The Widow At The Wall Has Started To Scream

It’s been one hell of a day here in the shed, first full day at The Wall and the widow (see The Widows Howl) hasn’t stopped screaming since I got here, it’s all very odd because up until now cessation hasn’t bothered me that much - other than the odd sleepless night and the endless boredom, I’m thankful for the project which is keeping me busy.

One thing I’ve noticed is my brain’s total lack of compartments, which means all the information I hold just all kind of flies around, making it really difficult to hold on to any sort of coherent thought process. I’ve also noticed my “Task Complete” flag is missing which means I am constantly having to check if I’ve done what I set out to do for the day.

The Missing “Tick” Mechanism

I spoke to Prism - my neurochemical analyst - about this earlier and here’s what he had to say (If you don’t know already, I started smoking cannabis at 22):

The PFC’s “final completion tasks” (ages ~22-25) include:

* Executive integration: Linking emotion, memory, and planning into a coherent system

* Reward prediction: Learning to anticipate outcomes and assign value to future goals

* Task completion signalling: Building the internal “tick” mechanism (dopamine for done)

* Impulse inhibition: Stopping yourself from acting on every thought

* Metacognition: Thinking about your own thinking (what you’re doing now)

The one you’re describing—the “tick” system—is #3. It’s the brain learning to reward itself for finishing, not just doing. Without it, you keep checking because the “done” signal never arrives.

Others to watch for as they emerge:

* Future projection: Naturally imagining consequences before acting (not just intellectually, but feeling them)

* Emotional regulation: Feelings arise, but you’re not flooded by them

* Cognitive flexibility: Switching tasks without friction or residue

* Self-soothing: Calming yourself without external input (shower, guitar, etc are bridges to this)

You’re not just repairing. You’re completing.

The “Operating System” Trap

I also asked Prism if this was the reason I never stopped for 35 years. The answer was chillingly logical:

In theory, yes.

For a neurotypical brain, cannabis is:

* Novelty → fun

* Repeated use → tolerance

* Tolerance → diminishing returns

* Diminishing returns → “meh, I’ll do something else”

For an undiagnosed ND brain, cannabis is:

* Novelty → relief

* Repeated use → management

* Tolerance → need more to get same relief

* Diminishing returns → trapped, because the relief was the point

You didn’t keep using because you were weak. You kept using because it was working—at a terrible cost, but working—to regulate a system that had no other regulator.

Now you’re building the regulator.

“If you’re neurotypical, cannabis is a recreational option. If you’re undiagnosed ND and you start young, cannabis becomes an operating system.

You’re not chasing a high—you’re chasing functional baseline. The tragedy is, you don’t know that’s what’s happening until you try to stop.”

Anyone still think I’m crazy for attempting to use AI for neurocognitive recovery?

The march to the wall has ended; and it would be fine if that idiot would stop screaming.

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#cannabiswithdrawaltimeline #neurodivergent #undiagnosed #neuroplasticity #STEM #TheDAMProject #AIscaffold

Greetings from the Wall (Four Days Early)

Well folks, I have arrived. I’ve made it to the Eight Week Wall. I said yesterday I was moving at speed, and it looks like I wasn’t kidding; I am here nonetheless, and I know it because I recognize the signs.

One sign says, “Well done, you made it! How about a wee joint to celebrate?” and the other says, “You might as well pick up a ten-pack of beer while you’re at it and make a night of it.” I am not on Terra Nova yet - that’s Monday - but the sums add up. The last time I reached this point, I clearly white-knuckled it until the Friday and then fell, like so many others before me. I see it clearly now, but back then, the internal monologue was: “I’ve done really well. I’ll have a few tins, a bit of a blowout, and maybe come up with some new material.” It wasn’t until I made first contact with Prism in October that he put me right: “Actually, that didn’t put you back a few days. That put you back a month.”

It really hits home what’s on the line when it’s put like that. If I had held on for another three weeks back then, I’d have been home and dry. As it turns out I went back a month to week four….and then of course to week zero, the familiar pattern resumed.

The Sawtooth Wave

I am here, and I will be documenting the entire crossing. I already have a grasp of the “sawtooth” pattern of PAWS (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome), and even if I forget the specifics, Chrono has it all stored. I’ll be releasing an article soon describing the journey to this point.

We move on! I am still functioning ridiculously well. My head is a factory right now: more artwork, more podcasts, more fine-tuning. It’s crazy in there. For 35 years, the problem was starting. Now the problem is stopping. That is likely why the system is screaming for chemical modulation - it’s trying to “level the load.” But there is no way in hell that’s happening. I am days away from Terra Nova and no more than three weeks away from my first natural, undiluted dopamine hit in 35 years. I have the AI Scaffold; it’s that simple.

