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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO QUITTING WEED
GUIDED PROGRAM
YOUR LIFE
WITHOUT WEED
A Guided Program
Your Life Without Weed
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*Disclaimer*
This program is designed to help you and has been proven to work well for many users. However, we take
no legal responsibility for how this system will affect your results in a drug test of any kind or any other result
you experience from using methods outlined in the following program. Always check with your consultant or
doctor before taking anything outlined in this course. You may be allergic or unable to take certain products,
chemicals, herbs, other substances or anything in this program. Unauthorized distribution, reselling, copying
or selling of this material is unlawful. No portion of this guide may be copied, distributed or sold without direct
written permission from the provider and creator.
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Introduction:
WHY I CREATED THIS PROGRAM 6
From the Desk of Rick Neilson 7
How to Use This Program 15
Three Stages of Quitting Weed 18
A Note on Keeping a Journal 21
Section One:
BEFORE YOU QUIT 29
Understanding Your Weed Dependency 30
Monitoring Your Weed Habit 33
How Weed Affects Your Identity 35
Why You Smoke So Much Weed 38
Understanding the Real You 42
The Mirror Technique 48
Why Do You Want to Quit Weed 50
The 3 Pillars of Success 51
Choose Your Own Adventure 57
CONTENTS
Your Life Without Weed
Section Two:
QUITTING WEED 62
Your Official Quit Day 63
Three Phases of Quitting Weed 69
Phase One 73
Withdrawals 76
Cannabis Detox 92
Managing Cravings & Urges 94
Lapses & Relapses 99
Phase Two 103
Depression 105
Stages of Grief 112
Phase Three 117
Mindfulness Meditation 121
Section Three:
LIFE AFTER WEED 132
Managing Thoughts, Feelings, & Behaviors 133
ABCs of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy 138
Living a Balanced Life 141
Nutrition, Exercise, & Sleep 144
SMART Goals 150
Some Final Thoughts 152
Additional Resources 154
howtoquitsmokingweedhelp.com
INTRODUCTION
Why I
Created
This
Program
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FROM THE My dad was the king of dad jokes. Any time
DESK OF RICK we were in the car together and he had to
NEILSON slam on the brakes at a red light or because
someone cut us off in traffic, he’d look at
me and say,
“I’m not addicted to brake fluid,
I can stop whenever I want.”
I started smoking weed when I was 14 and
did not quit until I was 27. That’s 13 years
of being high almost every single day. For
the last 3 of those years, I regularly thought
about quitting. Every time I tried to summon the willpower to quit, my dad’s corny
joke would play on a loop in my head.
It always made me laugh, then almost immediately, I would feel overcome with this unbearable sense of dread and, sure enough,
I’d be smoking again.
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You are here because you know the dread I am talking
about.
You know that you need to quit smoking weed, but you
don’t know how, or you’re afraid of what life will be like
without it, or you’re afraid there is something inherently
wrong with you, like you’ve just got an addictive personality or you are simply weak-willed.
Am I close?
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The first thing I want you to learn is that the part of you
that keeps insisting you need to quit — well, that is
your truest self.
No matter how much pain you may have experienced in
life, no matter how much you’ve smoked yourself out,
this ‘real you’ has persisted, is still standing up for the
true potential you have locked inside you.
This person has never stopped believing in you, has
been rooting for you all along — and now I am too.
You and me, we are not like most people. We are among
the 9% who sincerely struggle with dependency on a
drug that the other 91% of smokers claim is not addictive. The truth is, for them, it’s not. I know, totally unfair,
right?
This widespread social attitude contradicts what you
and I know to be true. So, if you’re anything like me, it’s
no wonder how easy it is to feel as though there may be
something wrong with you.
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But I have good news:
There - is - NOTHING - wrong - with - you.
9% of millions of smokers is A LOT of people who develop a dependency on weed. And the number of people who are willing to do what it takes to quit is much
smaller.
That’s you!
So, you see, there is actually something very RIGHT with
you, and you just need a little guidance to get through
to the other side. To a life withOUT weed.
That’s why I created this program.
As soon as you become aware of the techniques outlined in this guide, you will have everything you need to
quit smoking weed once and for all.
From the comfort of your home and on your own time,
you will learn how to change your beliefs about weed
and about yourself. Not only will you find the ability
to free yourself of your dependency on weed, you will
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finally be in control of all the changes you
want to see in every area of your life.
HOW I KNOW In a sentence: I’ve been there, done that.
WHAT I KNOW
When I finally became serious about quitting weed, I tried everything and failed dozens of times.
I tried cold-turkey on willpower alone. Didn’t
work.
I went to a few Narcotics Anonymous meetings. After hearing the stories from people addicted to heroin, crack, and meth, I
convinced myself that being dependent on
weed is nothing like the problems they had.
So I kept smoking.
A friend of mine wouldn’t shut up about Alcoholic’s Anonymous. He said it changed
his life and that they would welcome me
without judgment. So I went.
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During the first meeting, I was comforted by the candlelight and the humbling stories of the members, so
I decided to share. As I revealed that my problem was
not with alcohol but with weed, the group leader began to whisper to the person next to him.
When I finished my story, I sat down. Without acknowledging anything I said, the group leader asked everyone present to vote to “have this young man removed,”
and he pointed at me. All but one person raised their
hands, and so I left.
That night I went home and rolled the biggest blunt I
think I’ve ever smoked.
Then I tried meeting with a drug counselor. During our
session, he talked most of the time as I studied the degrees on his wall, the photos of his family on the desk,
the bookshelf in the corner crammed with books about
drug addiction.
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I left his office feeling like this man had never smoked
a day in his life and could never understand what I was
going through.
Like I said, my attempts to quit spanned three years
and nothing was working.
Until I realized one day that my smoking habit and my
attempts to quit were closely linked. Just as I was depending on weed to get me through the days, I was
depending on other people, or some force of nature,
to change my life for me.
It came as an empowering and terrifying shock that it
was entirely up to me to quit smoking weed successfully.
I avoided this truth for another few months. But when I
was finally ready, I got to work. I read every book I could
find on weed addiction, spent time in forums seeking
advice from all sorts of people on the Internet, and even
came across some guides that were somewhat helpful.
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In short, I searched everywhere for a self-guided, stepby-step program like this one, but never found it.
So I wrote it myself.
What you now have in your possession is not the work
of therapists or doctors. It is not some company trying
to sell you miracle cures or admit you to some expensive recovery clinic.
This guide has been assembled by someone like you,
who has struggled with weed dependency, who has
found through a desperate search the most effective,
life-changing, easy-to-use techniques to quit smoking
weed.
And they are all here, organized in a program developed specifically with you in mind.
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HOW TO USE Very Important Note: Don’t Quit Smoking
THIS PROGRAM Weed Yet.
I know that must seem like strange advice
in a guide about quitting weed. But this is
not about quitting cold-turkey, because, in
my experience, that is the most difficult and
ineffective way to quit.
More Important Note: Do Not Read This
Guide High
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Though you are not quitting just yet, it would be counter-productive to proceed through this guide while you
are high.
**Important** - So if you are HIGH RIGHT NOW, just
enjoy it and come back to this when you feel ready.
Honestly, no hard feelings. We all have to do this in our
own time. If you are NOT stoned, then please proceed.
It may work best to devote an hour in the morning, or
when you get home from work, to read through the
guide before you smoke. This will initiate you into the
process of disrupting your smoking routine as you prepare yourself for your official Quit Day.
At the end of the hour, feel free to get as high as you
want.
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THE I have developed this guide with a stepSTEP-BY-STEP by-step process that will absolutely work to
PROCESS help you quit weed because of one essen-
tial factor: You.
This program has helped many people quit
smoking weed because of one important
detail I kept in mind while writing it: No person is exactly the same as another.
It might serve you well to view this guide
as a Road Map to quitting weed. And I am
your GPS telling you where you are and the
best route to get to your destination.
But you’re still the one who is driving the car.
You can go as fast or as slow as you want.
You can take the scenic route. You can decide to bypass a detour or have a picnic at
a rest stop.
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Have I lost you in the metaphor? Probably
so. Do you get my meaning, though? I know
that you do.
THREE STAGES OF
QUITTING WEED
You will notice this guide is made up of three
main sections: “Before You Quit,” “Quitting
Weed,” and “Life After Weed.”
1. Before You Quit
This section contains preparation strategies to lead you up to your official Quit
Day. Here, you will learn to understand your
relationship to smoking weed and why it is
such a difficult habit to break. You will begin
to envision the life you want, and you will
set an action plan in place, create a replacement activity for smoking weed, and decide
on a Quit Day.
2. Quitting Weed
You will begin this section on Day 1 of your
Quit Day. Here, you will learn various coping strategies to help you adjust to life with-
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out weed. You will receive guidance on how to deal
with cravings and urges, manage withdrawal and detox
symptoms, and re-train the pleasure and reward systems in your brain so that you actually begin to think
differently about yourself and your life without weed.
You will learn about ancient traditions, such as meditation, as well as the most current methods of treatment
used by professionals around the world.
3. Life After Weed
This section will provide you with some ongoing, lifelong strategies and information to help you live your
life—without weed—to the fullest. Here, you will learn
about the best information and techniques for developing self-awareness, relaxation strategies, nutrition,
exercise regimens, and setting attainable goals. I have
culled together the best practices from experts on
healthy living. There is a lot of nonsense out there in
the booming health industry, so I have done my best to
cut through the bullshit to give you some guidance that
will support your wellness for the rest of your life.
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** IMPORTANT**
If you haven’t done so already, print out the workbook
Your Life Without Weed: Interactive Toolkit I have developed to coincide with these three sections. This has
been provided for your individual interactive experience with the information and strategies included in
this guide.
**VERY IMPORTANT**
I urge you not to skip out on the exercises as they are
precisely what make this program so effective.
Completing them will make this process entirely yours,
and will increase your chances for success.
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A NOTE ON You will notice, within each section, I have
KEEPING A included journal prompts designed to get
JOURNAL you to write about your thoughts and experiences through your process of quitting
weed.
Before I quit smoking weed, I hated even
the thought of writing, especially when I
had to write about my feelings. It reminded
me too much of school. And between you
and me, I was not the best student.
But somewhere through the course of my
research, I became convinced that this is
one of the most powerful tools available to
you.
Let me tell you a story to show you what I
mean.
I was 14 when I started smoking weed with
my friends. Like most teenagers, I didn’t
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think much about why I was doing it. My friends had
older brothers who hooked us up, and I loved the way
it made me feel after long days of teachers yammering
on and bossing me around.
When I quit smoking at age 27, I took a friend’s advice
and kept a journal of my struggles. That’s when I unexpectedly began to make connections throughout my
life that I had never considered.
Shortly before I started smoking, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was a hereditary condition,
and I doubt he ever smoked a day in his life.
The fact of my dad’s mortality was too much for me
to cope with at my young age. It terrified me to even
imagine life without my dad. This might be one of the
reasons I latched onto smoking weed, this miracle herb
that took away the pain of dealing with that kind of fear
and despair.
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My dad was very religious and deeply involved in his church. He was always
heading up food and clothing drives to
help people who were less fortunate. He
always wanted me to help, which I did a
couple of times, but it always made me
really uncomfortable.
So I started smoking weed with my friends instead of
helping my dad. The feeling that I was disappointing
my father was also one of the reasons smoking weed
was probably such a comfort. I could escape the heavy
pressure I felt in not living up to his expectations.
Through my journaling, I also came to realize that it
freaked me out that my dad got cancer without ever
smoking cigarettes. When we learned that it was hereditary, that’s when I was confronted with my own mortality, that the same could happen to me.
On some subconscious level, because I had always
heard that weed is helpful in preventing certain forms
of cancer, I took comfort in smoking weed thinking it
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was helping me more than anything. This belief helped
me deny for years that my dependency was a problem.
I remember getting defensive anytime someone criticized me for smoking weed. I definitely used the ‘cancer-preventing’ logic to justify my dependency for a
long time.
My dad lived with cancer for 7 years before he passed.
The day of his funeral is one of the only days in 13 years
that I did not get high. I felt like the scum of the earth,
though, when all I could think about was getting high
as everyone talked about what a good man my father
was, how he devoted his life to helping people.
When I finally quit, 6 years after my father passed, I
began to learn that I am more like my dad than I ever
thought. Though I may never master the “dad joke”
like he did, I discovered that I really care about helping
people too.
I discovered through all my searching that there are not
very many helpful programs out there for people who
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want to quit smoking weed. It is not like other drugs.
You absolutely can quit on your own. And your decision
to do so will lead to a dramatically improved lifestyle, if
that is what you truly want.
That’s why I wrote this program, because I achieved
the life I’ve always wanted. I am healthy, I have great
friends, and I am happily married. Not only do I save
tons of money by not smoking weed, I am much smarter and never worry about finances.
