No Longer a Prisoner in my own Body

For years, I thought I was trying to escape stress, anxiety, boredom, and pain.

What I eventually realized was that I was trying to escape myself.

In this episode of Coming Back Online, I talk about what happened after quitting weed, why recovery was never just about substances, and what it means to slowly rebuild trust in yourself after years of numbing, distracting, and disconnecting.

We talk about identity, dopamine, emotional avoidance, midlife reinvention, and the surprising truth that freedom isn’t about escaping your life — it’s about no longer needing to escape yourself.

If you’re struggling with dependence, emotional numbness, or feeling disconnected from who you are, I hope this conversation reminds you that coming back online is possible.

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Coming Back Online is a podcast about sobriety, nervous system healing, emotional honesty, and reconnecting with yourself after years of surviving on autopilot.

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Instagram: @comingbackonline

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey guys, welcome to Coming Back Online. My name is Derek, your host. We have talks about long-term weed use, mental clarity, and coming back to yourself. Have you ever looked at your life and realized on paper nothing is really stopping you? But somehow you still feel trapped. And I've been thinking about that concept a lot lately, not because I've, you know, finally have everything magically figured out. Um I really think it's the opposite. And the more I rebuild my life, the more I realize how much of it I've spent disconnected from myself. For years I thought my biggest problems were outside of me. I thought it it was my job, it it was my marriage or money or getting older, you know, anxiety, health. And that maybe if I could fix one more thing I'd finally feel okay. But these last nine months have taught me something I wasn't really expecting. The biggest prison I've ever lived in wasn't my circumstances. It was feeling like I couldn't trust my own mind. Like I couldn't sit still without reaching for something to distract me. Something to numb me, something to make me feel different. And for me that was weed. For someone else it could be alcohol. It might be um you know, there's food or sex or scrolling for hours or you know, dating apps, shopping, whatever your escape is. It's the same feeling. And the part that surprised me was, you know, when I stopped smoking weed, I didn't suddenly become this magically happier person. You know, I did feel a lot better. I felt like my body did reward me for taking that step. Um, you know, my my lungs felt better, my chest felt better, I had more energy. But life didn't just magically get easier. You know, I the bills didn't disappear, the loneliness didn't disappear, the uncertainty. But what disappeared was a feeling that I had to run from myself every single day. And that's a very different kind of freedom. So today I want to talk about that. Not just about sobriety, not just about quitting weed. I want to talk about what it actually means to come back to yourself, to come back online. Because I think that's what this podcast has really been all about all along. It's not about becoming someone new. It's about remembering who you were before you started believing you had to escape yourself. On July 8th this year, I'll be celebrating nine months being sober. And if you've asked me a year ago what I thought sobriety would feel like, I probably would have told you that all the anxiety would disappear, that I'd wake up every day feeling motivated and confident, and like I had my life completely figured out. And I have made some good steps in the right direction, and I'm very proud of myself for what I've done and for going back to school and learning a new hobby and feeling overall better and that I could trust myself and you know, creating something that's helping people and being of service, I'm super proud of myself. The first few months of getting sober were about learning how to exist without reaching for something that had been part of my daily life for more than twenty years. But then something unexpected happened. You know, the withdrawals started to fade, and you know, my my real life showed up. And eventually it stops being about quitting weed and becomes about learning how to live without it. Learning how to have a quiet night without feeling like you have to escape, or learning how to sit with boredom instead of immediately trying to fill in every empty space. How to experience anxiety without assuming something is automatically wrong with you. Or learning that loneliness doesn't mean you're failing. It just means you're in a season of rebuilding. And I've had nights where I've questioned everything, you know. I I can be um I can have a real uh hypochondria. Like I consider myself a hy hypochondriac. I worry about my health a lot. And I worry about my future, and sometimes I overthink, and I I, you know, I've I'm forty-one, I wonder if I'm starting over too late. I've had moments where I felt behind everyone else, you know. But something inside me has changed. And instead of asking how do I get rid of this feeling, I've started asking, what is this feeling trying to teach me? And that's a completely different conversation. And one thing I've learned over these last nine months is that healing isn't about eliminating every uncomfortable emotion. It's about becoming someone who isn't afraid of them anymore. You know, I've also realized that recovery isn't just about removing something from your life, it's about replacing it with things that make you feel alive. Whatever that is, you need to find that on your own. You know, you need to find the things that make you feel good inside, even if they're difficult in the beginning. Um sometimes you need to embrace the uncomfortability to actually find the joy