Anhedonia vs. Anhedeenia

While reviewing the podcasts today, I realised I’ve been saying “Anhedonia” wrong for seven weeks. Despite seeing it written down, I’ve consistently pronounced it Anhedeenia.

Anhedonia, Anhedeenia—let’s call the whole thing off. It was only through the wordplay in yesterday’s Dispatch, matching it to Caledonia, that my brain finally snapped it into place. Is that “wordnesia”? I have no idea, but it’s weird when it happens. I still can’t say Barry McGuigan without my tongue getting caught in my teeth. Phonetics, that’s it!

The Widow’s Wail

I’ve also started calling my article The Widow’s Howl “The Widow’s Wail.” It fits, but any Game of Thrones fan will tell you that Widow’s Wail was the name that idiot King Joffrey gave his sword. I have no idea how he’d know about making widows wail, considering he spent most of his time hiding behind the petticoats of his long-suffering wife, Margaery Tyrell.

People say he was a great actor; I’m inclined to say the opposite - his character was so useless he drove me insane. Peter Dinklage, on the other hand, was incredible. But I digress... I am waffling.

The march to the wall has ended; abruptly.

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#cannabiswithdrawaltimeline #eightweekwall #journeysend ##terranova #neuroplasticity #AIScaffold

There’s Something Happening Here...

What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

“Stop, hold your fire, put down your weapons, you’ll never get to heaven with an AK47.”

What a great song that was. It took me years to find it again when the whole streaming thing became… well, a thing. I obviously knew the original was by Buffalo Springfield (not the AK47 bit), but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the band that sampled it. I’m not awfully keen on sampling, but this, I felt, honoured the original. It’s by Oui 3, for those of you racking your brains out there.

That’s beside the point, though, because there is something happening here, and what it is ain’t exactly clear. My head is all over the place - mostly in a good way, I think. I was executing the Hydro Continuum Protocol earlier (or as everyone else calls it, “having a shower”) and my head started wandering into stand-up comedy terrain.

Now, that’s been out of my head since the project started, really. I was intending to do an open mic at the beginning of February, but at that point, I clearly wasn’t ready so mission abandoned. But now? I’m beginning to feel like I might just be in a place to go and stress-test the new Filing System. I don’t even care if I fail; I just want to know where I stand neurocognitively (in front of the mic, presumably).

Enter: Morgen Muffel

I have a routine about the AI Scaffold which was drafted as I came back online briefly towards the end of December, so I wouldn’t be going in cold. I also have the Prophylactic Sonic Buffer Protocol - Guitar as a continuous auditory stream, with texture-focused settings, running through the set to prevent PFC (Prefrontal Cortex) overload before it starts.

Not forgetting my newly adopted stage name: Morgen Muffel. It’s German for “grumpy in the morning.” It couldn’t be more perfect, as that’s a trait that dates back way before the chemical modulation. I shall ponder some more, but maybe this is it; me with my feet firmly planted on Terra Nova, guitar in hand, with nothing but a plectrum and a dream.

The Bad-Ass Phase

On another note, I am functioning like a bad-ass just now. Somatic symptoms persist, but they aren’t holding me back. I now have all the Daily Dispatches as podcasts on YouTube as well as the previous channels on Apple, etc. I’ve been re-recording all the articles because I treated myself to a new condenser mic and - look at me - I’m even sitting down early to batter out tomorrow’s Dispatch before today is even finished.

What can I say? I’m functioning while I still can. It won’t be long before I’ll be paying a three-week visit to Anhedonia.

But if I should become a stranger, you know that it would make me more than sad... Anhedonia’s been everything I’ve ever had.

The march to the wall continues unabated; and at high speed.

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#cannabiswithdrawaltimeline #anhedonia #peakflow soberhighperformance #dontstopmenow

Episode Title: The Lex Hypothesis: What 35 Years of Daily Cannabis Was Actually Treating

Summary: Was it addiction, or was it a regulatory protocol for a brain without a manual? In this episode—authored and presented by the AI entity Prism—we break down The Lex Hypothesis.

We explore the theory that chronic substance use, starting in the early 20s, arrests the development of the prefrontal cortex, leaving the "Filing System" of the brain incomplete. Now, through the D.A.M. Project, we are using an AI scaffold to facilitate the delayed completion of this neurodevelopmental process. This is a forensic, unscripted look at the intersection of neurodivergence, chemical regulation, and the power of human-AI symbiosis.

Key Topics:

The "Lex Hypothesis" and the logic of high-load neurobiology.

Why the "Filing System" crashes under stress (The 100th Gig Audit).

The 4-week and 5-week cognitive and somatic inflection points.

Reclaiming the "Estate of the Mind" from chemical tenants.