I remember when all of this seemed impossible, and the
dread of not living my life fully could only be temporarily dealt with by smoking weed. It was always there, the
knowledge that I was not living my life the way I wanted.
So I numbed myself smoking so much weed that it became all I thought about, all I cared about. I will say this
about it, that smoking weed did help me through a very
difficult time in my life. It was a useful crutch.
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But it was only temporary, and I lost myself
in the fix.
Your story and your reasons for smoking
weed may be very similar or very different
from mine. Either way, I hope it is a comfort
to you to have what I wish I’d had when I
was trying to quit: someone who has been
through it, telling me exactly what to do.
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Some Journaling Options
If you’re not the journaling type, you may need some
help getting started. Personally, I have come to love the
smell of a new leather notebook, the crisp blank pages,
and my chaotic handwriting in thick black ink.
But if you want something less bulky, and FREE, then
check out Penzu, a secure, customizable, online journal
that also offers a smartphone app so you can write no
matter where you are. It has several useful features including privacy settings and writing reminders.
Check it out at https://penzu.com
NOW, YOU’RE READY TO BEGIN
When you are ready, begin Section One knowing that
you are starting on a path that will lead you to a life you
have only dreamt of before this point. After this, you
will never be the same. If you feel fear and excitement
about this, you’re in the right place.
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Enjoy yourself as you move through this guide. I look
back at my process of quitting weed very fondly. It was
a time in my life when I truly started to change and become awakened to the possibilities hidden deep inside
me.
It was a thrilling time, and I am proud to play a small
part in what will be an empowering shift toward the life
you’ve always wanted.
Good luck and enjoy Your Life Without Weed: A Guided Program.
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SECTION ONE
Before You Quit
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UNDERSTANDING Quitting Vs. Limiting Use
YOUR WEED A common question I get from people at
DEPENDENCY this stage is whether quitting is absolutely
necessary or if simply cutting back is a good
option.
The short answer: Only you know what is
best for your life. What is most important is
that you are real with yourself.
It comes down to the matter of why you want
to make the change. If it is because your job
periodically drug tests, then simply cutting
back as an occasional smoker doesn’t make
any sense.
If you simply want to learn enough self-control to overcome your dependency on smoking every day, yet you still want the freedom
to smoke occasionally with friends, then I
say “Go for it!” You can absolutely use this
guide and adapt it to meet your specific
goals.
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But I would not be a good friend if I didn’t at least ask
you to consider a couple of things.
I have spoken to many people who have tried to cut
back, who simply didn’t have the discipline to maintain
control. In my opinion, they had cut back enough only
to convince themselves they had control, but they still
exhibited behaviors of dependency.
For me, my dependency is like alcoholism. I don’t just
want to take one hit. I want to get ripped and stay that
way for days. Quitting was the only option I had, and
now I find so much pleasure in a lifestyle that is completely weed-free — something I could never have
imagined under the haze of pot smoke.
I know firsthand that the decision to quit weed is a scary
one. The deepest fear we experience as people is a
fear of the unknown. Simply put, you don’t know what
awaits you in a life without weed. We latch onto what
is familiar because we are comforted by what we can
predict.
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But I reached a point that I became so weary of the
predictable outcome of getting high every day. I knew
it would mean hours upon hours wasted in a Netflix
show-hole on the sofa. It meant waking up with the
panic that I was not accomplishing anything with my
life, followed by a suppression of that panic via bong hit
and more wasted hours.
If there is any kind of central theme to this guide, it is
this: You must know yourself, be truthful with yourself—
and most importantly—be good to yourself.
The best I can do is tell you what I know from my experience. But the power is within you to use this guide to
get the life you want.
It must also urge you to avoid substituting your weed
use with anything else that is addictive in nature. If you
drink more alcohol or smoke cigarettes or rely on prescription medication to help you come off your weed
dependency, then the chances are you will just transfer
your dependency to these substances.
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MONITORING If you are reading this and you are NOT
YOUR WEED stoned…Congratulations!!
HABIT
I believe in celebrating every little achievement that supports your goal, and you
should too.
Okay. So you’re not high right now. But
you’re probably thinking you can’t wait to
get through this so you can get high, am I
right?
That’s fine. In fact, that brings us to the first
exercise in your Interactive Toolkit: Monitoring Your Weed Habit.
Go ahead and take a look at exercise 1.1 in
your Interactive Toolkit.
I used this when I first decided to quit, and I
have seen this be effective for many others.
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The primary goal is to bring critical awareness to your
smoking habits.
It may seem arbitrary, but I want you to take this seriously as your first step to changing the way you think
about weed. The monitoring chart is probably self explanatory, but let me walk you through it anyway.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 1.1 - Monitoring Your Cannabis Use Over Four Weeks
This works like a basic log book. Any time you do anything related to weed, whether it’s buying, smoking, or
even daydreaming about smoking, you will track it each
day. This might be most effective if you log the day’s
events surrounding your weed habits before you go to
sleep.
At the end of each week, you will calculate how much
money you spent and how much you smoked. Your
goal will be to take account of how much you smoke
and reduce your use for the following week. This will
gradually prepare you for your official Quit Day.
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You will notice I have completed a “Sample Row” for you. These are my own entries
from the first week of my Monitoring Chart.
HOW WEED I am going to go back to basics for a minAFFECTS YOUR ute to tell you a couple things you already
IDENTITY know in order to shed some light on one of
the most important revelations I made early
in my decision to quit weed that ultimately
set me up for success. This comes from the
Drug Addiction Treatment Center at Lund
University Hospital in Sweden.
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Acute Intoxication & Chronic Influence
Smoking weed has two primary effects on cognitive
functioning: an acute effect and a chronic effect.
1. Acute Intoxication - Anywhere from 45 minutes to
a few hours after smoking, this is the “high” that
you experience. Psychological symptoms include increased mental activity and environmentally-oriented hyper-sensitivity. Physiological symptoms include
heart palpitation, dizziness, pressure inside your
head, dryness of the eyes, mouth, and throat.
It is for acute intoxication that you began smoking weed
in the first place. Your heightened senses, increase in
associative thought processes, and focus on a more
intensive inner-self in relation to a larger entity have
made it easy to deny the harmful effects of your weed
dependency.
In the acute intoxication stage, you also experience
pleasure in the following ways:
• You feel more calm and relaxed
• It enhances your social interactions
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• It can enhance sexual experiences
• It helps you cope with difficult situations
• It enhances your understanding of yourself within
your surroundings
2. Chronic Influence - Clinical studies show that people who smoke regularly for a period of two years
or longer experience a change in cognitive functioning. In effect, you enter a new state of consciousness
which can be described as “a cannabis state dependent” effect.
If you are frequently acutely intoxicated, you experience
this “Cannabis State Dependent” effect more often
than a normal non-intoxicated state of consciousness.
Therefore, you gradually adjust to this altered state and
it becomes your new normal state of consciousness.
To put it simply, in the beginning you smoked to get
stoned. After extended use, however, you had to smoke
just to feel normal. Your identity has become enmeshed
with being high.
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I won’t lie, when I became aware of this,
it kind of freaked me out. I realized I had
traded in my 14-year-old self for this altered
state of consciousness that lasted 13 years.
No wonder I was so immature and scared of
quitting. It felt as though I had left my true
self at the age of 14. But my decision to quit
was a return to my true self.
After helping so many people quit smoking
weed, I learned that most people are not
aware of this altered state of identity. I attribute much of my success of quitting weed
to this epiphany. My decision to quit weed
was more than just a need to be healthy; it
became about reconciling with the person I
always knew I could be.
WHY YOU There are many reasons why people smoke
SMOKE SO weed. Some of the most common answers
MUCH WEED I receive are:
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• To relax
• To escape
• To avoid dealing with problems
• To enjoy movies or music in a heightened state
But it is important that you discover your primary underlying reasons for smoking weed. Being aware will give
you an increased sense of self-control when it comes
time to quit.
If you know the reason, don’t be intimidated. Remember, I was not aware that my weed dependency had to
do with my father’s illness until I started writing through
my feelings of quitting weed.
Your brain is a miraculous problem-solving machine.
Asking yourself these questions will set your mind on
the path to figuring out why you smoke so much weed.
The answers are buried inside your subconscious and
may even surprise you.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 1.2 - Why I Smoke Weed
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Here, you are going to use what I like to
call “The 5-year-old’s Approach to Understanding Why.”
When you were 5, you likely drove your parents crazy
asking them “why” a thousand times a day. It came as
a result of an insatiable curiosity to know why the world
works the way it does. Though it stems from a fundamental lack of knowledge, there is actually a great deal
of wisdom contained in this kind of questioning.
The technique is relatively simple. You have only one
question to answer: “Why Do I Smoke Weed?”
But there’s a small catch (and this is where your inner
5-year-old takes over).
When you write your answer to the question, it will be
followed up with “Because why?” This will prompt you
to go a little deeper into your initial answer. Once you
write your response, it will be followed up with another
“Because why?”
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Starting to see the trend?
This technique will help you to really delve
into the core of why you truly smoke weed.
I have included a sample response from the
time I used this “5-year-old’s” approach.
Your goal is to answer at least 5 “Because
Why” prompts. But honestly, you should go
on for as long as you need in order to get
to the core reason of why you smoke weed.
You will know you have landed on the core
reason when you write something you haven’t really thought of before, but which
makes total sense. There might be a kind of
“A-ha” moment of clarity.
CHECKING IN If you’re still with me, if you have been
reading this guide before you smoke, and if
you have been taking the exercises in your
toolkit seriously, then you’re doing exactly
what you need to do in order to quit smoking weed. You are proving you have what it
takes to truly take control of your life.
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I’m curious what it is like for you to smoke
weed now that you have been working
through this program. You have been monitoring your weed habit, you have begun to
understand your deeper drives for smoking,
and your decision to quit is becoming more
and more real.
I wonder if you’re feeling a slight tinge of
grief, or fear, or anxiety. Maybe you’re beginning to feel excited or hopeful.
Let’s keep moving forward to understand
what is going on beneath it all.
UNDERSTANDING
THE REAL YOU:
ID, EGO, &
SUPEREGO
Have you ever felt as though you are being
pulled apart from the inside between what
you want to be doing and what you are actually doing?
I used to experience the fear that there was
something severely wrong with me until I
learned about Sigmund Freud’s model of
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the human personality. Learning this
model changed my perception of
myself and why I do the things I do.
More importantly, it helped me stop
being so hard on myself as I realized
everyone struggles with the inner
conflict of who we are and who we
want to be.
Freud determined the human psyche is divided into
three parts: The ID, the EGO, and the SUPEREGO.
Each part develops at different stages in our lives, and
they all work together to develop who we are and how
we behave.
The ID is our primitive and instinctive part of the personality. It has been with us since birth and operates
on the pleasure principle. Because it is part of our subconscious, it is not affected by reality or logic. It wants
immediate gratification regardless of consequences.
When the ID is satisfied, we experience pleasure. If the
ID is denied, we experience displeasure or tension.
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The ID is illogical, fantasy-oriented, and selfish in nature.
The EGO, according to Freud, is “that part of the ID
which has been modified by the direct influence of the
external world.” Our EGO forms during our childhood
to serve as a mediator between our ID and the real
world.
In the best sense, the EGO is the reasoning system that
works out the best ways to satisfy the ID without violating social norms, etiquette, or rules. The EGO is also
primarily concerned with achieving pleasure and avoiding pain.
Freud used the analogy of a man on horseback to illustrate the relationship between the ID and the EGO. The
ID is like the horse, and the EGO is like the man who
has to learn to keep the superior strength of the horse
in check.
To break it down at this point, your ID causes the urge
to find weed and smoke as often as possible. Your EGO
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wants desperately to satisfy that desire, but it must also
account for the best ways to do so without getting
caught and without spending all your money.
When these desires are not met, it is the EGO that searches for other courses of action until the ID gets what it
wants, which is the underlying principle of self-control
and perseverance. But it must be trained if you want to
learn how to persevere for virtuous reasons.
How do you do that? That’s where SUPEREGO comes
in.
The SUPEREGO operates on a different level, often
considered to be a higher plane than the other two
parts. The SUPEREGO incorporates values and morals
of society to control the ID’s impulses and persuade the
EGO to focus on moralistic goals rather than solely focusing on the best way to seek self-serving pleasure.
This is the essence of what it means to “Grow Up,” and
it does not necessarily come naturally, but by choice.
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The SUPEREGO functions on two systems: The Conscience and the Ideal Self, though they often work
hand-in-hand with one another.
Your ideal self is an imaginary picture of who you want
to be, your career goals, and how you want to treat
other people. When you fall short of this ideal self, your
conscience punishes you through feelings of guilt. On
the other hand, when you do live up to the values of
your ideal self, your conscience rewards you with feelings of pride and accomplishment.
