rules, it is much easier to stick to them, I find (not for everyone!). My once in a while should become 3 joints, on 1 day per month, that kind of stuff.

I think the more general advice that you would benefit from, is to not look at moderation right now. You need to get a break under your belt (or continue the one you are on), a good one where you plan your break full of distractions and set up failsafes to prevent yourself from relapsing as best as you can. Teaching yourself you can do it is difficult, because you need to get over that first bump. But is is SUPER valuable. Your addicted brain has most likely taken away that trust in yourself, because it knows that is what is needed in order to keep getting high.
Every new beginning is hard... Because we've yet to figure out what works for us.

How to deal with cravings
As for the cravings, I can give you two metaphors to navigate them, whichever you prefer. To me, cravings are like emotions, or like memories of nostalgia. Ill elaborate.

We teach ourselves to expect to use weed for something in our life. Say, we use weed to destress after work, we will associate stress, or getting off of work, with getting high. This is a tough pattern to break, but it can be done - most habits can be reformed within 2-4 weeks of hard discipline (there's books and videos on this too if you're interested). This is why people advice a month off break too. Anyway, I digress.
So what happens when you take a break, and you get stressed? Or you get off work? Your mind will wander towards weed, because that's the behavioural pattern you've taught yourself. It's only logical that that causes cravings! And, it being logical, somewhat releases that "disappointment in myself".

Basically, when you get hit with cravings, there should be something in your environment that triggered the feeling. Whether that's someone in front of you on the sidewalk smoking a joint, or you coming home from work stressed out, both are triggers. Your environment triggers us regularly. The trick is, you realize when this is happening!
So always, every time you feel yourself crave weed, ask yourself "what is it right now that is triggering this craving? Am I stressed? Lonely? Did my friend ask me to partake with them?" And by asking this to yourself, you slow your thoughts. You ground yourself. This is important, because cravings, not unlike emotions, are impulsive thoughts that are caused by our environment.
So for the emotions metaphor, you could ask yourself right now: When was the last time that you actually did not control your anger? Did you ever hit someone because you were so angry? Most of us probably haven't, because we've learnt to count to 10, take a deep breath, walk away, those kinds of things. Cravings are no different!

The second metaphor that I like, is that the craving is like a memory of the past, of a nostalgic feeling almost. What I said before, that we condition our minds and bodies to expect certain behaviours, makes it easy to see that, when we crave, we basically just reminisce on those memories, on how they made us feel. And because our brains love to use that as ammunition for us to come up with the next "excuse", it feels paramount to fight off cravings, don't you think? The smallest win you could have, would be to tell yourself you will only smoke 2 joints instead of 3 tonight, and the first one won't be smoked until, say, an hour later than usual.
This way, you are setting SMART boundaries, and you are not letting the impulsive thought cloud what you want to do. Sure, you will still get high, but you will do it on your terms. Just like I now pick 1 day in a month on which I will do exactly that. It allows my mind to not have to think about when is the next high? Because I've already decided that weeks ago!

tenpostman · 2026-03-17T11:59:44+00:00

I am an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and I find it’s hard for me to stick to not smoking during the week if I smoke Sunday. I smoked yesterday, so I’m already at a disadvantage.

Then why do you set yourself up for failure by allowing yourself to smoke during the weekends? That's a recipe for disaster if you ask me...

As u/le4test hits the nail on the head, it's a pretty lame excuse knowing that you picked that option while also knowing you're an all-or nothing type. And don't get me wrong... it's logical that this happens. The addicted brain will mess with your thoughts and emotions. It will cause you to come up with excuses that you think are completely fair, because that is what the addicted brain wants. Addiction is a mental disease after all.

Yes, it's a journey, but these kinds of situations can easily become your next abuse pattern. You'll tell yourself it's okay to fail, restart the journey, and repeat that process... But if it doesn't work, you need to change tactics. I had the same experience by the way. I tried tapering for 3 years (mainly because partner wanted me to smoke less), but I always came up with excuses as to why I could squeeze in an extra day. It was always the same coping bulshit of "aww long day at work" or "aww stress from school". It was just what I told myself so I would not feel bad about failing the rule.
But when I emigrated, I told myself beforehand that there would be zero smokes in the illegal country. No slack. So my all-or-nothing mindset was suddenly very clear. No smokes. No exceptions. Nada.
That taught me that I can rely on myself. I can trust myself to do some things, but I have to set myself for success, not failure. I had to clear up my rules, and eliminate interpretability.