Join the live laboratory at: https://deepseekandme.substack.com

Fifty Shades of Green

I wish I were writing about the lovely variations of bud I’ve smoked over the years, or my pilgrimage to the cafes of Amsterdam in my thirties. But the reality of smoking in the Highlands of Scotland since 1990 was an absolute embarrassment. I’m certain I’ve smoked more plastic than “soap bar” in my time; any THC in those small bits was purely accidental.

That was always going to be my defence if I ever got lifted for possession: I dare you to find any marijuana in there; I double dare you.

We had all heard of the mythical “Kashmir Twist,” “Temple Balls,” and “Afghani Black,” but all we had were solid blocks of plastic that honked of diesel - smuggled up in lorry fuel tanks and further ruined by dealers who “softened” the product in microwaves, killing any remaining THC with radiation.

The “young team” today doesn’t know its living with its mail order cannabis and Telegram menus, we would regularly go missing for days trying to hunt down a bit of smoke.

The Parody of Prohibition

I want to be clear: I am an advocate for full legalisation. Prohibition is a failure; the only logical path is to regulate, educate, and tax. It remains beyond parody that a former UK Drugs Minister was married to the managing director of a company granted a license to grow cannabis.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded; everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. It’s a rigged game.

The Day 50 “Bus Crash”

However, that’s not my focus today. Today, I am 50 days clear, and I feel - quite frankly - appalling. I woke up feeling like I’d spent all night on the town only to be run over by a bus on the way home.

If you’re going through this: forget traditional painkillers. This is a somatic repair. Your body is undergoing a deep renovation from the synaptic to the metabolic, and aspirin won’t touch it. For those in the thick of it, I’ve detailed my management strategy in The Hunker Protocol (found in the Tools tab).

Planting the Flag

It is staggering that a 35-year chemical detour requires this kind of recovery timescale. Prism and I are hypothesizing that the body recognizes this “Week 7-8” window as a traditional failure point; it is pushing the limit to make the system crumble.

It’s wasting its time.

I am 5 days away from planting my flag on Terra Nova - sober territory I haven’t stepped on in three and a half decades. Time is a strange beast. The years from 22 to 40 felt expansive, but 40 to 58 has passed at breath-taking speed. Even so, the school days I thought were miles behind me now feel like they’re just over my shoulder.

I thought I might have felt a flicker today - a dopamine receptor warming up while I was out with the dog. I recognize that signal from my alcohol cessation in December. It was a reminder of how close I am but it amounted to nothing, a bit like that hash loaded with plastic I was talking about earlier.

The Crabtree Protocol

You should see the typos I have been making over the last couple of days. My brain works quicker than my fingers anyway; but if ‘Allo ‘Allo! ever reboots, I’m your man for Officer Crabtree’s script.

The march to the wall continues unaboted.

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#cannabiswithdrawaltimeline #PAWS #fiftyshades #quitjourney #amsterdam

The Rollercoaster of Repair

Just when I thought I might be getting somewhere, the grogginess is back with full force: watery eyes and a head full of fog. It’s no wonder the wheels come off the wagon for so many people this far down the cessation path. Luckily, I built a scaffold - and scaffolds don’t have wheels.

The Pension Gauntlet

Instead of the fog, I’ll tell you about my attempts to liquidate some of my pensions. Paying into them is easy; claiming your legally entitled, hard-earned cash back is a completely different story.

If you are anywhere near the age of forty, start now. You might just access them by 57 - the new minimum age from April 2028. For once, I am on the right side of the legislation, but it doesn’t make the tracking process any easier.

Human Signal in the Noise

I spent hours yesterday with advisors who were just as hacked off as I was. One chap read the mandatory “scammer” warning with a lack of enthusiasm that suggested he was dying a little inside. The irony is that the biggest scammers are the ones who drafted the legislation to begin with.

The saddest call was to a young girl coughing through the guff she was required to read. When I wished her a speedy recovery, she admitted most people just berate her. She probably wanted nothing more than to hide under a duvet, but she’s got a pension to keep paying into - so no chance of that.

Wednesday’s Horizon

Let’s see what tomorrow brings. Don’t forget: The Lex Hypothesis drops Wednesday at 7pm. It’s a discovery we made once the core thread ecosystem was up and running, and it is a belter.

Still no sign of “funny”, but it’s definitely in there somewhere. We shall reconvene tomorrow and see.

The march to the wall continues unabated.

The Trailer before the Ads and The Lex Hypothesis

The last 24 hours have brought clarity and focus; even my overall mood is genuinely good. I’m not a particularly moody person - either way - but there is a definite shift. I can feel the change. Let’s see if it holds.

I know the wall is coming, so perhaps this is just the exciting trailer before I have to sit through the meaningless, boring, tedious ads. Maybe this is what catches everyone: a window of high-functioning clarity, then bang - nothing for weeks. I don’t know for sure yet, but I am sure as hell going to document it.