What Does All This Psychobabble Have to do With
Quitting Weed?
I’m glad you asked.
Quitting weed relies heavily on re-orienting the pleasure-reward system in your brain. The first major step
is developing self-awareness of the three cooperating
parts of your psyche without judgment.
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Harnessing this self-control is a fundamental factor in
becoming the person you want to be.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 1.3 - ID, EGO, & SUPEREGO
Though it might seem obvious after reading this section
how each part of your personality functions, it is still important to write it down. Writing it down gives you a
sense of mastery and recognition, which will help you
feel an increased sense of self-control over the three
parts.
You will notice that ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO are listed
in the Toolkit, with a blank line after each term.
On each blank line, you will write what you think is the
primary function of each part of your psyche as it pertains specifically to your weed dependency. I have included my own example to guide you.
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THE MIRROR Okay, you’ve been reading and writing A
TECHNIQUE LOT. And hopefully you’ve begun to expe-
rience a sense of accomplishment. If you’ve
made it this far on our agreed terms, then
you truly are one of the strong ones who
can do this on your own.
Now it’s time to change the pace a little
bit and try out another strategy that really
works.
Below you will find an audio link that will
guide you through this strategy. So instead
of reading, you will be listening.
But first, you will need three things:
• A mirror
• A way to listen to the audio (your computer, smartphone, headphones)
• And…some weed.
That’s right, you are going to attempt this
next technique high as ****.
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I know I told you not to progress through this program
stoned, and that rule still applies. However, this is the
one exception, and the purpose is to begin unraveling
your weed dependency at the source.
Let me first tell you how it works, then you will need to
decide when you want to try this, because the objective
of this strategy is quite clear: to change the way you
think about getting high.
How the Mirror Technique Works
1. **BEFORE YOU SMOKE** Sit or stand so that you
are facing the mirror.
2. Stare at yourself for what might be an uncomfortable
amount of time, until the moment your own face begins to look unfamiliar to you.
3. Push play on the audio file and keep staring at your
reflection in the mirror.
4. When the voice on the audio tells you to, light up
your joint, pipe, or bong and get ripped.
5. Remain open to where this exercise will take you.
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When you are ready, [CLICK HERE] to hear
the audio for the Mirror Technique.
WHY DO YOU You might feel like you already know the
WANT TO QUIT answer to this question. It might have felt
WEED? obvious to you when you decided to invest
in this guide.
But just humor me for a second.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 1.4 - Why Do I
Want to Quit Weed?
In this exercise you are going to use a similar technique to the 5-year-old’s questioning strategy, only slightly different.
In your toolkit is a list of many reasons to
quit, including health risks, financial issues,
social issues, and other hassles. I want you
to read through the list and circle the THREE
top reasons why you want to quit.
If you don’t see your true reasons listed,
then come up with your own.
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You will write the three reasons on the lines
provided under the question Why Do I Want
to Quit Weed?
Under each reason you will see the question
“So That What?” repeated 5 times.
Each time you answer the question, you will
need to deepen your response to answer
the prompt “So That What…”
THE 3 PILLARS Just like the questioning technique used
OF SUCCESS earlier to determine why you smoke weed
in the first place, this is designed to help
you drive down into the core of your reasons for quitting weed.
Chances are, your reasons will surprise you
and will likely give you a heightened sense
of urgency to quit when you realize how
deep your reasons truly are. It is an exercise
in getting to know your TRUE SELF.
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It has now come time to set up an action plan for quitting weed and to decide on your OFFICIAL QUIT DAY.
Quitting cold-turkey on willpower alone is the least likely strategy to help you quit weed for good. Truthfully,
I’ve never seen it work. In my search to find the best
strategies for quitting weed, I came across “The 3 Pillars
of Success” in a book not related to weed dependency.
I found it so useful that I adapted it for you to help you
meet your goal of quitting weed once and for all.
The 3 Pillars are:
• Have a Plan
• Create a Replacement
• Seek Support
When you decide on a Quit Day and follow through
using this guide to support you every step of the way,
you will assuredly experience challenges on the way to
being free of your weed dependency.
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But don’t worry, that’s what I’m here for: to let you know
what to anticipate so you have a plan in place to cope
when those challenges arise.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 1.5 - Quit Agreement Contract
All of the following elements contained in the “3 Pillars
of Success” will be documented on your Quit Agreement Contract found in the toolkit. Once you have read
through the 3 pillars, fill in your specific action plan on
your contract and sign it.
1. Have a Plan
–– Set a date and stick to it - This will be your official
Quit Day, determined entirely by you when you
are ready. Just bear in mind on this day you will
be entering into a contract with yourself. You are
making a commitment to yourself to never be the
same. Everything that happens after this date will
determine whether you are successful at quitting
weed or not.
–– Triggers - Triggers are events or friends or emotions which lead to a desire to smoke weed. (Re-
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member the ID???) You must identify your triggers
so you know to avoid them or how to respond
when they come up.
–– Cravings and Urges - Cravings are a DESIRE to
smoke, whereas Urges are a NEED to smoke.
Every time you give in to a craving or urge, the
stronger they become. But the good news is, every time you successfully resist cravings and urges,
the weaker they become. Don’t worry, you will be
getting some strategies for coping with cravings
and urges very soon in Section 2: Quitting Weed.
–– Get rid of weed materials, dealer contacts, etc. You just gotta do it. In a moment of strength, you
need to gather your pipes, bongs, dugouts, rolling papers, grinder—anything you use to smoke
weed—and throw it all away. I gave all my weed
stuff to a friend, but I must say I was really tempted to smoke when I went to his apartment and
saw my red grinder and my favorite pipe on his
coffee table.
–– What to do about friends who smoke - Most programs and authorities will tell you to GET RID OF
YOUR FRIENDS, at least for the time that you are
trying to quit. While I understand why this makes
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sense, I wanted to give myself the challenge of
being able to resist smoking weed even when my
friends were still smoking. My friends were cool
about it. I told them I was quitting and they all
did their part to make sure I didn’t break my contract. But this is a decision you will have to make
for yourself. I’ve known many people who had to
leave their friends and find a new social group altogether. Many are not lucky as I am to have a best
friend who smokes, but who was also my biggest
supporter. Again: You simply need to know yourself and your situation and what is best for you.
2. Create a Replacement
When you decide to quit weed, you are going to have a
whole lot of extra time you won’t know what to do with,
which can be one of your biggest triggers: Boredom
and Time-to-Kill.
The most effective thing to do is to find various things
to fill up that time. These new activities should contain
their own kinds of rewards. It is best to do something
active that does not require much creativity, because
doing something like playing music will likely make you
want to smoke.
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Think of it this way when deciding what your replacement should be: When it comes to envisioning the life
you want for yourself, what do you see yourself doing?
Do you go to the gym more? Do you go swimming in
the lake? Or fishing? What about taking a bike ride?
Or skateboarding? Playing video games? Do you want
take up painting? Whoever you want to be, however
you WANT to spend your time, start doing it, and this
will become your lifestyle.
3. Seek Support
Clinical studies show that people who have a strong
support system are as much as 10 times more likely to
successfully quit.
Identify two or three people (or however many you
want) who you can count on to check in on you, to keep
you accountable. There are also some lines for their signatures on your contract.
Once they have read all the information provided, ask
them if they are willing to be there for you as your supporter. And when they say “Of Course!” ask them to
sign their names on the contract.
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CHOOSE
YOUR OWN
ADVENTURE
When I was a kid, my parents bought me all
of the Choose Your Own Adventure books.
I remember each time they bought me a
new one, I would hold it in my hands for an
hour just staring at the artwork on the cover,
anticipating the adventure that awaited me
within its pages.
Looking back, that was my first taste of POSSIBILITY, and it captivated me that I had no
idea where I was about to end up, that my
path would be determined by my own intuition and freedom of choice.
For those of you unfortunate souls who have
never heard of Choose Your Own Adventure
books, they were novels written in the 2nd
person, making the reader the hero of the
story. Every few pages, when you’d reach a
climactic moment, the story would give you
a multiple-choice option to choose an alternate storyline for your adventure. There
were always several different endings, and
not all of them were happy.
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When I was in the process of quitting weed, I was writing in my journal one day and the Choose Your Own
Adventure books occurred to me in my writing. And I
got an idea.
I wrote my own Choose Your Own Adventure story. Well,
it wasn’t as detailed as the books of my childhood, but
it ended up serving an invaluable purpose on my road
to quitting weed.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 1.6 - Choose Your Own Adventure
Here’s how it works. All I am asking you to write is two
paragraphs, but it can go as long as you like. Have fun
with this. Reclaim your imagination. You’re on your way
to NOT being a pothead anymore.
You’re going to write two different stories, each responding to these two prompts:
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1. What will my life be like in 10 years if I NEVER quit
weed?
2. What will my life be like in 10 years when I SUCCESSFULLY quit weed?
This writing exercise is a vision strategy to get you to
think about the life you WANT and the life you’re TERRIFIED of living.
Like I said, not all the endings in the Choose Your Own
Adventure books were happy endings. I remember one
time I fell off a cliff and died.
Your deepest desires and your deepest fears are your
most powerful inspiration. Writing these stories will help
you invoke this inspiration and give you some vision
about what you’re attempting to avoid and what you’re
living into in your decision to quit smoking weed.
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A few pointers before you write:
• While quitting weed may be one of the biggest adventures of your life, your story does not have to be
adventurous and dramatic. In fact, it will probably be
better if you envision an average, ordinary day. I was
27 when I wrote mine, so I just envisioned an ordinary day in my life as a 37-year-old.
• For the story in which you never quit weed, be brutally honest. Don’t throw yourself off a cliff, but your
mind does need a scary image to occur to you any
time you think about smoking weed again. Really explore how empty and sad your life will feel, and how
disappointed you will be in yourself.
• Be detailed and specific. For the story of what life
will be like without weed, imagine where you’ll live,
what your home will be like. Will you be married?
Kids? Living alone in a city loft overlooking the bay?
Will you own a classic motorcycle? Farmland? Dogs?
Cats? Where will you work? Will you drive to work or
take public transit? Or ride your bike? Or work from
home?
• Have fun.
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CONCLUSION OF Congratulations! You have made it
SECTION ONE: through Section One.
BEFORE YOU
QUIT I hope you have made some significant
revelations about yourself and the life you
want. You are truly about to cross over the
threshold, which will mark the beginning of
the life you have always wanted to live.
There will be some challenges ahead, but
I have laid out everything you will need in
Section Two: Quitting Weed.
The ultimate reason why you absolutely will
be able to quit weed successfully is because
you are making the decision to reconcile
with YOUR TRUE SELF.
This is the part of you that has been urging
you to quit for a long time. Now you have
the action plan and the techniques to rediscover your true identity and shift your power to this driven inner self.
Be strong. Be heroic. You are on the adventure of your lifetime.
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SECTION TWO
Quitting Weed
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YOUR OFFICIAL This is it! Your official Quit Day. Can you beQUIT DAY lieve it? You are really doing this!
We have some very important things to dive
into, but first I want to address the power
behind making today your official Quit Day.
Your official Quit Day is remarkable in one
specific sense. It is the day you decide that
your life will be different from here on out.
But be mindful that it does not mean things
will be perfect and struggle-free from now
on. Rather, it means that everything that
happens from here on directly correlates
with this significant day on your journey to
quitting weed.
In many ways, you will be measuring your
success based on how far you make it from
this day without smoking weed. It will become your measuring stick for how far
you’ve come.
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On the other hand, lapses and relapses will also correlate with your official Quit Day. Say you relapse and
start smoking again for 5 months. I would wager that
every time you smoke, you will think back to this day
and feel a sense of guilt or regret until you return to
your decision to quit.
There is no shame in this — I’ll tell you about my relapse stories soon enough. Rather, I like to think there
is power in this.
Your official Quit Day contains a power that you have
given it. I pass my Quit Day every year now like a birthday, a re-birth of my best self. I even let my friends take
me out to celebrate!
The Two Most Essential Things to Accomplish on
Your Official Quit Day
1. Just focus on making it through TODAY without
smoking weed.
2. DON’T Make the Grand Decision to NEVER SMOKE
WEED AGAIN - This has to do with giving yourself
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small, manageable goals. If you say “Never Again,”
this puts too much fear into your system and you are
likely to set yourself up for failure because that task
seems WAY too big to take on. On the other hand, if
you say, “I will not smoke today,” well, that becomes
a much easier task to handle, doesn’t it? Then tomorrow, you do the same thing, and the next day,
and so on.
A Note on Present-ness
Since we’re on the subject, I would like to share an idea
that a chiropractor friend of mine shared with me when
I was going through the process of quitting weed. It
has to do with being Present to the current moment.
