california sober

That's the term I hear for people that don't drink but partake in the devil's lettuce, as I'm prone to call it because I am a giant dork who wasn't offered pot until I got to college. It seems a little too cavalier for my particular situation, but I don't have a better term and am bad at naming things (see: my cat Ramon and her brother Potato, whose full name was Squanto of the High Plains.)

When I first talked to a college friend who hadn't known I was sick, she was appropriately horrified but the only one to ask the question outright, "Can you still smoke weed??" Now, I'd never smoked weed other than in college, and even then, I liked beer a lot more. Weed made me think too much - often that I was about to die of a panic attack (if it was bad weed,) or that I would never have a coherent thought again (when that same college roommate and I smoked the good weed with the football players from the college the next town over.) When it was legalized here in 2020, I had a passing thought that I would maybe try it and slow down with the booze.

The wine was out of hand by then. Way further than anyone knew, including myself, but I knew it had more control over me than I had over it, and it had been that way for awhile. So I thought maybe that would work. I hadn't really gotten the hang of it, hadn't really committed, but it was rolling around.

And then the pandemic happened, and I was at home all day with two people that also drank and we couldn't do anything else, so we didn't. We stayed home, we watched Tiger King, we wiped down our groceries, and we drank. It was the literal perfect excuse - we couldn't go anywhere, no one was going to see us, everything outside was on fire; inside, we could stay safe and have fun and we weren't missing anything, because there was nothing to do. I did not care about weed anymore, and I couldn't get it delivered anyway. Wine I could have at my door in half an hour, without even having to put on pants. The pandemic did none of us any favors, I know that.

I started researching cannabis right out of the gate when I was sick. At the time, I couldn't bear the thought of getting through life without something to help, some pill or drug or anything, certainly I couldn't be expected to not have anything. But as a few months went along I was doing okay, and I thought maybe I didn't need anything. Maybe I could do this. I was on Zoloft then.

Right around that time, two things happened: I started getting vicious neuropathy in my hands and feet, every night when I laid down it felt like someone was running a lighter up and down my limbs, and my niece had a birthday party. I was feeling good. Stronger, and proud of myself. It was a beautiful afternoon, and my whole family was there. I was healthy, I was outside, I was early enough out of the hospital to still be thrilled just to breathing fresh air, and as I stood there, smiling out at the backyard at my nieces giggling and people smiling, I had one very clear thought.

You should be enjoying this more.

I wasn't unhappy. I wasn't happy, either, though, not even close. Simply quite indifferent to watching the joy around me, joy that included me. It was like I was watching it happen to someone else, and I fucking hated it. I cried the whole way home. This couldn't be it. I stopped taking the Zoloft the next day. not recommended do not do this* I did tell my doctor, and within that conversation I got my medical card and went off in search of a miracle.

Guess what? I found it.

Maybe in another post, I'll detail all of the research I did and writing and agonizing over whether I was just transferring addictions, but not today. What it boiled down to was that my neuropathy was gone, and I felt clearer than I had in years. Not better, mind you. I've cried a whole lot more after a joint than I ever did after a bottle of wine. So no, I didn't feel better. But I felt clearer, like I could finally see my own life and decisions for what they were, not what I'd built them up to be. Where alcohol had numbed and put a band aid on the gaping holes, weed tore them wide open and tossed a lot of salt in there in the form of questions. Where alcohol had depleted and exhausted me, weed gives me the insight to eat something that will make me feel good, to go to bed when I'm tired, to move my body because I feel the energy coiled up. Most of all, where alcohol would tamp down the anxiety in the moment enough to enjoy myself, weed helps me see what the anxiety is (i.e. this is simply a large group of people shopping in a store and not the overcrowded escape room/jail cell it feels like) and therefore manage it. In short, it helps me listen to my body, not make it so numb it doesn't feel anything.

Does it ever tip to recreational? It does, and I'm okay with that. Do I think that people reading this may simply find it a long justification for continuing to use substances? I expect it will to some, and I'm okay with that, too. I am 47 years old, healthy weight, no diabetes, no blood pressure or cholesterol meds, and my bloodwork has been perfect down the line every three months for three and a half years. In that time, I have restarted a career, maintained a 100 pound weight loss, have my own business which has grown steadily over that time, become a yoga teacher, launched this website, and work from the comfort of my home. I've been able to go on vacations and see family in a way that my anxiety would have prevented in years past. So if it is a justification, it's a good one. And until my doctor tells me otherwise, I'm going to keep at it.

I just needed to get that out into the world.

my favorite place to think