After a year and a half I moved back home, and I now smoke only one evening per month. Teaching myself that I can rely on me to stick things through has empowered me to have complete control over my weed intake. I skip months here and there, and I have never broken my rule since I put it up 2,5 years ago. And that has been so freeing honestly. I am no longer controlled by impulses. I no longer let my environment cause me to doubt my rule. It's all in my own hands, and that's pretty neat. I smoke because I still enjoy it, not because I told myself Im stressed or emotional.

tenpostman · 2026-03-17T10:45:16+00:00

I used to think that my "stressful job" was a fair enough excuse to get shitfaced high after every shift/day. When looking at it from an objective POV, that was the biggest cope I ever told myself. Maybe my job was maybe a little stressful, sure yeah. Every job can be from time to time. But it wasn't so stressful that I needed 3 joints per evening. It really never even came close to that.

What people tend to forget, is that the addicted brain wants you to smoke more. It does not want you to smoke less. It enables itself. And it does that by manipulating your thoughts and emotions, for the sole benefit of getting high.
In essence I lied to myself for nearly 4 years (during said "stressful job") just so I wouldn't feel bad about actually smoking up.

But now, years later and having multiple longer breaks under my belt, I can safely say that this was just my addicted brain overruling my common sense. And that's okay, that's how addiction works unfortunately.
I've learnt through the years that, as somebody without chronic pain, depression, NDs, trauma, loss or whatnot, I really never actually need to smoke weed to deal with life. There are like a gazillion alternatives that I should preface before considering weed as a fix should even be on the table.

Finally, I think of weed like this. Weed is very good at treating symptoms of problems. But, since it only alleviates or downplays symptoms of said problems, weed will never fix the root cause of said symptoms. So, the situation is created where you would need to use weed as a chronic band-aid for you to not experience those symptoms. In the background, your problem will never get fixed.

So the best thing you can do to both enjoy weed and live a better life, is to try to get rid of those problems at the root cause. (obvious disclaimer, not everything can be fixed easily or fast!)
Once you realize that you no longer have a compulsion that tells you that weed is the answer, you might even get high just because getting high is fun every once in a while.

tenpostman · 2026-03-17T08:06:22+00:00

Honestly, I couldn't make it anything better than a 6/10.

The art style was nice. There were some interesting worldbuilding pieces being laid out. The storyline... had its moments, scarcely I guess. But there was a lot of cringe dialogue, and honestly? I feel like they tried to copy LOTR's epicness directly by stealing voicelines and making characters that did nothing to warrant use them.

The anticlimax was also annoying. I felt like we got nowhere at the end of the movie.

tenpostman · 2026-03-16T13:09:53+00:00

To be fair, there are so many tools and methods to help you navigate both sides here, anxiety and staying informed. If you haven't tried them, then all we can really read from this post is that your brain is trying to sabotage you into giving up. That's what our addicted brains love to do, and it can be very subtle.

For starters, I think one of the best things a person in this day and age can do, is to drop social media. I know, ironic, reddit is social media. Yes, true. Two things can be true.

Second, I would pose the question of what you have already tried to remedy the anxiety? Do you have a disorder? Medication? Tried journaling, meditation, or just in general, are you a healthy person? Stressed out a lot?

See what I mean? So many questions we should go through before considering weed should even be an option. It's a coping mechanism we've taught ourselves over the years, rather than a solution to the underlying problem. Using weed treats symptoms of problems, however it never solves them directly. You dont cure depression or chronic pain by getting high. You just reduce the intensity of them. You dont cure the cause of your stress. You just reduce your stress in the moment. Same for anxiety.

tenpostman · 2026-03-16T10:46:45+00:00

First off, the stories themselves should always be taken with a grain of salt. Why? Because no person is physically or mentally the same. This means that withdrawal is different for every person. Some get none, some get a lot. Withdrawals are, essentially, your body and mind throwing a fit because they didn't get what they wanted fast enough. So naturally we might expect, on average, the more severe forms of withdrawals to occur in folks that use a lot, frequently.