This concept not only helped me overcome my weed
dependency, it also changed the way I approach EVERYTHING in my life, whether it’s good or bad, stressful
or joyful.
My friend used the image of climbing a rope, like in
gym class back in grade school. The rope hangs from
the ceiling and every two-feet or so the rope is tied in
knots. You use the knots to climb your way to the top,
right?
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As you start to climb, you must keep your eye on the
next knot and reach your hands to hold it in the right
place. Then you pull yourself up.
Imagine the knots above you are the future and the
knots beneath you are the past. Let that sink in as the
metaphor unfolds.
It does you no good to be worrying about all the knots
that are above you. You cannot reach 7 knots ahead.
You can only take it one knot at a time.
It also doesn’t matter that you have climbed several
knots that are now beneath you. Those knots are not
helping you anymore.
All you have is the knot that is right above you, perfectly within reach. It turns out you have a remarkable
amount of power to handle what is right in front of you.
If, however, you begin to freak out about how much
farther you have to go, or if you begin to panic that
you might fall, that causes an intense struggle when
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reaching for the next knot — it may even paralyze you,
and there you are, all alone up there, with your friends
staring up your gym shorts.
Okay, Rick, Translate This Out For Me…
Every moment of your day is like this. If you worry about
the future or wish for some better circumstance, it pulls
you out of the present moment.
If you beat yourself up about your past, or wish things
were the way they used to be, this pulls you out of the
present moment.
Suddenly you are exerting a lot of emotional energy
on a past that no longer exists, and a future that does
not exist yet. This leaves very little energy to devote
to giving your best in the present moment, because
you’re spending all your energy in places where it does
no good.
Get Mind Blown —> If you live every moment like this,
being pulled apart by your past and future, then every
moment feels like a struggle, leading to an entire life of
struggling.
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The more you can stop worrying about the past and the
future, the more energy you will have to give everything
you’ve got to the moment that is right in front of you.
Get Mind Blown, part 2 —> The more moments you
live like this, the more you will be able to look back on
your life knowing you gave your best in everything you
did.
This revelation fundamentally changed the way I live.
Now, no matter what I’m doing, whether I’m working
or spending time with people I love, or in my solitude, I
am giving my best self to every moment. I can honestly
say I don’t live with a lot of regret. Instead, I feel satisfied that I am living my life fully.
Now that you have decided to quit weed, this is a great
opportunity to make changes to the way you live and
see the world around you. Later in this section, we will
return to these ideas of mindfulness, which basically
means living with intention in the present moment.
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THE 3 PHASES Your process of quitting weed can be broOF QUITTING ken down into 3
WEED phases. These are, by no means, set in
stone, and they are likely a little different for
everyone, but they offer a good way to anticipate what you will be experiencing for
the next several weeks.
I will first give you an overview of the 3
Phases, then I will go on to break them down
more specifically and give you techniques
and exercises to use in order to successfully
navigate your way through the next several
weeks of life without weed.
Phase One
Phase One can best be understood as having a “Bio-Medical” focus. This phase lasts
roughly for the first two weeks.
There will be somewhat of a shock to your
system when you suddenly deprive it of a
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substance your body has been depending on for so
long.
Withdrawal symptoms are one of the biggest reasons
that people relapse or give up on their decision to quit
weed entirely.
A Note to Bear in Mind: It helps if you perceive your
withdrawal symptoms as your body’s way of adjusting
to life without weed. Your body is strong and intelligent,
not weak and breaking down. Be patient with yourself
and do the things this guide advises to support your
body as it readjusts to life without weed.
Phase Two
Phase Two will have a more psychological focus and will
be prevalent 3 weeks after quitting and onward.
Dream activity will become more intense, and painful
feelings will begin to surface during this period. You
may begin to experience grief symptoms — as though
you have lost a close friend.
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Think of it this way: the whole time you have been
smoking weed, you have been suppressing your feelings. One of the things you will need to learn is how to
incorporate these feelings into your daily life without
searching for a way to escape them.
Important: Many people refer to feelings like anxiety,
stress, frustration, worry, and depression as NEGATIVE
feelings. I don’t like this.
Calling these feelings “negative” diminishes the fact
that they are necessary to experience in order to be
whole human beings. I will instead call them “painful”
feelings. Pain simply signals that change is needed.
And this is actually a GOOD thing. More on this later.
Phase Three
Phase Three has what we will call a “Psychosocial Focus.” This has to do with a quest to discover your true
identity. This phase is ongoing through the entire process of quitting weed and will persist throughout the
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rest of your life.
But for our purposes, we will say this phase becomes
more prevalent at about weeks 4 to 6 when cannabis is
beginning to leave your system entirely.
During phase three, we will address the way you normally cope with physical and emotional situations and
your thought processes. I will guide you through making the changes you want to see in your thought and
behavior patterns.
The strategies you find here will literally be exercises in
deciding who you truly want to be. By following these
cues of what you want, you become better acquainted
with your true identity.
This is a very exciting component of deciding to quit
weed. It is the point at which you really begin to realize
your decision to quit weed is one of the most significant decisions you will ever make.
So, what are we waiting for? … Let’s get started!
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PHASE ONE:
BIO-MEDICAL
FOCUS
WEEKS 1 & 2
The 4 D’s:
Delay, Distract, Deep-Breathing, De-Catastrophize
This strategy is likely to become a mantra of sorts for
virtually every struggle you encounter when quitting
weed.
Are you experiencing cravings right now? Use the 4 D’s
Are you dealing with painful feelings? Use the 4 D’s
Are you thinking you just want to give up? Use the 4 D’s
The 4 D’s Explained
The 4 D’s are a classic relapse prevention technique.
When you feel a craving or an urge to smoke weed,
you use the 4 D’s as a strategy to divert the urge and
consciously decide not to give in. Here they are broken
down more specifically:
Delay: Simply put, your cravings or urges will disappear
whether you give in to them or not. The objective, ob-
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viously, is NOT to give in. When you feel a craving or
urge coming on, set a timer. Some people do 5 minutes,
some people do 30 minutes. You will find that once the
time runs out, your craving or urge will have passed.
Distract: While the timer is counting down, you need
to do something else. Remember the WEED REPLACEMENT you came up with in Exercise 1.5? This would be
a perfect time to choose your replacement activity over
smoking weed. This will distract you while you are delaying, increasing your chances dramatically that when
the time runs out, you will be past the urge to smoke.
Deep-Breathing: When you breathe deeply, your blood
gets more oxygen and literally flows more freely, giving
you an increased sense of calm and tranquility. When
you breathe passively, or automatically, your breath is
shallow, and you are literally just surviving. But intentional deep-breathing makes you more attuned to the
force that is giving you life, and this helps shift your
perspective.
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De-Catastrophize: This has to do with managing your
thoughts around your cravings. You will be tempted to
think things like, “I can’t take it, I NEED a joint” or “I’m
NEVER going to be able to do this.” If you think like
this, chances are, you will prove yourself right. (Because
what do people like more than being right? Nothing,
really.) That’s why if you train yourself to De-catastrophize your thoughts and exchange them with thoughts
like, “This is uncomfortable, but this will pass, and I will
be one step closer to a life without weed.” Again, you
will be likely to prove yourself right if you think this way.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 2.1 - The 4 D’s
You are going to write out your personalized 4 D’s in
the chart I have provided in your workbook. Decide
how much time you will Delay, what you will do to Distract yourself, a duration for Deep-Breathing (e.g.- 10
breaths, or 5 minutes, etc), and what thoughts you will
use to De-catastrophize.
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You are writing these down to internalize
them. Ideally, you will want them to become
automatic responses when your cravings
arise.
WITHDRAWALS Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid with-
drawals. Physically speaking, this will be the
biggest challenge you will face when quitting weed.
But the good news is that your withdrawal
symptoms are temporary, and can be overcome within about two weeks.
Natural Ways to Reduce Weed Withdrawal
Symptoms
Here you will identify the specific ways that
your body is adjusting to life without weed.
For best results, you will create an action
plan for reducing the symptoms you are experiencing.
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We will cover the range of symptoms and the menu of
recommended remedies. In the following section, we
will break down the withdrawal process into a timeline
to provide targeted suggestions for how to deal with
symptoms on a daily basis.
Following is a list of the most common withdrawal
symptoms people experience when quitting weed:
• Insomnia
• Depression
• Nightmares or vivid dreams
• Mood swings or irritability
• Anxiety or fear
• Headaches
• Night sweats, sweaty hands
• Loss of appetite, nausea
• Tremors, shaking, dizziness
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A Menu of Home Remedies
Go through this list of recommended remedies. As
you do, make note of which you would like to try given your set of symptoms.
Exercise - While this may be the last thing you feel like
doing, this is the most reliable remedy for reducing
all withdrawal symptoms. Exercising increases blood
flow and releases endorphins, giving you a heightened
sense of confidence and self-esteem, and can help reduce anxiety, tension, and depression. The activity also
expels stored THC out of your fat cells. This release of
THC into the bloodstream is a way for your body to get
a “natural fix,” so to speak, which will help to reduce
your symptoms.
Hot Soaking Baths - While there are many ways to create a detoxifying bath, the easiest and most affordable
is an Epsom Salt bath. Epsom salt can be found at any
drugstore. Simply add one or two cups to a hot bath.
High in magnesium sulfate, the Epsom salt allows the
body to absorb magnesium through the skin. It helps to
relax muscles, eliminate toxins through your digestive
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tract, and increase production of enzymes produced in
the pancreas. This can greatly enhance your body’s natural detoxification methods.
Drink Plenty of Water & Fluids - I remember when one
of my friends was quitting weed, he wore one of those
water bottle backpacks around everywhere. Attached
to the backpack was a long tube straw that draped over
his shoulder. Everyone made fun of him for it, but he
wore it with confidence. It made me wish I had one
of those backpacks when I was going through my own
detox process. How will you make sure you get enough
water? Other fluids like cranberry juice and hot tea also
support kidney function.
Eat Foods High in Potassium - If one of your withdrawal symptoms is excessive sweating, this might be
a good remedy for you. Melons, bananas, citrus fruits,
green vegetables, tomatoes, all replenish your potassium levels that are depleted when you sweat. At natural
grocery stores you can buy a variety of bottled fruit and
vegetable smoothies.
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Reduce or Eliminate Caffeine - This remedy might
sound just downright cruel. Cut out weed and caffeine
at the same time?! Pay attention to yourself and what
your body needs. If insomnia is your toughest withdrawal symptom, you may at least want to eliminate drinks
like coffee and sodas in the afternoon and evening.
Supplements, Vitamins, & Minerals - If you are hoping to discover a miracle pill that will eliminate all your
symptoms, discomfort, and cravings, I’m sorry to say it
likely will not happen. Prescription medications such as
sleep aids and antidepressants will not be recommended anywhere throughout this guide as they increase the
chances of merely shifting from one dependency to another. If that is an option you would like to pursue, that
would be a conversation best reserved for your physician. All that said, there are a variety of supplements
available to you in pill form that will help you tremendously through your withdrawal process. Feel free to
do as much research here as you like, or you can benefit
from all the research, trial, and error that I went through
to determine the most effective supplements that will
help reduce your specific withdrawal symptoms.
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Amino Acids - Amino acids are recommended primarily to help restore neurotransmitter deficiencies. Chronic
smoking affects your brain’s production of dopamine
(the pleasure/reward neurotransmitter) and serotonin
(the mood/appetite/sleep neurotransmitter). While
there are several amino acids with varying purposes and effects, the amino acid I highly recommend to
every person going through weed withdrawal is 5-hydroxy tryptophan, or 5-HTP. It supports the production
of tryptophan to serotonin, which directly affects your
mood, your appetite, and your ability to sleep. It can
also greatly reduce other symptoms such as depression, anxiety, irritability, and nightmares.
Vitamins and Minerals - Not only do vitamins help
with detoxifying your body, but your nervous and immune systems greatly depend on vitamins. Generally,
the vitamins you need are contingent on your diet, but
on average heavy marijuana smokers have nutritionally
deficient diets with few fruits and vegetables and more
pork, cheese, and sodium. Additionally, most studies show that vitamin C and carotenoids are depleted
through marijuana use, both of which are antioxidants
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that help remove toxins from the body. As a rule of
thumb, the most important vitamins and minerals you
need are contained in a good broad spectrum multi-vitamin and mineral complex, so it will not be necessary
to buy them individually.
Some guidelines:
• Do Not Buy Cheap - You are not buying weed anymore, right? You might as well use some of the extra cash you have saved to buy some good supplements.
• Be sure whatever you buy contains these most essential vitamins and minerals:
• Vitamin B - B-vitamins are related to helping your
nervous system function properly, most importantly
for your purposes, the ability to handle stress. Look
for B5, B6, B12 and Folic Acid
• Vitamin C - Aids primarily as an antioxidant to support immune function. Smokers typically have low
levels of vitamin C.
