Hello friend. I was also in your position not so long ago and really feel for you so much. But have hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel youre in, and you’ve taken the first and hardest step in admitting to yourself that it’s a problem. Seriously well done.

There are two things I would suggest you consider if you feel you have the energy to start to tackle this:

The first is that, I believe current methods of getting “clean” and “sober” are inconsistent in their outcomes for a reason.

Whilst total sobriety works for some people, it is my belief and experience, that going completely cold turkey and abstaining from a social and common drug like weed forever, is the hardest route forward long term. I have observed that for those that choose this path, they will always to some degree, feel the pull towards that drug regardless of the length of time they’ve abstained. It will be a constant battle for the rest of their life. To some degree this is sobriety on a knifes edge.

I saw this in the midst of my addiction and decided this wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted a new relationship with my drug of choice. One where I challenged every unhealthy behaviour I’d developed with it. One where I gained control back piece by piece. One where I rewired my brain so much that I could say yes or no depending on the context and reasoning occurring inside.

And so that’s what I did. I started by weaning myself off by working out how much I smoked and choosing to weigh that amount at the start of every day. I’d then decrease this little by little every day, getting used to the feeling and effects of taking that control and running out at the end of each day. This forced my front brain to take charge amdnstart to plan where I’d have this limited amount.

Over two months I eventually whittled it down to one joint a day. It wasn’t without slip ups, but it was important that I accepted these, and instead of criticising myself, got straight back on the horse.

Once I made the jump to zero, I felt it important to give myself a length of time entirely off of it. To deal with the effects of withdrawal, such as night sweats, nightmares, vivid dreams etc.

Then once that period of time, for me six months, had elapsed, I made a list of all the unhealthy behaviours that I had built up over the years with weed. And reintroduced the weed with those in mind, challenging them each individually. This ranged from being able to say no to it when being social, to stopping at a certain point of the evening (one and done etc), to preplanning when I’d order it so that I was free and available to waste that time, so it didn’t impact my life.

For you this will be unique to your addiction.

I can now happily say I’m at a point where 80% of my addictive behaviours are dealt with. Where I am in control and weed is no longer my mistress. The balance has swung in my favour. But I still have some work to do :).

Secondly, I would advise you examine the reasons why you may have been attracted to weed in the first place.

The route cause of your issues will vary depending on your own individual history. But for me things like childhood trauma, ADHD and health issues formed the core parts of my need to use weed as a means to hide from the adult world.

Tackling these greatly helped alleviate the gut feeling of needing weed as a means to cope. Now it forms a part of my social life, as a means to accentuate and elevate a night, or a day at home, rather than a means to close off and hide.

I hope you find this helpful and I wish you the best of luck moving forward friend. Should you choose to go down this path, know that regardless of the slip ups, you’ve got this. As long as you can be gentle with yourself, you can always come back to it.

Peace and love :)

What portion of the tankie userbase do we think are Chinese intelligence assets? Or at best, shills?

The down vote shaping on this thread I think supports this notion. It’s something that I have seen and personally experienced on Reddit. And, it seems that liberal left wingers are invariably the target.

My experience has always been that tankies, regardless of community, are exceedingly rare in the wild of a western nation. With leftist views usually comes compassion, and that prevents the development of authoritarian views.

There is something wrong with the proportions on Lemmy. There’s more going on than fringe local western tankies. Perhaps Dessalines insistence that Signal was a honeypot, is a projection about Lemmy.ml?

I really would love Kurtzman to fuck the fuck off at this point.

He has never understood Star Trek at its core. The intricacies and nuances that never should have been messed with; and the superfluous excesses that could be. This is obvious in so many ways. But none more than how he has pushed the narrative in lazy directions repeatedly; yet consistently these were shown not to work. It took him the entire run of discovery to learn this lesson! And even then, never completely.

It has only been relatively recently, when the shows have embraced Trek’s historical strengths in order to create a new vision, that shows have started to truly excel and grab both fans and public attention. But even then, there’s a lack of bold vision and gut. These shows are timid when it comes to exploring ethics and philosophy in ways the 90s and 60s shows never were for their time.

For me, I think fundamentally it speaks to a dumbing down of story telling. It speaks to a lowest common denominator prioritisation by shown runners. It speaks to networks who never take chances.

With Kurtzman it has seemed that each iteration had a predictable path involving a big threat that must be extinguished by the end of season. High stakes with extreme predictability. Because of this prioritisation, so often it felt like the characters served the story, rather than the other way around. That’s not how you get people to care for characters on a show.

Trek was never about this. Historical Trek was about exploring modern ethical dilemmas in a safe sci-fi environment first and foremost. Secondary to that it was about showing how human beings could exist in balance with each other and other species. We need this positive vision now more than ever and yet modern trek feels like a shadow of its former self. It feels too often like skin deep lip service. But, it is improving iteration to iteration.

So please Alex, fuck the fuck off and give some other splendid bastard a shot in the big chair. Unless Ellison intends to replace younwithba fascist. In which case I’m your biggest fan.

PS (and slight SFA spoilers): Did no one else briefly turn off starfleet academy after they tased Nus Braka, even though he was in court, unarmed and only mouthing off? I was outraged that SFA began in such a manner, it didn’t serve the plot, and was wholly unnecessary and disporportionate. It made no sense in the context of the rest of the season.

SFA then ended with a slap and punch to Nus’s face. The casual brutality bookended an otherwise great series. It was a baffling choice, unless it is viewed as being a means of desentising the audience to unnecessary violence from the state. Then it makes perfect sense. That, that is perhaps the thin end of the fascist wedge.