"Where my issues lie is how the flip do I do it. I can't abandon my frienRAB, my routines, places I go to, places I chill at, all at once. And deep down I know I would have to do that if I was to quit pot cold turkey."
There's your answer right there. You totally contradicted yourself. You said you don't know how to do it, then you described exactly how to do it, and said that that's what you know you have to do. And that is what you have to do. If you want to quit getting high, you have to change where you go and what you do and who you do it with. I've never believed that you have to cut out all the people from your life forever that still get high. Some people will tell you to do that. I can't. I still have frienRAB that get high, but there was a period that I had to separate from them. That's why people go to halfway houses and what not after rehab - it's really hard to come home and expect to live the same life you were living before, just without the drugs.
Of course, I relapsed myself on my drug of choice recently, and no one I know does that drug. It was all just an intense craving and totally a secret. But I surely could not stay off it if people around me were doing it all the time. (I'm struggling with alcohol too lately, for that very reason). That's hard about pot. A lot of people smoke pot. I think to GET sober, you're going to need an environment change. You don't HAVE to go to rehab or a halfway house to get sober, though it does make it much easier. At the very least, go to an AA or NA meeting and they will tell you what to do. I recommend that you talk to your family about it too. Most people are a lot more understanding and compassionate than you'd expect. People aren't as dim-witted as you'd expect either. They probably have more of an idea of what's going on than you think they do.
So, I recommend talking to your parents and maybe getting treatment if it can be afforded. It helped me stay sober for almost a year until I relapsed, which for me is just unthinkable. If you absolutely can't, then try a meeting. At least try it. You can meet other sober people and realize that it's doable if you really want it bad enough.
It's good you were so brutally honest in your post. I flinched a little when you were talking about women, but hey, at least you were honest. Most guys like that are not, not even with themselves. You have to be honest to get sober, and some people for whatever reason, cannot be. You can be, so that's promising. And if you actually decide to take action, you'll regret it for awhile, and talk yourself into believing that it's not that bad. But here it is, the proof! Whenever you start convincing yourself that you're fine, read what you wrote - it's pretty brutal, and it's pretty evident that your problems will just multiply and you will just be more and more damaged the more you abuse yourself.
I don't know why I'm such a chatty Kathy, but for some reason your post really stood out to me. We're the same age and you sound like how I used to be, before I got into harder stuff. I just felt like pot made me a shell of a person. My personality became boring and everything was just... foggy. I felt so much more vibrant and alive and NOT depressed after I quit. It just takes awhile. You're not always going to have that depression feeling when you quit, so don't think that that's what life without pot is like. It's not. It's actually a lot more... clear, and that feels so good after being spaced out for years.