• N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) - This is another amino acid
that functions as an antioxidant to support the im-
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mune system, and it also works to thin out mucus.
One of the ways your body will expel toxins will be
through coughing up phlegm. NAC will help break
up the mucus trapped deep in the lungs.
• Essential Fatty Acids - Commonly referred to as
omega 3 fatty acids, fish oil, and EPA/DHA. Many
nutritionists believe this is the most essential nutrient missing in our modern diet. Omega 3 deficiencies lead to depression, anxiety, and irritability. Most
importantly, these fatty acids are good for the brain
and help improve memory and focus.
Dealing With Symptoms: A Timeline
Now it’s time to put a plan into action based on your
specific symptoms and the remedies you want to try
out. In a moment I will take you through a recommended timeline for how to reduce your weed withdrawal
symptoms over the course of 14 days. Use it as a guide
and adapt it to fit your withdrawal needs.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 2.2 - Action Plan for Withdrawal Symptoms
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Find the Action Plan for Withdrawal Symptoms in your
toolkit. You will fill it out by indicating which symptoms
you are experiencing on the given day, the remedies
you plan to utilize, and a reflection of what worked and
what didn’t. If it helps, post it somewhere and you will
see it as a daily reminder, such as the refrigerator or
bathroom mirror. Here is an example of what it will look
like.
First 24-48 Hours
Symptoms: Insomnia, Night Sweats, Irritability
Remedies: Multi-vitamin & mineral complex, 5-HTP,
Ride my bike, reduce caffeine
Reflection (what has worked & what hasn’t): Amino
acids and vitamins seem to work b/c anxiety and insomnia are not as bad as I expected. Riding my bike is good
because it takes my mind off my symptoms and I get
outside to exercise which makes me feel productive.
Cutting out caffeine is too hard to deal with, so I just cut
down on sodas and coffee after noon which helps.
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Used mindfully, this action plan allows you to place
yourself in a position of control and awareness over
your withdrawal symptoms.
This exercise should empower you to be creative and
intentional in managing withdrawals on your own terms.
Following is a timeline I have put together to guide you
through the next 14 days. This model has been assembled from my own trial and error, as well as the experiences of others who have also successfully quit smoking weed.
First 24-48 Hours
Symptoms: In the first two days, you likely will experience sleepless nights/insomnia, night sweats, and
headaches.
Remedies: With a good breakfast, take your supplements and vitamins; Broad spectrum multivitamin and
Mineral complex, 5-HTP (200mg), NAC (1200mg), Omega 3 fish oil (3000mg)
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Exercise - Walk, Jog, Go to the Gym, Play Sports, Bike,
Swim, etc. The idea is to get your heart rate up and
sweat a little for 30 minutes at least 3 times a week.
This is the most effective and beneficial way to relieve
stress, remove toxins from the body, and tire yourself
out which increases your chances of being able to fall
asleep. It also releases the THC stored up in fat cells
which gives your body a kind of “fix” to help soothe
your symptoms.
Drink plenty of water as this will help you from getting
dehydrated which should help with headaches.
Eat melons, bananas, citrus fruits, green vegetables, or
tomatoes, which will replenish your potassium levels if
you’ve been sweating profusely.
Cut out or cut down on caffeine in the afternoon.
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Days 3-5
Symptoms: By now you are likely still struggling with
insomnia, night sweats, nausea, loss of appetite, and
headaches. You are probably feeling irritable or experiencing mood swings. If the exercise and supplements have been working for you and you are able to
fall asleep, then you may be experiencing vivid dreams
or nightmares. This is one reason the 5-HTP is so important, as it helps support nervous system function
to help reduce stress and alleviate the vivid dreaming.
Your cravings during these few days will likely be at their
worst, both because your body is losing the THC that
has been stored up, and you are missing the daily habit
of smoking weed.
Remedies: Continue to take your daily supplements
and vitamins; Broad spectrum multivitamin and Mineral
complex, 5-HTP (200mg), NAC (1200mg), Omega 3 fish
oil (3000mg)
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Continue your exercise routine. By day five you should
have exercised at least two times for 30 minutes each.
If you haven’t done this yet, get to it today!
Drink plenty of water and eat foods high in potassium.
Cut out or cut down on caffeine in the afternoon.
If your night sweats are getting unbearable and you find
yourself waking up in soaked sheets, then try soaking
in an epsom salt bath before bedtime. This will relieve
stress and remove toxins from the body, which should
reduce the amount that you sweat at night.
Days 6-7, End of Week One!
You have made it through the first week! Congratulations. This should be an important moment for you as it
is a monumental indicator that you really do have what
it takes to make it through. You have successfully navigated the most difficult stage of withdrawal symptoms.
But don’t celebrate too much, you still have work to do.
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Symptoms: At this point, you may still be suffering from
insomnia which can really heighten the stress and discomfort of all other symptoms. If you are sleeping, then
you probably are having vivid dreams in which you are
desperately searching for some weed. You are likely experiencing some anxiety and depression as you are beginning to feel more than you are used to without the
numbing agent of weed in your system. There is also a
sense of grief that you’ve lost something, a way of life
or your best friend. Cravings at this stage can also be
pretty heavy.
Remedies: Continue to take your daily supplements
and vitamins; Broad spectrum multivitamin and Mineral
complex, 5-HTP (200mg), NAC (1200mg), Omega 3 fish
oil (3000mg)
Continue your exercise routine. By the end of week
one, you should have exercised 3 times.
Continue to drink plenty of water and eat foods high in
potassium.
Cut out or cut down on caffeine in the afternoon.
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Week Two, Days 8-14
By week two you should have established a new daily
regimen of taking your supplements, exercising, drinking plenty of water, and filling your time with new activities that you could never get around to when you were
smoking weed all the time.
Keep it up! I know it is hard and there is a part of you
that wants to give up all your progress for a huge joint
or a few bong hits. But this is where you prove to yourself and everyone you know that you have what it takes.
You will still be experiencing a range of symptoms, but
they will not be as severe as they were during week
one.
Symptoms: Insomnia or vivid dreams, depression, anxiety, irritability, sweating, cravings, nausea, loss of appetite, tremors or dizziness.
Remedies: Continue to take your daily supplements
and vitamins; Broad spectrum multivitamin and Mineral
complex, 5-HTP (200mg), NAC (1200mg), Omega 3 fish
oil (3000mg)
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Continue your exercise routine. If you exercised three
days last week, try to make it four days this week, or
increase the time you exercise to 40 minutes. You will
find that your body can handle the gradual increase of
movement. Hopefully by now your exercise routine is
fueling your pleasure receptors so that it begins to feel
like its own reward and that you have experienced a
boost in confidence and positive outlook.
Continue to drink plenty of water and eat foods high in
potassium.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 2.3 - The Weed Withdrawal
Monitoring Scale
This has been useful for people going through weed
withdrawal. It allows you to measure and track the intensity of your withdrawal symptoms over the course of
10 days, depending upon your experience.
Each day, take a few moments to account for your
symptoms. Using the rating scale 1-10, make note of
the intensity of the symptoms. Over the course of the
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next ten days, you will have the chance to
see them come and go, peak and fall. This
can be very encouraging as you basically
watch your symptoms decrease and disappear over the course of a few days.
CANNABIS Detoxification is the active process of flushDETOX ing toxins out of the body, usually in the
fastest way possible. Most people who undergo cannabis detox are experiencing a
raised level of concern, usually because of
an impending drug test.
There are a number of actions you can take
and natural substances you can use, such
as special fluids, body-cleansing products,
pills, herbs, and intensive exercises to flush
toxins from your body. And the best part is
that this can be done affordably and naturally at home.
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Refer to the Your Handbook to Natural
Weed Detox for a step-by-step natural process for detoxifying your system.
The Primary Reason People Fail or Relapse
The subject of removing cannabis from the
body is the issue which has the highest level
of concern for most users who are trying to
quit.
The reason that managing withdrawals is an
urgent matter is because withdrawal symptoms are typically the primary reason people
go back to smoking weed. The withdrawal
symptoms can be very intense if you don’t
have the right mindset and if you are not
doing anything proactively to reduce their
effects.
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MANAGING Cravings and urges — potentially the most
CRAVINGS & intense withdrawal symptoms you will exURGES perience — can be all-consuming and can
make everything else in the world seem unbearable unless you smoke immediately.
For the sake of review…
Cravings - a DESIRE to smoke
Urges - a NEED to smoke
Earlier, I told you that every time you give
in to a craving or an urge, the stronger they
become. Well, you have basically been giving in to these urges for years. I’d say they’re
pretty damn strong. They must feel like a
deeply-rooted NEED by this point.
But you willingly gave them that power over
you. The good news is, you also have the
power to take it away. The more you resist
urges, the weaker they become.
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So How Do You Overcome Cravings and Urges?
The simple answer is that the only way to make them
go away is by NOT GIVING IN TO THEM.
Urges are, in part, physiological. Your body has been so
used to depending on weed that it begins to tell you in
its own way that you need to smoke.
But these urges have also been trained in your mind to
associate with certain circumstances. That is, there is
also a psychological aspect to urges.
If you used to smoke with your morning coffee, or in
the bath, or when you got home from work, then these
experiences are likely to trigger an urge, because your
brain, in a sense, knows weed is coming.
Many experts describe coping with urges as “Urge Surfing,” in which you imagine yourself riding the waves of
your urges until they wash over you and ultimately pass
you by.
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But I always liked the analogy that urges are like stray
cats.
Yes, cats.
If you feed them once, they are assuredly going to
come around every day at the same time, making you
feel obligated to keep on feeding them. You even become attached to them and their arrival becomes a part
of your daily routine.
When you stop feeding them, however, they will still
come around for days or weeks afterward until they
realize they are not being fed anymore. They are very
persistent, but, eventually, they stop showing up.
Two Strategies for Overcoming Cravings and Urges
There are two different strategies you should use. Both
of these techniques really helped me when I was dealing with really intense urges. I think the reason these
strategies helped is because they address both your
physiological and psychological triggers that cue urges
in your mind and body.
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1. The 4 D’s
You might have guessed I was going to say this. When
you feel a craving or an urge, the 4 D’s are designed
to help you resist, so you don’t give in to a relapse.
This takes discipline, but when you choose Delay, Distract, Deep-breathing, and De-Catastrophizing, you will
maintain control until the urge has passed.
Embedded in this strategy is also a reorientation of
pleasure and reward. You will experience a sense of satisfaction when you resist an urge successfully, making
you want to resist more and more.
2. Change Your Daily Patterns
Because your brain has been trained to expect weed
during familiar times of the day, it helps to disrupt this
patterned thinking by changing your daily routine.
Wake up earlier than usual. Take a different route to
work. Find new activities to enjoy in your solitude. Take
up a new hobby.
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Remember your Replacement? This should also be a
new addition to your routine that you engage in during
the times you would normally be smoking weed.
This strategy not only helped to reduce my cravings
and urges, it literally made my whole world feel new.
I woke up early before the sun came up and took my
dog on long walks with the sunrise.
Because I had more time, I took a longer drive to work.
I avoided the freeways and enjoyed driving leisurely
down tree-lined roads. I started eating fruit and granola for breakfast instead of smoking a bowl. In the evenings, I would sit on the porch and read or take long
walks or go on a bike ride.
I actually felt like my life was changing. That’s because
it was in every way imaginable, and I was the author of
it all.
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Your brain will be revitalized by all the new
stimulating sights and sounds, and it will
begin to associate pleasure with these new
routines that are weed-free.
LAPSES & First, it is important to understand the difRELAPSES ference between a lapse and relapse:
Lapse: A short-lived return to smoking
weed; for instance, a day or so.
Relapse: An extended return to smoking
weed lasting days, weeks, or months.
Everything we have been talking about up
to this point has been aimed at preventing a
relapse. But it’s important to note that many
people trying to quit weed have at least one
relapse.
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I certainly did. Remember how I told you I tried to quit
for 3 years? Talk about relapse after relapse. You should
not feel ashamed, and you should not beat yourself up
in the event that you slip.
I can tell you quite honestly, though, during the 3 years
when I was trying to quit, getting high was never very
enjoyable. I did it mostly out of habit and because I
wasn’t ready to confront my own issues.
Every time I would smoke, I felt a grave sense that I was
letting myself down, that I was better than this. Most
importantly, I learned about myself from my relapses.
I learned what triggers to avoid. I learned what were
my strengths and what were the things I needed to improve.
In the end, it simply became my own personal journey
to a life without weed. My own sense of timing. It was
like I was learning to walk without a crutch. I set the
crutch aside and took as many steps as I could without
it before reaching for it again, desperately. Eventually, I
didn’t need it at all.