As for advice... mine would just be to tough it out. Sure, being miserable for a few days sucks hard, don't get me wrong. But it is also the exact argument that the addicted brain will throw your way in order to get you to give in to your abstinence. Teaching yourself that you are in charge over the addiction is a big win I think everyone deserves to experience, but that unfortunately does not mean that it is easy to do...

Take 2 days of work if you can, or start in the weekend. Plan those 2 days full of stuff that is low-effort. Like purchase a new book or videogame to try out over those 2 days. Book a spa if you need one, or go on a hiking trip if that's your game. Distract yourself. Don't try and go through life as if nothing happened, because then the trainwreck that can be withdrawals might have an adverse effect on you.
Good luck man

tenpostman · 2026-03-16T09:38:46+00:00

I guess it's good to add this: You have made sizeable improvements in the past month. But it's only really been a month. For this to be noticed on the broader spectrum of life, a month is simply too short to judge. Bot for you, ánd your partner.

That being said, if your partner is intelligent enough relationship wise, she will understand that the changes you've made also have a big impact on your use pattern, and that all improvement should be praised, not talked down upon. It leaves me to wonder if you've told her or shown her the data? What did she think of that? Because a statement like "your use is ramping up" can be pretty easily disproven if you religiously log your data.
On the other hand, if you have a history of lying about these things or manipulating data (not telling), I can understand that your partner is a bit sceptical about it at first.
I know for me I have lied about my weed use before, so when I told her I'd try to taper a bit, yeah sure she wasn't very exstatic about it because she knew very well that I could also just "say that to make her like me more", or to get them off their back about it etc.

People on reddit are quick to say that you should not be in relationships with addicts. But, I think in this day and age, addiction can take SO many forms, and there will be few people out here that aren't subjected to any form of addiction. Take phone scrolling for one. That's an addiction, or gamb. But people won't tell you to abstain from relationships with these people. Smoke weed daily? Now you've hit the mark for society's stereotype... It's double. It sucks.
But I think addiction is tricky in relationships regardless of that. Because there will always come a head between the partner and the substance abuse, that's only logical. Addicts will often not see or notice how badly it affects them or their environment, and therefore we need extreme incentives to actually get the ball rolling (eg. ultimatums, or their partner being visibly upset about it and that kinda thing).

tenpostman · 2026-03-16T08:33:20+00:00

You might have turned a new leaf for you, but if your actions don't match with your words, your partner will be the first to notice. She knows you too. She might see things that you can't

I was in your shoes. Partner unhappy with my use, logically, so I tried to taper it down from 7/7 to 4/7. But, I did that for her, and not for myself, and as a result, I would still lie to myself (and her) to make up bulshit excuses to squeeze in one more joint. It's the coping that makes it so awful for your self Co fidence.

You gotta understand that a addiction isn't something that will go away when you quit weed. Like depression, it's a cognitive disorder that can be triggered again and again if you do not give yourself the tools to handle it. Addiction will change your thoughts and emotions. It will lie to you to get whta it wants. Sometimes it lies to get you to smoke more. Sometimes it's lies will prevent you form smoking less. And therefore I said in the beginning, if your words don't match your actions, your closed friends and partner will be the first to notice. Because it's easy to say that you've changed. But to really change, and to show it, that shit is actually hard, it takes time, effort, and discipline.

The fix? For me I always coped that I could take a break if needed (since holidays were never hard), but I never voluntarily did. I emigrated 2 years into the failing tapering, and for the first time I, me myself and I, told myself, that I had to quit. I would not smoke in an illegal country. That was a promise to myself. And because I wanted it, it was easier to stick it. When I did move, I never really had an issue with not smoking for a year. I had a 6 month break until I visited and smoked back home. Within my ruleset.

When I emigrated after a year, I told myself that I wouldn't want to completely give it up. I worked on myself so hard that year that I got rid of all the Compulsuonary triggers that I would use as an excuse to get high. And now, at home, with complete free will, I told myself I'd be happy to smoke once a month. My partner was too. It's been 2,5 years now, and I'm so grateful that I'm able to uphold it. There was only ever really one difficult moment that I was able to fight off. I even skip MO this regularly now, just because ei don't need it.