in something and to feel like you're growing. You know, um for me it was creating these videos and starting this podcast and um, you know, taking tango classes and learning dance. You know, I I've been a musician most of my life, so I would write songs, and you know, when I would smoke weed, I would get that would be my creative outlet was writing music, and now it's kind of transitioned more into um dance and being of service and making these videos and helping people. And the other day I picked up my guitar and that felt good because I still enjoy playing guitar and writing songs. I still find the beauty in that too. But a lot of my um my passions and my focus have, you know, they've evolved, they've changed a little bit, and I've embraced that because um, you know, I'm here for the whole ride. I embrace everything. I appreciate the times that I was able to play music and play shows, and I had great experiences doing that. And I had eye-opening moments writing songs and you know, moments where I would, you know, I'd be writing something and it would bring me to tears because I was so proud of writing something that I was proud of. And I'm not saying that's gonna be gone forever, it might come back, um, but I have embraced this new future, you know. Um going back to school for addiction counseling and um you know, having conversations that actually matter and being present in my life. And I think most importantly, keeping the promises I make to myself. Because every time I keep one of those promises, however small it may be, even if it's something, you know, like a something that you think is just a a small commitment that you can write off or you can forget about, it's they all build up over time and it builds more trust in yourself. Every decision, every thought. You know, trust isn't built overnight, it's built one decision at a time, one honest day at a time. And I think that's what recovery really is. Not becoming a different person, but winning that battle within that internal battle that you have, or you know, like that battle between your consciousness, your conscious, you know, the good side and the bad side. Or what side are you gonna choose? Are you gonna choose a side that you're proud of, that you feel good you made that decision, or are you gonna choose a side that's easier that makes you feel comfort for the short term? It's really easy to pick the short term because that eliminates whatever you're feeling at that time, and that makes everything a lot easier. But becoming a different person, becoming someone that you can finally depend on, and trusting yourself again, not feeling like a prisoner in your own body, that takes a lot of willpower, a lot of strength, and your body, your mind, and your spirit definitely reward you over time the more you do that. So, one of the biggest realizations I've had over the last few months has nothing to do with quitting weed. It has to do with helping people. And maybe I first started this page, I thought maybe one day I'll do um, you know, one-on-one coaching, you know, because I would I would love to do this for a living one day. I would love to continue building this podcast and you know, do public speaking. And then I do have my goals set around this coming back online. I'm even going to school to stand behind those goals for uh drug and alcohol counseling. So I do um want to eventually make this my life's purpose and helping people and being of service. I I feel like this is something that I've lived myself, and I've had people in my life um that have had addiction, and I've watched it up close and personal, and I've watched people um really suffer under addiction and hurt themselves, and I lost friends in high school, and I think everybody knows somebody that has an issue or a problem with addiction, not only in America, but all over the world. And I think that's where a lot of people naturally go. So coming back to the topic of um finding ways to eventually make this something that I could do for a living, I've thought about doing um one-on-one coaching. And I've seen a lot of other people do that, and I think that's where a lot of people naturally go. You know, you build an audience and people ask you for help, and you think maybe I should turn this into a business. But the more I sat with that idea, the more something didn't feel right to me, knowing what I know about addiction. I kept asking myself one question what could I honestly promise someone? And the truth is I can't promise that I can make someone ready to quit. I can't promise that one conversation is gonna change someone's life. I can't promise that I have some secret formula that will suddenly make someone stop using or running from themselves. Because if my journey has taught me anything is that recovery is a decision. It's a decision that you have to make over and over again. Nobody could have talked me into quitting before I was ready. Nobody has the perfect sentence, nobody has the magic course. The people who helped me were incredibly incredibly important. Therapists, friends, family, people who listened, people who challenged me, people who reminded me that you know I wasn't alone. Support matters and community matters and education matters, but there comes a moment that belongs only to you. A moment when you wake up and you decide I don't want to live like this anymore. And no one can make that decision for you. So that's why I've decided I don't want to take that direction with coming back online to become a place where I'm trying to convince people they need me, you know? I actually hope the opposite happens. I hope that the more you watch these videos or listen to this podcast, the less you feel like you need someone else to rescue you. My goal isn't to become the crutch. My goal is to help you remember that you're stronger than you think you are that the answers are already that already that that the answers already lie within you. You just need to