Now that I’m clean, I understand why I used to get high all the time. It’s because life can be pretty freaking painful if you’re paying attention, which you are, if you’re sober. I’m talking about the kind of sober that hasn’t yet started bingeing on television or junk food or porn or dating apps. The kind of sober you are when you haven’t yet figured out what your next direction, or your next addiction, is going to be. I’m talking about the kind of sober that just sits with itself: its own mind and its own heart and its own soul. The kind that just exists in the wide open space known as consciousness, without anything else to fill the void (yet). What do you live for, when the (destructive) thing you lived for before is gone? Of course I knew, while my addiction was going on, how much I relied on smoking weed for fun, for distraction, for entertainment, and even for conflict and drama. I guess I also knew how much I was doing it to numb the pain of everyday life, because I would often smoke “at” people who had gotten under my skin, people who felt threatening to me in some way. But now that my former best friend and source of general anesthesia are gone, I’m going to need some new friends, for starters — real, human friends — because people tell me that friends can bring an authentic source of fun and enjoyment to life. The other thing I need is a source of strength I can call upon in those stressful and scary moments, one that will calm me and comfort me and bring me down to Earth, and remind me that Earth is my rightful home (and moreover, a generally good and loving place). I know I can find that source of strength by opening my heart and my mind to the power of True Love, by breathing True Love in deeply, and by allowing True Love to change the way I think, act, and feel, from there. For me, that call for connection goes a little something like this: True Love, please wash away my pain, and warm my soul with the sunlight of Your truth and beauty. ❤️‍🔥—Y.B.D.