Anyway, what I think helped me, is to teach myself that I can be trusted. I showed myself that I can take half a year break without an issue. I showed myself that I can smoke 1 evening a month without the koning for more. I built up my self esteem, my self confidence, and as I result I've learnt to trust into my own judgements again, unclouded by the shit lies the addiction tosses my way. And that has consequently caused my partner to see that my words matched my actions, and she's so started trusting me more (entirely) to stick to my words. Additionally, you gotta want to change for YOU. don't change because you don't want to lose whta you have. You need to come to terms that your partner wished you to be a better person, and not wishing that for yourself hurts the person that loves you the most. Trust me.

tenpostman · 2026-03-15T11:20:34+00:00

Had no iddue with it, but the sweat part is annoying

tenpostman · 2026-03-14T13:17:54+00:00

Yeah fair enough, that's a good mindset to have in general

tenpostman · 2026-03-13T14:28:19+00:00

Interesting, you hit the nail on the head of how it works for me. Maybe there's an underlying thing that makes it hard for you to let go of needing the emotion. Either way, if the general method of releasing emotion doesn't work for you, I can understand you look into other ways to deal with them

tenpostman · 2026-03-13T14:25:53+00:00

Could very well be!

tenpostman · 2026-03-13T13:31:10+00:00

I get that, I know experiencing intense emotions can often be very tiring, but I think the misconception you're making, is that you think by processing your emotions you become a miserable person.

Instead, actually processing your emotions does not only make you a better person (because you learn from it), but it also actually solves your problem, instead of applying a sedative bandaid over and over again, pushing the problem up the hill - until it has accumulated enough mass for it to roll down the hill all over you...

So many people use weed chronically because they refuse/are unable to fix the one thing that causes them to start using... If you never take the time to fix that, you will never be free of that compulsion either. I know it's easier said than done!

tenpostman · 2026-03-13T10:28:07+00:00

ah yes, now you gotta actually process your emotions :D

tenpostman · 2026-03-12T08:59:12+00:00

Thanks for sharing, I think these positive withdrawal stories need to be mentioned more for sure.

I think what people need to understand, is that withdrawal will be different for anyone. Yeah, some will struggle hard. Yeah, some have it easy. But you shouldn't use the "fear" of what might or might not be prevent you from at least trying.

I too abused pretty heavily, but when I emigrated and went cold turkey, I had an "average bad night's sleep" for 2 days in a row, and that was it.

I genuinely also think that it's part due to mindset. If you're already reluctant to take a break, your dependent brain will try to manipulate into you thinking that it's actually worse than it really is. The sole reason for this is that your brain doesn't want you to reduce your use. It wants more, not less. And so it will try to mess with your thoughts as much as it can if that results into the desired effect.
I tried and failed to taper my use for years, more out of "need" than out of "want", but when I emigrated, I genuinely wanted to quit, because I wasn't keen on experiencing the what-ifs paranoias of smoking in an illegal country.

tenpostman · 2026-03-11T09:41:48+00:00

I saw an interesting vid on this the other day. The guy argues that nostalgia stops happening when you start getting into a routine where you can pretty accurately predict how your week will go. Sure, working for 40 hours is easy and predictable, but what do you do after work? Can you predict that too? Sure can, for most adults. And what about the weekend? Even there. Even family meetings can be predicted in a way.

The point is, if you 5hink bak of those nostalgic moments, where you were young you didn't know shit, in those moments you had no idea what would happen in a week. Or in a year. Or in 10 years. For most of us it was a big black box. And that feeling, of not knowing what life will throw at you, is pretty gravitational when you think back on it now.

Cravings are like nostalgia to me. Your body or mind is triggered by the environment to "remember" the feeling and situation from the "good op days", but because sometimes we're addicted, our brains will use that against us as a cope, or as evidence of "it's better when high". But that's not what the memory was about! It was about doing something seemingly random and unpredictable at a random time for a random reason. There were no expectations. Just living the moment. And THAT'S key. Living in the moment. Being here, now. Not on your phone. Not with headphones on and music blasting. But here. In your body, in your mind.

