Tolerance Break

[Bach]

Okay, so I medicate with marijuana. I accepted that about myself and got the card three years after decades of shame, of "trying to quit", "wanting to quit", "wishing I wasn't dependent". And indeed, a lot of the time, marijuana improves the overall quality of my life.  However, I have been using like a fiend ever since this whole buying house/selling house/moving drama started five months ago. My tolerance level is sky-high, and the amount I'm using is unacceptable just in pure financial terms, let alone issues of health and waste. I desperately need the dreaded TOLERANCE BREAK.

Not long before I moved, I got myself a dry flower vape device that works for me, and promised myself that I would not smoke inside the new house at all. Not smoking in the house has been easy, but not because I've been using the healthier, saner, less hard-hitting method provided by that device.  It's because it is so pleasant to smoke joints by the river. Too pleasant. Moderate helpful marijuana use is one thing, even daily, but smoking like a freaking chimney until I'm a goofy zombie just because it's fun is very much another. I must not allow myself to feel that I need to smoke a joint to enjoy the river.

I made this entire process feel safe enough to tolerate by neglecting my discipline with food and drugs. I'm not even going to burden myself with having to get right back to it perfectly right now. But oh I do need a day or two off.

[paul72]

hi Bach
I hope you are doing well... on a tolerance break or otherwise
I can relate to smoking like a chimney on my days off work.. I kinda like being a goofy zombie too 
(on work days I'm down to just night-time smoking but usually even before I enter the house my wife meets me outside for one)
Anyway, just wanted to check in.. tell you you're supported smoking or not and sending you nothing but the very best wishes!!

[Bach]

Thank you for the reply, Phil.  I haven't managed to take my break yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  Ha!  Well, I've done it before, the tolerance break, so I will do it again.  Eventually.  I was alone in the new house all day for the first time today and I smoked so much it isn't even fun anymore so maybe it really will be tomorrow.  I hope, I hope. 

My dream all these years has been to be able to smoke less and enjoy it more on a consistent basis, without this business of going through cycles of overuse and burnout alternating with white-knuckled total abstinence.  I try and fail and try and fail.  I'm scared that I'll never get there but I have to keep trying. 

[Bach]

Checking in with myself on where I was a month ago.  Still no real tolerance break.  At one point a few weeks back I managed to go for two whole days without smoking or vaping anything.  I did use microdose homemade mints so it doesn't count as a tolerance break, but if I could get into the habit of sucking on those mints instead of vaping or smoking, even if I did it every day it would be improve my health by lessening the side effects of vaping and smoking.  I suppose maybe that should be my target now instead of "quitting", or even white-knuckling a few days or weeks or months of abstinence.

One thing that is good is that I have successfully uncoupled smoking a joint from going to the river.  There's plenty of interest out there for me to wander around and examine and marvel at and enjoy without faffing around with a joint.  Smoking a joint at the river will very much be something I only do when people come over and I get to do it socially rather than as part of a habit or compulsion or medication.

One thing that is unfortunate is it's too easy to let the vape device get too hot, making it less vape-like and more smoke-like.  It's very hard to exercise the control to stop that from happening, just as it has been with every dry flower vape device I've tried.  It's still lighter on the side effects than actually smoking, but not as much of an improvement as I'd like it to be.  This is another reason for me to try to shift more to the mints.

An interesting side-note on the mints:  My acupuncturist told me that there's a point on the roof of the mouth that helps to balance energy flow throughout the body when you put pressure on it with your tongue, and pressing something against it with your tongue also works.  I can think of that as an added potential benefit of having a mint instead of vaping or smoking.