practice discipline and willpower and practice them every day and believe that you could do it. And that's also one of the reasons I'm going back to school for drug and alcohol counseling. I believe that people deserve real support from people who are trained to provide, but I want to keep learning, I want to understand addiction more deeply, I want to work in treatment to continue my education and become the best helper I can be. Not because I have all the answers today, but because I know ultimately what it takes and that it's every individual's own journey and own universe to navigate. So in the meantime, I still want to create a place where people don't feel alone. That's why I've started my um bi-weekly Sunday night Zoom meetings. And um, you know, direct message me on my Instagram. That's the best way to reach me if you're interested in joining. I'm gonna do it every two weeks. Um, it's completely free. There's no sales pitch, there's no hidden agenda. Um, last week I had about one, two one, two, three, I think four or five people show up, and it was good. We all just shared our own experiences and talked about, you know, our own trials and tribulations and what brought us to want to quit smoking weed and what we all went through, and it was all different, but there was also something that was very similar that tied into all of our stories, and I think it helped us all feel not so alone. So I definitely want to keep building that and just showing people showing up for each other. Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can give another person isn't advice, it's just a place where they can finally tell the truth. And maybe that's what all of us are really looking for. Not someone to save us, just someone willing to walk beside us, you know, while we learn how to help ourselves. I want to stand behind things that I believe. I you know, I like I said, I want to turn this into a career, so I think helping other companies and products that I believe in is the best route for me. And not taking um money from people who are trying to better themselves and saying that I have this magic formula or answers, but from companies that are trying to grow and need honest voices to talk about their product to help them make more sales and then um you know do the whole affiliate marketing route, along with maybe advertising if I ever get to that point with this podcast. So it really means a lot to me. If you listen to this podcast, if you subscribe, that'll help me in my journey to you know meet my dreams and meet my goals and to continue to help more people and ultimately continue to help myself because I need this just as much as you guys need this, you know. So, anyways, I um had the opportunity to start working with a company, um and it made me think not just about the product, but about the kind of person and content and creator I want to become. Because if you spend any time on social media, you've probably seen it as someone says, This changed my life, and then the next week they're promoting something completely different, and a month later it's another product, and after a while you stop knowing whether they're sharing something they believe in or if it's something that they just got paid to post. And I made a promise to myself that I don't want to build that kind of brand. Like if I recommend something, I want it to be because I wholeheartedly believe in it and that I actually use it myself, that it fits into my life, that I believe it adds value. And that's why this opportunity I decided to do something different. Instead of making one promotional video, I'm doing a seven-day experiment. So I'm going to use this product. Um, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's called Rise Coffee R-Y-Z-E. And I've used it in the past, but um I haven't used it in a while. And you know, I drink a lot of coffee, and I think coffee can sometimes add up and not be so good for everybody. Um I'm not saying everybody, but for me it really was tough because I would um first of all I'm kind of sensitive to it, and I'd kind of get a little jittery and a little anxious, and then when I would come down from it, I would get really tired and exhausted. And not only that, but it gave me kind of some stomach issues too, you know, with my uh acid reflex, it didn't always agree with me, and um, you know, it does, I think it also didn't help me lose weight because you know, if you're sensitive to caffeine and you drink it and you build a dependence, it keeps your cortisol levels raised, and it's a lot harder to lose weight when you have high cortisol. So that all goes hand in hand with me trying to create a more healthier lifestyle. So, anyways, I'm going to use this product consistently for the next week. I'm going to document how I feel, uh, the good, the bad, the things I liked about it, the things I don't. And at the end of those seven days, I'll tell you exactly what I think about it. Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll decide it's not for me. Either way, you'll get the truth. Because I because a trust is worth more than any you know affiliate commission that I can ever make. You You know, I'll find my path, I'll figure out a way to speak my truth and to make this into something that can be sustainable for me to pursue as a career and to help people and to keep my integrity intact at the same time. The more I think about it, the more I realize that this philosophy applies to everything that I'm building, you know, my recovery, my podcast, whether it's the people I surround myself with, whether it's my um my future career, I want to be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day and know I didn't trade my values for convenience. I'm not against making money. Don't get me wrong. I I know we need money to survive. And I believe that everyone who puts in the hard work and puts their heart into something deserves to feel justly compensated and to live a good