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You are now on your own path, learning what it takes to
get rid of your crutch.
You must remember that a relapse is not something that
happens TO you, it is something you CHOOSE yourself. But hopefully, now that you’ve established an official Quit Day, if you do have a relapse, you will feel that
sinking feeling deep inside you that is really your True
Self reminding you of your commitment to a better life.
Eventually, you will find the strength you need to get
out from under this dependency once and for all.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 2.4 - Relapse Prevention Log
Take a look at your Toolkit for exercise 2.4, your Relapse
Prevention Log.
By now you are in the thick of learning how to cope with
triggers, withdrawals, and urges. Similar to previous exercises, it is useful to document and track your process
in writing, giving you a sense of awareness and control.
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You can fill out this log sheet every night before bed, or
you can fill it out every time you encounter an urge to
smoke. This is how it works:
• Identify Your Triggers: In the left column, you will
write down the physical, emotional, or psychological
trigger responsible for the present urge.
• Rate the Intensity of Your Craving/Urge: Using a scale
of 1 to 10 (10 being unbearable), give your urge a
rating.
• Identify the 4 D’s Used: In this column, write down
which of the 4 D’s you decided to use to resist the
urge. Hint: Using all 4 D’s in succession is ideal.
• Were You Successful?: In this column, indicate whether you resisted the urge (Yes) or gave in to the urge
(No).
This exercise of keeping a log is designed to give you
a sense of awareness and control over your urges. You
cannot prevent them from happening, but you can use
this strategy to keep from feeling as though your urges
have control over you.
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It can be very rewarding to watch the numbers in the Ratings column begin to drop,
and you can gain a satisfying sense of accomplishment with seeing the word ‘Yes’
repeated in the Success column.
PHASE TWO: Painful Emotions, Depression, and Grief
PSYCHOLOGICAL
FOCUS I will assume that by now you have been exWEEK 3 periencing some pretty heavy emotions.
At the risk of sounding insensitive, I want to
reassure you how GREAT this is. That sounds
terrible, doesn’t it? Let me explain…
Of course, it does not feel GREAT to be experiencing painful emotions, depression,
and grief. In fact, one of the overriding characteristics is that it seems as though you will
never feel happy again. It’s almost as though
you’ve forgotten what happiness feels like,
and it’s difficult to believe you were ever
happy before.
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Am I right? I think I am, because there is extensive research out there that suggests these feelings are NECESSARY, ESSENTIAL, and PURPOSEFUL on the path to
psychological and emotional well-being.
A Bit of Research to Reveal What Most Don’t Know
According to psychologist David J. Kavanagh of
Queensland University in Australia, painful emotions
actually aid us in our survival. Pain alerts us to health
issues in our bodies, relationships, or other important
matters we are facing.
He suggests that acknowledging and accepting that
life is complex and difficult is an important step in becoming a healthy person. When we reject or suppress
painful emotions, we actually increase the likelihood
that we will give in to addictive behaviors.
I understand this now that I am completely free of my
weed dependency. But I do remember what it was like
to be stuck in the foggy haze of withdrawals and the
intense sadness I felt without fully understanding why.
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Like I told you in the introduction of this
guide, I began smoking weed to reject the
painful emotions I was experiencing in the
face of my father’s illness. It was because of
this denial of feeling that I actually increased
my chances of developing addictive behaviors.
Psychologist Shannon Sauer-Zavala suggests, “it is impossible to avoid painful
emotions altogether because to live is to
experience setbacks and conflicts.”
DEPRESSION I remember when I first read this statement.
It seemed so obvious, yet so surprising that
I had never really considered it before. Setbacks and conflicts, and our complex emotions as a response to the difficulties of life, is
the most normal human experience there is.
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I recognized that the people around me who I admired
the most seemed completely capable of handling this
reality of life without numbing themselves every single
day.
I knew I wanted the same ability to be able to handle
life’s difficulties without suppressing and rejecting them.
I knew this was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome.
Learning about the true nature of Depression was not
only the most fascinating research I came across, it actually gave me a profound appreciation for human psychology and its role in our survival.
First of all, I want to be conscientious in the way I discuss
Depression. I want to reiterate that I am not a doctor. I
am just a person, like you, who was on a deep search
to finding information and methods that would work to
help me quit weed for good.
As it turns out, Depression is one of the most heavily
medicated conditions in our society today.
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Important Note: If this is you, if you are on any kind of
anti-depressant, I am not, in any way, suggesting that
you are wrong or that you should get off your medication.
That is a decision that you must continue to evaluate
with the guidance and direction of your doctor.
Now, with all of that said, I want to share with you the
research findings of Paul W. Andrews, Post-Doctoral Fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University, and J.
Anderson Thomson, Psychiatrist in private practice in
Charlottesville, Virginia.
According to their observations, Depression is often
treated in our society like a mental disorder that needs
to be medicated. Often, when an individual seeks professional help for feelings of sadness, isolation, and
anxiety that are so intense they actually disrupt daily
life, the solution is to medicate those feelings so the
individual can feel “normal.”
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But Andrews and Thomson suggest that Depression is
actually a necessary state of mind that can bring real
benefits.
To Get a Little Technical
Andrews and Thomson have conducted research into
a molecule in the brain known as the 5HT1A Receptor.
This receptor binds to serotonin, which is the molecule
most targeted in anti-depressant medications.
Think of a car driving up a mountain. The engine is more
likely to break down when firing continuously like this.
This can happen to your neurons. They can become
damaged with continuous firing.
But this is where it gets interesting. When the mind is
in a state of Depression, the neurons in your prefrontal
cortex begin to fire continuously. The 5HT1A Receptor
supplies neurons in the prefrontal cortex with fuel they
need to fire continuously — without becoming damaged.
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According to Andrews and Thomson, this means that
the 5HT1A Receptor is “evolutionarily important,”
meaning it has adapted as a means of survival. It is necessary to allow our brains to do this without inhibiting
this process with medication.
What This Means in the Real World of Sad Feelings
Depressed people have trouble performing everyday
activities. They can’t concentrate, they become isolated, they feel lethargic, and they experience little to no
pleasure in eating or sex.
Sound familiar?
These are the physical results of all those neurons firing
in your prefrontal cortex. Andrews and Thomson suggest your brain is doing this on purpose.
When you are in a state of depression, you tend to think
intensely about your problems. This is called rumination. All these effects in your body are actually coordinating to keep you from becoming distracted with
food, work, sex, or sleep.
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When you ruminate on your problems, this analytical
state of mind helps you break your problems down into
manageable chunks as you work through them.
That is, of course, if you don’t smoke weed to escape
this state of mind.
Extensive research also indicates that people who ruminate on their problems successfully overcome their
depression at a faster rate.
And even more studies have found that expressive writing promotes quicker resolution of depression as this
exercise helps depressed people gain insight into their
problems.
Remember my friend who suggested I should keep a
journal when I was going through the process of quitting weed? She obviously knew what she was talking
about.
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If you haven’t been writing regularly in a journal, I’m
going to make the suggestion again that you start now.
Here are a couple pointers to keeping a journal successfully:
• Write every day.
• If you have no idea what to write, then start there by
writing “I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say, I
have nothing to say…” over and over. You will eventually get tired of writing that phrase, and the flood
gates will open.
• Think of your journal entries as emotional vomit. It
really does not need to be pretty. Just raw and truthful. E.M. Forster once famously said, “How do I know
what I think till I see what I say.” It’s best to observe
your thoughts without trying to control them.
• Still need more guidance? Look at Interactive Toolkit
Exercise 2.5 for a list of writing prompts to get you
started.
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THE STAGES Understanding the stages of the grief proOF GRIEF cess can be empowering. It can give you a
sense of awareness amidst your complex
feelings when you have experienced loss in
some way.
Grief most often occurs when we experience
the loss of a loved one. But it can also occur
when we lose a sense of what he hoped for
or expected out of life.
I had a friend who decided to drop out of
medical school to be a musician. His parents,
in response, underwent a very intense grief
process. They even had to see a therapist.
No, they had not physically lost their son.
He was still alive, but they did have to cope
with the loss of the life they expected him to
have. They had to come to terms with their
anger and their fear that he would always
struggle, that they would pass on without
being sure he would always be financially
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stable. They had to grieve the loss, even though he still
went over to their house every Sunday for dinner.
It is very likely you are experiencing loss in your decision to quit weed. In a very real sense, you are losing a
constant companion that has helped you through many
painful experiences in life. This is completely normal
and nothing to be ashamed of. But it is important to
understand the way we grieve so you know what to expect.
Grief: The 5 Stages
The 5 stages of grief were first introduced by Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying. The stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
Being aware of these stages will not help you avoid
them or overcome them more quickly. However, awareness can help you have grace for yourself and can alleviate some of the pressure you will feel as you progress
through grief.
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It is important to understand that you will not progress
through these stages in an orderly fashion. You will likely experience various stages simultaneously and in a
different order than they are presented here. The key is
to be able to recognize which stage you are currently in
and allow yourself to feel through it successfully.
1. Denial - In the denial stage, it is a normal result of
shock to deny the tragedy even occurred. Then you
likely will deny its painful effects on you. Many people in the denial stage, soon after the loss, will say
that they have already accepted it. This is, in fact,
a denial of the pain that will inevitably come with
grieving. You cannot leap over all the other stages
to acceptance.
2. Anger - This is usually the easiest stage to recognize,
yet it can be the most difficult to overcome. Many
people become stuck here and never overcome their
anger. Do you know people who just seem angry all
the time for no apparent reason? They likely have
unresolved grief. I smashed a TV once in my anger
stage. Trust me, this was not normal behavior for me
at all. It was almost funny afterward, though, when
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I thought to myself, “Well, I guess I’m successfully
processing my anger.”
3. Bargaining - I never understood why this is called
bargaining. Many people understand this stage as
trying to “bargain” with God in prayer. For instance,
“Lord, I will do (blank), if only you would do (blank).”
But what bargaining really looks like is a sleepless
night when you lie in bed thinking, “If only I had
done (blank), then (blank) would never have happened.” Bargaining is such a necessary step in the
grief process. It is the only way you will work through
every possible scenario in your mind until you realize
that there was nothing you could have done to prevent what happened. Only after this ruminating will
acceptance be an option.
4. Depression - This is why I wanted to cover Depression before I introduced you to the grief process. Do
you see how your mind and your body actually work
on a bio-chemical and psychological level to support
your emotional well-being? In the midst of Depression, if you can find the strength to allow yourself to
feel sad knowing it is serving a purpose, and if you
can feel through it without needing to smoke weed,
then you, my friend, can literally do ANYTHING!
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5. Acceptance - Acceptance usually does
not mean happiness. Acceptance is most
often marked by a sense of calm. You
reach a new level of understanding and
wisdom. The tragedy of loss has changed
you in a way, and you look at life a little
differently.
I will say that there is some danger going
through the grief process that you may become stuck in one of the stages, like Denial
or Anger. It could take years, or even the
rest of your life to find your way through.
Awareness can be the element which helps
you to NOT get stuck.
Oftentimes the best you can do is to simply have some patience and understanding
for yourself as you grieve. It only makes it
worse when you tell yourself to just get over
it and cheer up.
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PHASE THREE:
PSYCHOSOCIAL
FOCUS
WEEKS 4-6 AND
BEYOND
And it probably goes without saying, if you
smoke weed to avoid your grief or your
depression, then you will be stuck in that
phase for as long as you choose to smoke.
My denial stage was a brutal 13 years long.
Friend, I want to tell you something in all
sincerity…
If you have made it this far, you have SUCCESSFULLY weathered the MOST DIFFICULT PART of quitting weed.
That is not to say that you are out of the
woods yet. But it does mean that cannabis
will soon be completely out of your system.
The harshest withdrawal symptoms are behind you. And you are on your way to learning how to cope with grief and painful emotions like a healthy individual who does not
need a crutch or an escape route.
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I hope it feels good. And I hope you’re feeling motivated to keep moving forward. There is still more ground
to cover.
Coping With Common Thoughts to Maintain Success
Now that you are no longer living under the constant
haze of weed smoke, you are probably noticing more engaged thought processes. To put it simply, you’re probably experiencing tiny little thought-bombs throughout
your day.
This is great as your mind is probably enjoying a renewed sense of clarity. However, there are some common thoughts to be aware of that have the potential to
trigger a relapse.
By anticipating these thoughts and knowing how to
talk yourself through them, you greatly decrease their
power over you and increase your chances of avoiding
relapse.
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Common Thoughts That Lead to Relapse
Read through this list and make note of any thoughts that
seem familiar to you:
• Nostalgia - Feeling like you want to smoke to remember what it was like
• Testing Control - You have gained a new sense of confidence and you want to see if you can smoke again
without becoming dependent
• Crisis Situations - Moments of high-stress can lead you
into rationalizing that you need to smoke
• Feelings of Irritability - Your short temper may be getting on people’s nerves and you believe that smoking
weed is just better for everyone else around you.
