Coming Back Online | My Story With Weed, Dependence & Trying to Find Myself Again

This is the first video episode of Coming Back Online — a podcast about long-term weed use, dependence, sobriety, mental clarity, and trying to reconnect with yourself after years of feeling disconnected.

In this episode, I open up about what originally got me started smoking weed, how it slowly became part of my identity and everyday life, and the complicated relationship I developed with it over the years. I talk about the comfort, escape, creativity, routines, and emotional coping tied into long-term use — but also the stagnation, disconnection, anxiety, and feeling that something inside me slowly started fading.

This podcast isn’t about judgment, perfection, or pretending to have all the answers. It’s an honest exploration of addiction, habits, mental health, dopamine, identity, and what it means to navigate sobriety in a world where a lot of people quietly struggle with the same things.

Also — this is my first video podcast, so bear with me while I figure out the lighting, editing, sound, camera setup, and everything that comes with building this from scratch. I wanted to start before everything was perfect because I know there are people out there who need honest conversations more than polished ones.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, emotionally numb, dependent on something to get through life, or like you’ve slowly lost connection with yourself… you’re not alone.

Welcome to Coming Back Online.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to Coming Back Online. My name is Derek, your host, and on this podcast we have talks about long-term weed use, regaining your mental clarity, and coming back to yourself. And today is my first um video slash audio podcast. So I'm just gonna kind of tell you briefly about my story and then maybe eventually I'll start taking callers and having guests on the podcast. That's the goal. But um I am 41 years old and I started smoking weed probably when I was around 15. I did it because it was like the fun, cool thing to do, hang out with my friends, smoke weed and play music. And over time I kind of developed a dependence for it as I got older. And um, you know, in my thir mid-30s, I started feeling some kind of adverse effects from smoking where I would get like um stomach convulsions and I would be short of breath, and I would have acid reflex and like kind of gastroparesis type symptoms. And I know those go hand in hand with something called CHS, also known as cannabinoid hypermesis syndrome, but uh although I was never officially diagnosed, but as soon as I stopped smoking, I stopped having a lot of those episodes that were reoccurring when I would smoke throughout the day. And overall, my motivation is better, I feel better, and I just feel more in control of my own um my own life and everything it entails. So this podcast is to kind of reach out to anyone else who might be feeling those kind of symptoms that I had, or maybe they're just unhappy with smoking, that they feel like it's holding them back in their life and they want to make a change, but they find it very difficult to do, especially after smoking for a long time, a long period of time. I know this message is not gonna um resonate with everybody because some people it doesn't bother them, but this is for the people who it does. And I would say when you're beginning to get sober, an important thing to do is to really give yourself a lot of patience and understand that it's a process that takes time. And for me, um exercise was really important, you know, going for long walks, um, joining some kind of community where I was like a social community so I can talk with others and be social. Um I did something called cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, which helped me a lot in processing my own thoughts, and there's no really there's not really one answer for everybody, everyone's different, and I would just say you have to find new outlets to give you joy and to give you peace, and you have to kind of a big thing I think that's universal for all of us is that we have to keep moving, we have to have some kind of movement, and for me, um I started doing tango dance classes because um my dad did it for 10 years and he kind of got me into it, and that really helped me because I formed a little bit of community and some friends, and I was able to dance and have the movement, and that was a big part of it for me, and I know I still have a ways to go on my journey and finding new things to do. Um but a lot of things that can prevent you from stopping long term is the insomnia. Like it was very hard. I went through a really rough patch where I couldn't sleep, and it was like I was up all night for maybe a day or two, and then I would finally crash out on the third day, and that can really mess with your life when you're trying to go to work and balance everything that it's you're trying to stay active and you're trying to build a better life, and if you don't get your sleep, that's one thing that can really hinder your progress. So the best thing I could say is that's just a phase. Um, it might be a good idea to talk to your doctor in those initial phases and maybe getting on some kind of medication to help you with the sleep. Um, but that was a big one for me, and um I would just say take it day day by day and just keep having faith that each day is gonna get a little easier. Try not to um do things that stimulate you too much, like have a lot of coffee or be on your phone late at night or watching too much TV. Try to be out in the world, you know, do the natural things that everybody talks about, like get sunlight and go for walks, join community, do things to support your health and like conscientious choices to give you a better day, and that definitely helps with the sober process. Anyways, this is the first kind of video podcast I'm gonna do, so I'm gonna cut it a little short. I'm gonna experiment with um lighting and positioning of the camera and sound, and eventually I have a plan to get a coming back online neon sign here. Um, so yeah, I'm just trying to build this page, and I hope you guys enjoyed this first podcast. So uh thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the next one. Peace.