life. I would love to build a career around this work. I love to. You know, there's nothing wrong with earning a living, but I want the money to follow the mission, not replace it. Because if I ever lose your trust or the trust in myself, you know, I've lost everything that matters. And trust, just like recovery, isn't built in one big moment. Like I said, it's built one decision at a time. So I want to jump into um, I kind of want to switch topics real quick and talk about what my body was trying to tell me when I was continually smoking weed and having those um horrible symptoms and adverse effects and years of numbing and coping my anxiety. So one conversation I had this weekend really stuck with me. Um I went to go watch the World Cup, and I was talking to somebody there that was a pharmacist. And maybe one day I can have him on the podcast and we can um pick his brain a little bit and talk a little bit more about what we were discussing. But I'll try, I'll do my best to kind of um talk about what we um were conversating, but I'll do my best to kind of explain it to you. Um So we were pretty much discussing how much we still don't know about the human body, and he made an analogy that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. He said science and biology and you know medical studies, there's that's a lot of it's a lot like being like um like an excavator, you know, digging into the ground. You dig for a while, you find one layer, you keep digging, and you discover something underneath that, and then you dig it, and then you dig even a little deeper, and you realize there was another layer that you never knew existed. And, you know, medicine works that way. We don't discover everything all at once, we're constantly learning. That's why they call it a practice. That ra that and that really made me think about cannabis. You know, for a long time people acted like it was either completely harmless or completely dangerous. The real truth is it's usually more complicated than that. Today cannabis is uh very different than what it was decades ago. It's not our grandparents' weed, you know. We're seeing very highly concentrated products like dabs and and the vapes and the the potent edibles and and strains with a lot higher THC levels than many people were exposed to years ago. Researchers are continuing to study what long-term use of these higher potency products means for different people, because not everyone responds the same way. And that conversation also reminded me of my own experience. You know, for years I dealt with stomach problems, I had gastritis, I had constant digestive issues, and I believe, although I was never officially diagnosed, I eventually developed cannabinoid hyperamesis syndrome. And it completely changed the way I looked at my relationship with weed. When I stopped using weed, all those symptoms got better. My stomach got better, my body started calming down, I started realizing something I never fully appreciated before. Our brain and our gut are constantly communicating with each other. When my stomach wasn't healthy, my mind often didn't feel healthy either. And when my anxiety was through the roof, my stomach seemed to respond right along with it. And I'm not saying, you know, cannabis affects everyone the way it affected me. It doesn't. For some people, it really helps. I know it can help with uh cancer treatment, it can help with glaucoma, it can help with many different people, with uh getting off a harder substance, it can help. I'm not saying it's completely this horrible, evil thing and that I'm against it. But I know for a lot of long-term weed users that didn't necessarily need it, that it could it had a lot of negative effects, especially if you've been doing it for a long time. And basically what I'm saying is that my experience taught me to pay attention to the signals that my body was trying to send me instead of constantly trying to compare myself to others or trying to silence them. So looking back, I wonder how many symptoms I was trying to push through instead of understanding. And maybe my body wasn't necessarily betraying me, but maybe it was trying to protect me. Maybe it was asking me to slow down, to listen, to make changes. You know, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that healing isn't just about our mind. It isn't just about our body or our emotions, it's about all of them working in sync, working together. And when one part of your life has been ignored for a long time, the rest of your symptoms and your system often feels it too. And for me, recovery wasn't just getting sober, it was learning to build a relationship with my own body again instead of fighting it. I started listening to it. And that simple shift has you know evolved and changed more than I ever expected. So where does all this go from here? I've been asking myself that question a lot lately, and if you've followed me for a while, you probably noticed that this page has maybe changed a little bit. But when I first started making these videos, I mostly talked about quitting weed because that's where I was. I was trying to survive, I was trying to understand what was happening to my body and my mind, and I was trying to make sense of anxiety and withdrawal and my CHS symptoms and grief and everything that comes with starting over. But somehow along the way, um something shifted a little bit. And the real conversation is about what happens after you stop running from yourself. What do you how do you rebuild your life? And how do you learn to trust yourself again? How do you find purpose after you've spent years numbing yourself? How do you create a life that you don't constantly feel the need to escape from? And those are the questions that keep me up at night. And honestly, I don't have every answer, I'm still figuring it out myself, and I'm rebuilding my life just like a lot of you are. And some days I feel confident, some days I feel certain, some