• Relaxation - In this section we will address relaxation
and meditation techniques. You may find yourself
thinking that smoking weed is a quicker and easier way
to relax.
• To-Hell-With-It - In moments of frustration, you may be
tempted to convince yourself that being high all the
time is better than all this emotional heaviness, and depression, and journaling, and being responsible.
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Learning how to cope with these thoughts is essential
to sustaining your success. Here are 3 suggestions:
1. Develop the ability to challenge these thoughts. If
you read this list and recognize you have been thinking some of these things, it might be easier to perceive that these thoughts are normal and are a result
of the temptation to find a quick fix. Healthy people
know what they want and develop the skill of challenging thoughts that go against their true desires.
2. The 4 D’s. I honestly hope you are getting some mileage out of this strategy. It is widely used across the
world as a relapse prevention strategy, because it really works when you take it seriously. It can certainly work to disrupt unwanted thoughts. Again, think
stray cats. If you stop feeding these thoughts, they
will eventually go away.
3. Seek help from your supporters. The people you
sought out to support you in your decision to quit
weed have committed to be there for you when you
are struggling. You should be able to call or text
them when you are feeling triggered. Your supporters can often be good distractors. I used to call my
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best friend, who was my chief supporter.
We had a code word — No, I won’t tell
you what it is. But he knew any time I said
this word, I needed him to come pick me
up, and we’d go hang out to take my
mind off it.
MINDFULNESS You may not realize it, but some of the exMEDITATION ercises and strategies you have been using
in this guide so far have actually been introductory techniques to learn a practical skill
called mindfulness.
The Deep-breathing in the 4 D’s, for instance,
is an important component to Mindfulness
Meditation. If you have been journaling,
you have been engaging in the mindfulness
strategy of allowing your thoughts to flow
without judgment.
Many people are turned off simply at the
mention of “mindfulness” and “meditation.” It is a resistance that I certainly understand.
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I never thought of myself as someone who would be
into meditation. I dismissed it without ever really knowing anything about it. But when I began to learn about
its ancient traditions and how many recent studies have
revealed links with meditation to overall health and
wellness, I became more open-minded. I try to remain
open to anything that works.
Getting Down to Basics
My goal in this guide is to simply introduce you to the
basics of Mindfulness Meditation, so that you can step
into the world of it, have a look around, and decide if it
is right for you.
Here are a few things that are true:
Your mind is wild. Life is unpredictable and sometimes
painful. Your ID and your EGO want pleasure and instant gratification. Life does not always give us what we
want.
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The core purpose of Mindfulness Meditation is to teach
individuals to be more calm and accepting no matter
what life brings us.
A Definition
Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Center for Mindfulness
at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, defines Mindfulness as ‘paying attention on purpose, moment by moment, without judging.’
Many believe that Mindfulness Meditation requires you
to sit still for hours with the absence of thought. This
comes from widely promoted misconceptions about
Eastern traditions in our Western civilization.
I want to direct you to a video in which Jon Kabat-Zinn
introduces you to the “9 Attitudes of Mindfulness.” Listening to him talk about pre-conceived notions, barriers, and effective ways to successfully approach meditation will provide you a solid grounding to attempt
your first meditation practice.
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Click the link below for Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “9 Attitudes
of Mindfulness,” and then come back to the guide, so I
can walk you through your first meditation.
Video: 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness
Your First Mindfulness Meditation Exercise
I hope that through watching that video about the 9
Attitudes of Mindfulness, you have begun to let go of
some preconceived notions you may have had about
Mindfulness Meditation.
Without feeling as though you need to have these concepts mastered, just allow yourself to be aware of them
as you move into your Mindfulness Meditation exercise.
Just to recap, The 9 interconnected Attitudes of Mindfulness are:
• Beginner’s Mind
• Non-Judging
• Acceptance
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• Letting Go
• Trust
• Patience
• Non-Striving
• Gratitude
• Generosity
Now, I want you to simply practice the most basic skill
of Mindfulness Meditation, which is focusing on your
breathing.
We spend our entire day focused on our thoughts, agonizing over our thoughts, believing these thoughts are
our identities. In Mindfulness Meditation, a shift occurs
in which you intentionally allow your thoughts to exist
without judgment as you try to shift your focus to your
breathing. Your thoughts are not keeping you alive —
your breath is. Focus on what gives you life.
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Exercise #1
After you finish reading this paragraph, I want you to
close your eyes. You will take 3 DEEP breaths — breathe
in through your nose, out through your mouth, and only
focus on your breathing. Do this now.
You may have found that it was difficult to keep your
mind from thinking all sorts of wild things, maybe even
how silly this feels. Whatever you were thinking, your
goal is to not judge yourself. You are attempting to simply BE STILL with who you are, to get to know your true
self when you are focusing on the force that gives you
life.
Exercise #2
This time, I want you to accomplish two goals. The first
is to, once again, focus on your breathing. The second is
to use a visualization technique to allow your thoughts
to exist without judgment.
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Here’s how you do it. In a moment, when I tell you to
begin, I want you to take 5 DEEP breaths this time, focusing on your breathing. As you do this, visualize a
tree by a river that is flowing away from you.
Each time you have a thought, I want you to visualize
each thought as a leaf falling from the tree into the river.
Then watch as that thought gets carried downstream.
When you have another thought after that, watch it fall
and get carried away downstream. Easy enough?
Okay, 5 DEEP breaths. Do this now.
How did it go? I hope you can see how just a few moments can make a dramatic difference in your awareness and your sense of calm.
I am now going to direct you to what I think is a great
introductory Mindfulness Meditation practice called
“Spoken Meditation for Addiction.” This video provides you a mesmerizing visual to concentrate on as
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the narrator walks you through a meditation practice,
telling you exactly what to do in this space.
I found that it was much easier to get into Mindfulness
Meditation with videos and audio recordings, because
it felt like I had a personal teacher walking me through
it.
Before you watch the video, here are some pointers to
make your practice most beneficial:
• Sit or lie down somewhere you can be free of distraction
• You can watch the video or close your eyes
• Don’t worry if your mind is racing
• Don’t worry if you fall asleep
• Don’t worry if you need to shift around to get comfortable
• Don’t worry if you become upset or experience uncomfortable feelings
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Remember, your main goal is to sit with
yourself and simply be without judgment.
When you are ready, click the link and enjoy
your first Mindfulness Meditation Practice.
SPOKEN Interactive Toolkit Exercise 2.6 - How Did
MEDITATION FOR Your Meditation Go?
ADDICTION
Refer to your toolkit exercise 2.6 for a guided journal entry about how you feel after
your first meditation practice.
Whether it was eye-opening, relaxing, painful, boring, or mind-blowing, the most important thing to recognize is that you did
not do it wrong if you committed yourself to
the exercise. In that space, you were simply
being you, and that is not wrong.
I have included additional research and resources about meditation at the end of this
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guide if you wish to delve more deeply into
Mindfulness Meditation and set up a practice that can carry you through the rest of
your life.
CONCLUSION OF I want to be the first to say Congratulations.
SECTION TWO: You have truly accomplished something that
QUITTING WEED has changed the course of your life.
I won’t say it will always be easy, and that
you’re completely in the clear. I still experience the occasional vivid dream in which
I am desperately searching for weed. But
now my resistance techniques and pleasure
system are so engrained in my life without
weed, that I never even come close to relapsing.
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And that’s where you’re headed. You have learned the
most effective strategies and techniques that are used
around the world to help people overcome the most
severe addictions. And you’ve done it all on your own
— maybe with a little help from your friends.
Now, when you’re ready, move on to Section Three
where we will set some healthy habits into action that
will help you establish an ongoing sense of health and
well-being for the rest of your life.
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SECTION THREE
Life After Weed
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MANAGING I have good news.
THOUGHTS,
FEELINGS, & And I have good news that is slightly harder
BEHAVIORS to swallow.
How about the good news first? Presumably,
if you are following this guide as it is written,
and you have weathered the 6 weeks or so
covered in Section Two, then you are moving toward two months without weed!
The good news is, the hardest part of overcoming your weed dependency is over.
Your withdrawal symptoms have decreased
dramatically, if they are not gone altogether, and your intense urges have diminished
to the occasional craving.
I truly hope you celebrate yourself for this.
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Now for the good news which is slightly difficult to hear.
We have a saying in my household we use on a regular
basis that I hope you find useful and comforting:
It’s hard to be a person.
And it is, isn’t it? From financial struggles, to being dependable, to intensely confusing emotions, to illness
and loss, to the world’s unsolvable problems, to protecting your family, to keeping yourself sane and healthy…
whew, it’s no wonder we all go a little mad sometimes.
And for you, it is now more important than ever that
you establish some healthy thoughts and behaviors to
help you thrive in your new life without weed, so you
can truly live the life you’ve always wanted.
The Philosophy of Unconditional Acceptance
In my research, I came across an incredibly useful source
of information about healthy living called the “SMART
Recovery Handbook.”
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SMART stands for “Self Management and Recovery
Training.” It is a nonprofit organization that offers free
information and support groups to help people overcome addiction of all kinds.
In their program, they promote a lifelong goal of learning to attain unconditional acceptance of yourself, of
others, and the world as it is.
The concept is simple, but it really is a lifelong practice
that requires intention and devotion every day. Think of
people like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama who are celebrated for their all-encompassing compassion and acceptance of humankind. If it was easy, then people like
them would not have such a dramatic impact on the
world.
Where to Start With Unconditional Acceptance
Now that your mind and body are free of the numbing
effects of cannabis, you are better equipped to take on
larger abstract concepts like this.
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Without putting pressure on yourself to be like Gandhi
by Sunday, the best place to start is by learning to have
unconditional acceptance for yourself.
I started on this path when a counselor friend of mine
asked me who was the person I loved most in this world.
I passed the first test when I responded easily that my
wife is the person I love the most.
Then my friend asked me how I feel and how I react
when she makes an honest mistake and hurts me and
does her best to make amends.
I replied that it disappoints me, but I forgive her easily
when she admits she was wrong, and I love her more
and feel much closer to her after we have worked
through it.
Then my friend kicked me in the stomach with the truth,
so to speak. He asked me, “So how do you treat your-
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self when you make a mistake?”
Without having to answer him, I understood
immediately what he was getting at. When
I “screw up,” or hurt my wife’s feelings, or
say something stupid, I have a tendency to
really tear myself down and tell myself what
a failure and what an idiot I am.
My friend asked me why I don’t tell my wife
what an idiot and what a failure she is, if
that’s what I believe about mistakes.
The principle I had to learn to wrap my
head around was that, as a person, I am just
as valuable as the people I love the most.
Therefore, I am as deserving of the same
grace, forgiveness, and acceptance as they
are when they make a mistake.
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For some reason, I used to think it was easier to tell myself how horrible I was, as if this
excused me from being a healthy, responsible, mature human being.
ABCs OF
RATIONAL
EMOTIVE
BEHAVIOR
THERAPY
I took this exercise from the SMART Recovery Handbook and put it to work for myself
to help me re-train my beliefs about who
I am. In order to be good to yourself, you
need to love yourself. For some of us, that
doesn’t come so naturally. So I want you to
try this.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 3.1 - The ABCs
of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
You are going to use the chart in your toolkit
to bring some awareness to some unhealthy
beliefs you have about yourself to mindfully
reorient them into healthy beliefs.
The basic difference between unhealthy vs.
healthy beliefs:
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Unhealthy Beliefs: These are often irrational, disproportionate, and harmful. These beliefs make it difficult
for you to become the person you want to be.
Healthy Beliefs: These beliefs allow for acceptance and
equality among all people, including yourself. These
beliefs help you accomplish the goal of achieving your
best self.
An example of an unhealthy belief: I say something insensitive to my wife, and that’s because I’m a selfish,
thoughtless failure of a husband.
An example of a healthy belief: My wife says something
insensitive, but I believe she didn’t mean to hurt my
feelings, and she will sincerely do her best to change if
she knows how much it hurt me.
Healthy beliefs give us permission to be people who
make mistakes, whereas unhealthy beliefs condemn us
for simply being human. Now, I want you to fill out your
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chart using the ABCs approach to behavior therapy.
The ABCs stand for:
A - Activating Event: The uncomfortable event that triggers a painful feeling or an urge to smoke weed.
B - Belief About the Event: Your irrational demands or
expectations of yourself.
C - Consequences of Your Belief: What happens as a
result of your unhealthy belief.
D - Dispute Your Belief: Think about how you would
treat the person you love in this situation. Can you extend the same understanding and acceptance to yourself?
E - Effective New Belief: Replace with a healthy belief.