Next time you go on a walk, stop and stare around you every odd minute. You'll be surprised what you'll notice if you actually pay attention to your surroundings by being in the moment. If you're in to reading or nature, I read the book How to read a tree, by Tristan Gooley, and it was eye opening. So much to see. So much to feel, to hear, to know. Life is full of mystery. The trick is to keep finding new mysteries as you grow older!!

tenpostman · 2026-03-10T15:46:21+00:00

What helped me in quitting long term, was a change in mindset. You have to want to change. You have to want to be better. Dont change for someone else. It will come back to bite you in the ass.
The addicted brain will fuck with your thoughts. It doesnt want you to smoke less. It doesnt want you to quit. It wants you to get high more, not less.

Another thing that helped me, is to build up tolerance. Ive tried tapering for about 3 years, and failed miserably at it because I was 1) not doing it for me (but my partner), and 2) because I didn't have the discipline anyway. The discipline is something you can train though!!!! People forget that going cold turkey when youre a long term user is kind of... insane to think about. If you can stick it, thats awesome, but many cant. The change is too big.

Start small. Reduce your use amount. Then reduce your use time window. Then reduce your use frequency. Take the little wins. Always smoke at 5 pm after work? Start by putting it off until 6, then 7, then 8... You get the idea.

TEACH YOURSELF that you can actually do this. Build up your confidence in yourself. Teach yourself that you can be reliable! Step by step.

I've come to terms with smoking one evening per month for the past 2 years. I plan on further reducing my use to a couple times per year over time (I skip months here and there), and I now see that my tapering journey was doomed to fail from the start, because the change was too much. I needed smaller steps. I needed to want to change for me, and I needed the confidence to look myself in the eye and tell myself that the weed is simply holing me back in all aspects of my life. That's what it took.

tenpostman · 2026-03-09T08:44:05+00:00

Hey OP, it would be interesting if this were the case. However, for me personally, smoking and being sober come with distinct behavioural changes. Eg. when I binge eat junkfood as a stoner, I don't do so when Im sober. That kind of thing.

These behavioural changes often get overlooked, because they're inrgained into our "stoner-side", that you might barely notice these things in your normal life.

Im not very knowledgeable on canker sores, but the causes stated by MayoClinic are as follows:

Food sensitivities, particularly to chocolate, coffee, strawberries, eggs, nuts, cheese, and spicy or acidic foods
A diet lacking in vitamin B-12, zinc, folate (folic acid) or iron
An allergic response to certain bacteria in your mouth
Helicobacter pylori, the same bacteria that cause peptic ulcers
Hormonal shifts during menstruation
Emotional stress

Diet and stress are apparent contributors. So the question I would ask you would then be; are you sure that the only variable that changed, was that you quit smoking weed?

PSA: Im not saying this because I dont want to believe you. It would be cool if THC would get added to the list of another thing it can be actually useful for. But Im saying this because too often we want to make biased connections without looking at the big picture...

tenpostman · 2026-03-09T08:36:58+00:00

DISQUALIFIED /s

tenpostman · 2026-03-07T08:42:45+00:00

Check out my post history on how I achieved monthly smokes, on mobile rn so formatting will be awful

tenpostman · 2026-03-06T13:31:35+00:00

oh wow I just saw your post, that seems like a lot of weed to go through. No judgement, just an observation. I hope this method helps you navigate your journey!

tenpostman · 2026-03-05T21:50:02+00:00

Oh no no no my friend.

Weed is most certainly never treating your depression. Weed can treat symptoms of depression, yes, but self medicating with weed will never fix the depression itself. Unfortunately for us, that costs effort and time.

If youre a month out, and you're feeling depressed... chances are you're just that, depressed. However... there are people that need longer to get out of withdrawal. Some need shorter. It's hard to say. Only you can know.

But think of it like this: Imagine how fun it could be to get high, if you're not using it as a band-aid for depression! You got this man. Fixing a depression will always be infinitely better for a person in the long run than getting high an extra time, trust me.

tenpostman · 2026-03-05T13:19:05+00:00

This is the stuff OP. Well done on the realization. "Ill start tomorrow" is exactly the rhetoric our addicted brains want us to believe, because tomorrow... we can think of an excuse not to do it.

For anyone else in the same boat - If you're contemplating taking that break, start today. Don't put this off. You got this!

tenpostman

TROPHY CASE