days I feel uncertain, and some days I wonder if I'm too late. But I remind myself of something, you know, that life I'm trying to build isn't going to appear overnight. It's being built every single day. Every video I make, every podcast I record, every class I take as I work towards becoming uh a drug and alcohol counselor, every conversation that I have, um, every promise that I keep to myself, every morning I wake up and choose not to go backwards. That's how a new life is built. It's just one ordinary day at a time. And people ask me what I want this to become, and the truth is I I want it to become, you know, I dream big. I I love to stand on the stage one day and speak to people who feel like they've lost themselves. I love to maybe eventually write a book that reminds people that they're not alone. I love to continue this podcast and have conversations that actually matter. I love to work with people in treatment and continue learning so I can serve them well. I love to build a community where people can feel safe enough to tell the truth about what they're going through. And that's why I started doing this free Zoom meetings on Sunday nights, because I I not because I have all the answers, but because I know how powerful it is to for people to come together and to stop pretending and start being honest and and share their experiences and to find that we all kind of have similar struggles and you know uh a truth that runs through all of our stories that we can all kind of um grow from. And I don't want this community to be built around perfection, I want it to be a community built around progress and honesty and showing up and about reminding each other that healing doesn't happen in isolation, it happens through connection. And if there's one thing I hope people feel when they come across this coming back online podcast, it's that you don't have to hide anymore. You don't have to pretend you've got every everything figured out and you don't have to wait until you're fixed to start living. You can begin exactly where you are, because that's pretty much what I did, you know. I just I just started building and I just started taking it step by step. And you know, maybe that's exactly why it resonates, because none of us are really finished. We're all just trying to come back to ourselves and take one honest day at a time. So as I wrap this up, I keep coming back to the title of this episode. Um No Longer a Prisoner in My Own Body. And when I first thought of that phrase, I realized it wasn't really about my body, it was about my relationship with myself. For many years I was constantly looking for a way out, a way to numb, a way to get high, a way to distract myself, a way to postpone dealing with what was really going on inside. And today I still have those hard days. I I get anxious, I still question myself sometimes, and I wonder where this journey is going. But I don't wake up every morning looking for an escape anymore. And to me, that means freedom. Freedom isn't a perfect life. It's freedom isn't it's not it's not about never feeling anxious again, it's not about having all the answers. It's waking up knowing you can trust yourself to face whatever today brings. So if you're listening to this and you're in the middle of your own battle, whether it's weed or alcohol, anxiety or heartbreak, anything at all, just feeling disconnected from who you truly believe you are, I want you to know that you don't have to have it all figured out this week. You don't have to know what the next five years looks like. You just have to get through today and then tomorrow and then do it again. And recovery isn't built in these giant leaps, it's built in ordinary moments, in the quiet moments, and the decisions to go for a walk instead of giving up, or to call a friend, or to eat a good meal and get good sleep, to pray, to meditate, to read one chapter, to exercise, to make your bed, just to keep one small promise to yourself. And those moments may not feel extraordinary, but stacked together over weeks and months they become a completely different life. So if there's one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it's that you don't have to underestimate what one honest day can do. That one honest conversation can change a relationship, that one decision can change a habit. One week can build momentum. One month can build confidence, and one honest year can completely transform your life. And I know that because I'm living it, and I'm not standing on the other side telling you I've arrived. I'm walking beside you, I'm still learning and growing and making mistakes and asking questions and trying to become the man I know that I'm capable of becoming. And I think that's what coming back online has really meant all along. Not becoming someone else, but coming home to yourself. So before I go, I want to leave you with one final thought. Wherever you are today, whatever you're carrying, whatever you're trying to overcome, don't quit on yourself. You may be a lot closer to the life you're hoping for than you realize. So keep showing up, keep telling yourself the truth, keep building trust one decision at a time, and when tomorrow comes, do it again. And thank you for spending this time with me. So if this conversation meant something to you, I'd love to keep it going. I'm starting free Zoom meetings on Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. for anyone who wants a place to connect or listen and share with others who are rebuilding their lives. There's no fees, no program to buy, and no pressure, just a community of people trying to move forward together. So for now, the easiest way to join is just to send me a direct message on Instagram, and I'll send you the link to the Zoom meetings. And until next time, take care of your mind, take care of your body, and take care of each other. And remember, little by little, one honest day at a time, we're all coming back online.