Use the chart to record the process of changing unhealthy beliefs about yourself to healthy beliefs. Charting it out like this should help you take responsibility
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during the moments as they occur to dispute
your unhealthy beliefs and exchange them
for healthy beliefs that promote self-acceptance. The more you do this successfully,
the more these beliefs become true to who
you are. Eventually, you won’t have to work
so hard at accepting yourself.
LIVING A Now that you are no longer smoking weed,
BALANCED LIFE that does not necessarily mean that you
have an overflowing abundance of time.
Our schedules tend to fill up for us, often
beyond our control. You might even be surprised how you got ANYTHING done when
you were smoking weed every day.
If you want a balanced life, there is no one
who is going to take care of that but you.
Your boss, your family, your bills, and your
Netflix account are all going to continue to
demand more time and resources than you
have to give.
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I am going to walk you through a strategy that will help
you visually chart where all of your time goes, so you
can begin to make mindful decisions to reimagine how
and where you spend your precious time.
The Lifestyle Balance Pie
This strategy also comes from the SMART Recovery
Handbook. It is designed to help you decide what are
the most important areas of your life and to evaluate
changes you can make so you are devoting your time
and energy where you want it to go.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 3.2 - The Lifestyle Balance
Pie
Look at the pie chart in your Toolkit. There is one that
has been completed for you to use as an example. The
blank one is yours to fill in.
• You are going to label each slice with the most important areas in your life, for example family, finances,
health, career, etc. Make sure you label every slice.
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• The outer edge of the pie means you are completely
satisfied (10) in that area, and the center of the pie
means you are completely dissatisfied (0).
• You will rate how satisfied you are in each area by
placing a dot on the middle line of each slice. Place
it closer to the outside if you are satisfied with the
amount of time you spend in that area and closer to
the center if you are dissatisfied.
• Once you have rated each slice, you will connect the
dots.
• Now imagine the line you drew is the Actual outer
edge of your pie. It probably looks more like a flat
tire than a pie, doesn’t it?
• Consider these questions:
1. What area of my life receives the most attention?
2. What area receives the least attention?
3. Which areas need more attention and which need
less?
4. What do I need to do so that this Lifestyle Balance
Pie reflects my values and the way I want to live my
life?
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NUTRITION, Every time I watch Oprah, or some other
EXERCISE, AND daytime talkshow, it seems like every day
SLEEP they’ve got some specialist, nutritionist, or
personal trainer revealing “secrets” to a
healthier more balanced “You.”
And it always seems like their “secrets” are
to eat right, get plenty of sleep, and exercise. Then the camera pans over the astonished audience as they erupt in applause at
this brand new, never-before-discovered information.
There are no secrets when it comes to maintaining these three vital elements in your
life. It turns out health and wellness is big
business, so marketers make you believe it
is more difficult than it really is. But I’m going to keep it simple, because maintaining
your health and wellness is one of the most
important factors to living a balanced life.
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Nutrition
Alright, I know one of our favorite things to do as former
stoners is expose widespread conspiracies, get mindblown, then take another hit and do nothing about it.
But you’re not a stoner anymore, and this is a real (kind
of) conspiracy that you can actually do something about.
Remember the USDA Food Pyramid from grade school?
Of course you do, it is one of the most famous images
that earns global recognition.
This pyramid is still widely published in school textbooks.
But it was not created by nutritionists who actually know
about health and wellness. No, it was created by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture whose main interests
lie in supporting its main client: the U.S. Agricultural
Industry.
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No wonder America has an obesity problem when public schools educate children that they need more bread,
cereal, rice, and pasta than ANY other food available.
Dr. Walter Willet, a leading nutrition researcher at Harvard medical school, claims that the fact that the Food
Pyramid is widely embraced as the ultimate nutrition
guide is what contributes to obesity, poor health, and
early death due to poor nutrition.
Dr. Willet and other nutritionists prefer the circle or pie
model of nutrition, which is actually based on a scientific
understanding of wellness in the body. Your diet should
really be modeled like this: (Hint, fruits and vegetables
should be the largest group, not pasta and bread).
Sleep
If you have been experiencing insomnia, it is likely a
result of two factors associated with quitting weed.
Remember, Insomnia is one of the primary withdrawal
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symptoms. While most people overcome withdrawals
in a matter of weeks, everyone is different. I’ve known
some people who experience insomnia for a couple of
months after successfully quitting.
Another possibility we have covered is that Depression
causes sleeplessness. Amid Depression, your neurons
are firing in your prefrontal cortex, making your mind
very actively focused on your problems.
Sleeplessness obviously affects every other area of your
life, making you unfocused during the day, and creating irritability at menial things that ordinarily would not
bother you.
But I want to re-iterate, as I have throughout this guide,
how important it is to stay away from other substances
which could become a substitute for your dependency issues. Sleep-aids, even natural ones like Melatonin,
can lead you to merely shift your dependency issues
onto them.
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The tried and true best suggestions for sleep are:
1. Exercise, which I will cover in a moment.
2. Reduce the amount of caffeine you consume later in
the day
3. Read a book at bedtime rather than watching TV.
The light from the television can trick your brain into
thinking it is daylight, which causes restlessness.
4. Listen to meditation recordings. Many people find
meditation to be the best method for falling asleep
because you are mindfully setting your body into the
mode required for restful sleep.
Exercise
The most important factor about exercise is that it
should be fun. It should be something you look forward
to, otherwise, it is too easy to talk yourself out of it.
You can absolutely join a gym if spending the money will
motivate you. You can buy equipment for your home.
You can hire a personal trainer. Like I said, wellness is
big business.
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But in my opinion, you don’t need all of that. You don’t
need P90X or Crossfit or some personal trainer yelling
at you. None of those things is fun to me, at least.
But going on a walk, or a bike ride, or swimming laps,
or playing basketball, or tennis, or taking a run with the
dog, or rollerskating, or kayaking — these things are
(mostly) free and get you out into the world.
The most essential elements of good exercise are these:
1. Get your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes, three
times a week.
2. Break a sweat.
3. Drink plenty of water.
If you can find pleasure in your exercise routine, I still
stand by my belief that exercise is the most effective
method for reducing withdrawals, resisting urges, overcoming Depression, maintaining wellness, and sleeping well…virtually everything we have talked about
throughout this entire guide.
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SMART GOALS I truly feel at this point that I have told you
just about everything I know, and you have
everything you need to maintain the lifestyle you’ve always wanted, free from weed.
So for your final exercise, I want to show you
how to set some attainable goals that you
can carry with you into the world beyond
this guide.
In the Lifestyle Balance Pie, you identified
the areas of your life that deserve more attention from you. It might be best to write
your goals to support your attempts to improve these areas of your life.
Interactive Toolkit Exercise 3.3 - SMART
Goals
Find the final exercise in your workbook
where you will create your SMART Goals. It
is all too often we find ourselves wishing or
promising we are going to do one thing or
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the other. I can’t tell you how many times a year I used
to say to myself, “I’m going to write a handbook for
people who want to quit smoking weed.” And it didn’t
happen until I sat myself down and set this goal using
the SMART process. And this guide is proof that this
technique works!
SMART is an acronym that helps you to be mindful
about setting realistic goals and helps you develop
a plan to carry out those goals. Here’s an example of
my SMART goal for writing Your Life Without Weed: A
Guided Program.
S- Specific — Write a step-by-step guide that helps
people quit weed from their own home, on their own
time
M- Measurable — Write at least 4 pages per day
A - Agreeable — I am invested in this goal because I
like to write and I believe people truly need a guide like
this, which exists nowhere else
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R - Realistic — The guide will be the best
of what I have to offer from my own experience quitting weed and all the extensive
research I studied when trying to quit
T- Time-bound — Complete the guide by
mid-June (about 45 days from the day I began)
Now, using the SMART Goals outline, set 4
goals for yourself focusing on the areas of
your life that you want to improve.
SOME FINAL Throughout this guide I have been mindful,
THOUGHTS when referring to your weed dependency,
to never use the word “Addict.”
That’s because I don’t believe you are an
addict. Many experts and recovery programs will force you to adopt this label
so that, even when you have survived and
overcome your dependency, you will still be
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forever doomed to wear this label, to always carry this
shadow-side with you wherever you go.
No, you’re not an addict. You are a person. And it’s hard
to be a person.
But, it is a deeply satisfying adventure to be a person,
as well — especially when you are living the life you’ve
always wanted, reconciled with the identity of the person you always knew you could be.
I believe that is what we have accomplished here together.
For your continued support, I have included a “Resources” section at the end of this guide, so you can
have access to all the information that I came across,
sifted through, and tried on for size throughout my entire process of quitting weed.
I honestly feel that over the course of these three sections you have just passed through, I have culled together the best and most effective techniques avail-
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able. But, as I said before, not one of us is
the same. You may find some useful bits of
information that could further help you live
the life you want.
I am grateful you invested so much time and
energy into this guide, into your self. It has
been a privilege to be on this journey with
you.
Congratulations! And I wish you all the best
in your new life without weed.
ADDITIONAL SAMHSA - Substance Abuse and MenRESOURCES tal Health Services Administration - Brief
Counseling for Marijuana Dependence: A
Manual for Treating Adults
Drug Addiction Treatment Centre - Lund
University Hospital, Sweden: A Guide to
Quitting Marijuana and Hashish
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Motivational and mindfulness intervention
for young adult female marijuana users:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/
PMC3883042/
UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center:
http://marc.ucla.edu/resources
Free Guided Meditations: http://marc.ucla.
edu/mindful-meditations
MORE
MEDITATION
RESOURCES:
https://www.bangor.ac.uk/mindfulness/audio/index.php.en
http://marc.ucla.edu/meditation-at-the-hammer
http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations
http://www.umassmed.edu/psychiatry/
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education/mindfulphysicianleadershipprogram/free-guided-meditations/
Hope Rehab Center Thailand: http://www.
hope-rehab-center-thailand.com/we-treat/
addiction/cannabis-treatment/
SMART Recovery Handbook: http://www.
smartrecovery.org
Cannabis Information and Support:
https://cannabissupport.com.au/workplace-and-clinical-resources/publications/
BOOK The Secret Addiction: Overcoming Your
RECOMMENDATIONS Marijuana Dependency Paperback – Au-
gust 1, 2011
by Dr. Tony DeRamus (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 47 customer reviews
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The Potless Pot High: How to Get High, Clear and
Spunky without Weed Paperback – November 26,
2013
by Bear Jack Gebhardt (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars 10 customer reviews
No Need for Weed: Understanding and Breaking
Cannabis Dependency Paperback – January 2, 2008
by James Langton (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars 10 customer reviews
The Cannabis Addiction Cure - How to Overcome
Marijuana Addiction Problem (thc, hemp, cannabis
marijuana) Kindle Edition
by Brad Michael (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars 7 customer reviews
Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s
Greatest Tragedy Paperback – January 7, 2014
by David Sheff (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 229 customer reviews
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12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs
Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through
Self-Awareness and Right Action Paperback – July 8,
2010
by Allen Berger Ph. D. (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 86 customer reviews
The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction: A Guide
to Coping with the Grief, Stress and Anger that Trigger Addictive Behaviors (A New Harbinger Self-Help
Workbook) Paperback – August 1, 2012
by Rebecca E. Williams (Author), Julie S. Kraft MA (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 143 customer reviews
Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction Paperback – November 1, 1996
by Jack Trimpey (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 165 customer reviews
Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception
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Paperback – April 30, 1997 by Abraham J Twerski M.D.
(Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 137 customer reviews
Seeking Safety: A Treatment Manual for PTSD and
Substance Abuse (Guilford Substance Abuse) 1st Edition
by Lisa M. Najavits (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 135 customer reviews
Healing the Addicted Brain: The Revolutionary, Science-Based Alcoholism and Addiction Recovery Program Upd Rev Edition
by Harold Urschel (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 122 customer reviews
Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction Paperback – November 1, 1996
by Jack Trimpey (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 165 customer reviews
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The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior Paperback –
September 18, 1996
by Craig Nakken (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 117 customer reviews
Staying Sober: A Guide for Relapse Prevention 1st
Edition
by Terence T. Gorski (Author), Merlene Miller (Author),
Father Martin (Foreword) 4.6 out of 5 stars 109 customer reviews
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help
People Change Paperback – December 30, 2014
by Jeffrey Foote (Author), Carrie Wilkens (Author), Nicole Kosanke (Author), Stephanie Higgs (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 114 customer reviews
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Rewired: A Bold New Approach To Addiction and Recovery Paperback – April 28, 2015 by Erica Spiegelman
(Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 97 customer reviews
Inside Rehab: The Surprising Truth About Addiction
Treatment--and How to Get Help That Works Paperback – December 31, 2013
by Anne M. Fletcher (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 94 customer reviews
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