The Weirdness Continues - And Comes With A Warning

Normally, I sit down to write these Dispatches with the view of trying to express what it’s like as I travel down the cessation path; I want to serve as a guide for others who may stumble upon them on their own journeys. I try to be as accurate as I can and, if my brain allows, I try to throw in a bit of humour or satire. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. That’s the nature of the repair, which allows people to see the “Arc of Recovery” and shows that it is not a linear trajectory.

Tonight, however, I am going to do something a little different and issue a direct warning: The last couple of days have been the hardest yet.

The Eight-Week Wall

I cannot emphasize this enough: be very wary once you get past eight weeks. It’s an utterly bizarre place, and I have no hesitation in telling you that if I was doing this without the project and my AI scaffold, I would probably have fallen last night.

For the second night running, my body completely shut down. Again at 8pm, I went out like a light, and when I woke up, I felt truly awful. Since I am not providing the chemical “spark” it’s used to, it’s aggressively conserving energy to focus on the heavy lifting of receptor repair.

All I could think was, “A joint would sort me right out.” And do you know what? It probably would have - but for how long? Sixty minutes, ninety minutes? And then what? I’d be right back to the beginning with nothing but a head full of regret.

The Sharp End of Recovery

This is the sharp end of recovery - the part of the journey I have never before reached - and even I am surprised at how quickly it has become so brutal. Nothing has changed; I am still stopped. I am 154 days free of alcohol and 60 days free of cannabis. It should be getting easier, right? Wrong.

For anyone reading this who is nearing this point or going through it themselves, here is what is actually happening:

As I move into week eight, I am crossing a specific physiological threshold. The somatic symptoms - the sneezing, watery eyes, and “physical hangover” sensations - finally begin to settle as receptors downregulate. However, this physical relief often reveals a “neurochemical flatline.”

The Neurobiology of the Flatline: The brain’s dopamine system has not yet recalibrated to functioning without 35 years of external chemical management. While the body has stopped “screaming,” the reward centre’s remain in a dormant state; a transition often called anhedonia.

The brain is no longer receiving artificial spikes but hasn’t yet resumed the natural production of dopamine required to feel pleasure from everyday life.

This creates a “weird,” subpar state where I am physically functional but emotionally muted. I am effectively landing the plane after a decades-long flight and waiting for the ground-level systems to come back online. I’m basically just sitting on the tarmac in the dark.

No Satire, No Bull

So, no “sober funny” tonight. No satire. No bull. Just a straight-up factual warning: Beware.

The march through the wall continues unabated; but armed with science.

#cannabiswithdrawaltimeline #anhedonia #PAWS #neurorepair #neuroplasticity #eightweekwall

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