Today marks one full year since I took my last bong rip, and it’s a day I honestly never thought I’d see when I first started this journey.
I’d been a chronic cannabis user, basically all day, every day, for 14 years when I finally made the decision to quit. A huge part of my success has come from finding support and strength through this subreddit, and I want to take a moment to share my story and say thank you.
I didn’t even try weed until I finished grad school. Not once before that. But when I finally started, I dove in headfirst and didn’t take long to get to the point where I was smoking every day. It went from having no place in my life to becoming everything in my life.
I smoked when I woke up, before bed, when I woke up to pee in the middle of the night, when I went hiking, when I went to the gym, when I went to work, before movies, before meals, and during meals. There was hardly a part of my day that didn’t involve cannabis in some way. It was woven into virtually everything I did.
What started as something I did eventually became something that defined me. It was woven into my routines, my identity, and the way I experienced the world.
I’d tried to quit several times over the years. About 10 years ago, I even managed to go six months without weed after starting a job that randomly drug-tested employees. But rather than using that opportunity to stay sober, I found a way around it.
I started carrying fake pee with me everywhere I went at work, every single day, so that if I got selected for a random drug test, I’d be ready. I did this for years. Imagine the level of paranoia that comes with having to carry fake urine around with you every day, constantly worrying about being caught, on top of the anxiety and paranoia that the weed itself was already giving me.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe how far I went to protect my ability to keep using. I had an opportunity to move on from cannabis, and instead, I built an entire routine around making sure I could continue. That’s how deeply ingrained the habit had become.
Last year, around this time, I started seriously wanting to quit again. I made at least half a dozen attempts, but I never made it more than a day or two. There was always some bullshit excuse to start back up.
Then, on October 24th, 2025, I took my last bong rip.
I’m honestly not sure what was different this time. I just know that, for the first time, I truly wanted to quit for myself.
I leaned heavily into r/leaves. I went back and read as many posts as I could, looking for advice, reassurance, and a reminder that I wasn’t the only person going through this. I read about other people’s struggles, their withdrawal symptoms, their setbacks, their successes, and the ways their lives had changed after quitting.
I used this community as a source of support and strength through those first few months, and I don’t think I can overstate how much that helped.
The first two weeks were hell. I barely slept for the first week, and I could hardly eat for the first month until my appetite finally came back. Once I started sleeping normally again, I went through about two months of intensely vivid dreams. There were stretches when it felt like I was making things harder for myself rather than better.
Somewhere along the way, I found that pink cloud people talk about, and for a while, things actually started to feel easier.
But around three or four months in, I started convincing myself that maybe I was over my addiction. I seriously considered going back to using, telling myself I could keep it under control and just smoke while hiking or on the weekends. Maybe I could finally be one of those people who could use in moderation.
I made a post here asking you guys about it, and you gave me exactly the advice I needed to hear: I was fooling myself. After 14 years of using the way I did, there was little reason to believe I could suddenly moderate it. I’d probably end up right back where I’d started.
It wasn’t worth playing with fire.
I’m incredibly grateful I listened. A year later, I know there’s a very good chance I’d be starting all over again today if I’d decided to give moderation a try.
There’s something I’ve learned through both hiking and sobriety that I think is worth sharing.
I’ve walked from Mexico to Canada twice now. I’ve spent almost 10,000 miles on long-distance trails, crossing deserts, climbing mountains, pushing through exhaustion, and continuing forward when the finish line seemed impossibly far away.
But here’s the thing: I never started either of those hikes truly believing I could walk all the way from Mexico to Canada. It’s hard to wrap your mind around walking 2,600 or 3,000 miles when you’re standing at the beginning, looking at the enormity of what’s ahead of you.
Instead, I focused on what I knew I could do. I could take one more step. I could walk one more mile. And when I finished that mile, I could probably walk another.
Eventually, those steps become miles. Miles become days. One mile becomes a hundred, a hundred becomes a thousand, and eventually, you find yourself standing at the Canadian border, looking back at a journey you once couldn’t imagine completing.
I think recovery works much the same way.
When I first tried to quit, I couldn’t imagine never smoking weed again. The idea of living the rest of my life without something that had been part of virtually every day for 14 years was overwhelming. Thinking about forever made the whole thing feel impossible.
But I didn’t need to figure out forever. I just needed to get through that day. Then the next one. And then the next.
One step at a time. One day at a time.
I didn’t get to a year by somehow knowing I could do it all at once. I got here by continuing to take the next step, even when I couldn’t see very far down the trail.
And now, a year later, my life is better in ways I couldn’t fully appreciate when I was still using.
I think more clearly. I sleep better. I communicate better. I’m more present with my friends and family. My breathing feels clearer, and my business is thriving in ways I can now recognize cannabis was holding me back from achieving.
Most importantly, I feel like I’m actually showing up for my own life again.
At this point, I honestly can’t see how going back makes sense for me.
I know there are people out there who can use cannabis in moderation, and I have no problem with that. But for those of us who’ve struggled with compulsive use, we have to be willing to accept that moderation might not be a realistic option. For me, recognizing that truth has potentially saved me from spending another 14 years missing out on some of the most important parts of my life.
Letting go has given me the opportunity to reclaim so much of what I was missing.
When I quit last October, I never would have believed I’d make it this far. But now, recovery has become just as important a part of my life as consuming cannabis once was.
I don’t spend nearly as much time on Reddit anymore, but I wanted to come back here today and say something I’ve wanted to say for a while: I genuinely don’t know if I could have made it through those first couple of months without the support and guidance I found in this community.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, for being honest about the hard parts, for offering advice when I needed it, and for reminding me that I wasn’t alone. Sometimes, when you’re struggling to believe in yourself, you need other people to remind you that you can keep going.
This community helped me get through the hardest part of a journey I wasn’t sure I could finish. I honestly don’t know if I could have quit cannabis if it weren’t for this subreddit.
And to anyone who’s just starting out, I want you to know something.
You don’t have to believe you can make it another year. You don’t have to figure out how you’re going to make it through the rest of your life. You don’t even have to feel confident that quitting is going to work.
You just have to believe you can take one more step.
Then another.
And another.
The beginning can be brutal. You might struggle to sleep, struggle to eat, question whether it’s worth it, and convince yourself a hundred times that you can go back and do things differently. But keep going. It doesn’t stay that way forever.
Eventually, those steps add up to something you once thought was impossible. You look back and realize you’ve traveled farther than you ever imagined you could.
I’ve walked from Mexico to Canada twice. I never had to believe I could complete the entire journey on day one. I just had to believe I could keep walking.
And now I’ve learned that lesson in recovery, too.
I’m incredibly proud of this milestone. Not because a year is some magical number, but because of what that year represents: choosing myself, showing up for my life, and learning that I’m capable of letting go of something I once thought I couldn’t live without.
One step at a time. One day at a time. One year at a time.
To everyone here who helped me along the way, thank you. I mean that sincerely.
And to those of you at day one, day three, or day thirty: keep fighting. You don’t have to walk the whole trail today. Just take the next step.
Eventually, those steps become miles, the miles become hundreds, and before you know it, you’re standing somewhere you once thought you’d never reach.
One year down. Here’s to freedom, and to the miles still ahead. ❤️