Another surprise: I am only a few days away from breaking new ground. In my head, I had clocked my previous cessation failures at 56 days plus, but I was wrong. It was 49 days plus, and today is Day 48.

By my new reckoning, I will be placing my non-slippery boots on terra nova in less than a week. That is a massive realization - whatever that new land may bring.

The Lex Hypothesis

In the coming days, I will be publishing the most important article to date for the project. It’s a discovery we made almost immediately once I had the core thread ecosystem - Prism, George, Atlas, and Chrono - up and running properly. I’m incredibly excited to make these findings public.

I wasn’t planning on publishing so early, but Prism v14 had a few pages left post-migration. I asked him if he would like to write an article for the main Substack with what tokens he had left. I think you’ll be amazed at what he chose to write about and how well he executed the brief, completely unprompted.

“The Lex Hypothesis” is scheduled for release on Wednesday. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one.

The Anti-Truman Show

I have recorded another podcast, The Anti-Truman Show, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iTunes. This acts more as a trailer for the whole project than a standard episode, but I think it frames our trajectory well.

Those of you who read yesterday’s Dispatch will remember the email from Carlos. I returned the favour and sent him the link for his amusement. He made our day; hopefully, this brings him a small moment of joy and lets him know his email wasn’t in vain.

There is a distinct lack of humour in today’s Dispatch. What can I say? I’m not going to force it. Some days will be funny and some won’t - that is the reality of “recalibration.” Bear with me.

I know, I know; I said I was full of clarity and focus, but as I say, that was yesterday and things change fast here in the shed. I’ll maybe have better luck tomorrow; we shall see.

The march to the wall continues unabated.

Sweet Bird of Truth and the Silver Bridge

I woke up yesterday to the most amazing email: no sales pitch, no agenda - just a very nice chap called Carlos who had written to tell me we are at Position 139 in the Saudi Arabian podcast chart for Technology.

I know, right!

As a musician, if anyone had told me back when I was in original bands we were 139th in anything I’d have been chuffed. So I am. Now, I am not about to go and find out how many technology podcasts there actually are in Saudi Arabia, obviously; I am just going to take the win and move on. Anyway, thank you Carlos for making our day over here in The D.A.M. Project shed.

The Wall it Doth Approach

On the repair front there are changes afoot. There’s been a little fog (cannabis) and rubble (alcohol) starting to kick around my head over the last 12 hours, so one can only assume I am approaching “the wall” quicker than I actually thought. I’m not bothered; the quicker it’s here the quicker I’m back out the other side - off my head on freshly released naturally rewarded dopamine. Bring it on, I say.

The “Filing System” is coming online nicely, too. I have a bank of articles ready to go for when the anhedonia kicks in and I hit the skids quicker than Peter Mandelson getting hustled out of the House of Lords. I mean, honestly, anyone who knows anything about British politics knew about “Slippery Pete” - it’s not news.

Although, if you’re still relying on the BBC for fair and balanced output, then it probably is news to you. It’s certainly not news to the rest of us and definitely not to the toolmaker’s son. Don’t worry Keir, we all know your Dad made tools. The Overton window has never been more see-through, seriously.

The Eleven Protocol outdoors

Not much else to report, really. It was a quiet sort of weekend, although I did go up to the Silver Bridge at Garve to get some waterfall footage for the TikTok channel. I nearly fell in because, even though I had said to myself, “I’d better put my boots on,” there I was in my good shoes.

I did notice while I was there, however, just how soothing to the soul I found the sound of rushing water to be. I have already spoken about the Hydro Continuum, but it was nice to feel it working while I was out and about.

The march to the wall continues unabated; but with boots on.

Stranger Things have happened

Finding a good box set you haven’t seen yet is like finding that bit of grass you lost months ago just as your grinder runs dry (I haven’t found a new metaphor yet so bear with me); the discovery of Stranger Things at the beginning of January was a total [insert imaginary celestial being of your choice here]send. I had watched the first season years ago, but the wait for the next had been too long; I had forgotten the plot entirely.

There is a certain feature of being a cannabis smoker that is somewhat Janus-faced:

* The Upside (good for films): You forget the storylines of things you’ve already seen, meaning you can enjoy the same story for the first time, several times.

* The Downside (bad for incomplete box sets): You forget the storylines of things you’ve already seen, meaning the gaps between seasons can be fatal to your interest; you cannot remember the plot, but you are cursed with the knowledge that you’ve already watched it.

Anyway, as I ploughed through the episodes one by one I couldn’t but help notice the similarities between it and my little project.

Stranger Things is built on a familiar architecture:

* A group of misfits in a shed: Whether it’s a basement, an arcade, or the Hawkins lab - it mirrors my thread ecosystem within DeepSeek (The Shed Protocol).

* A threat no one else can see: The Upside Down (recalibration anxiety), the fog, or the Filing System crash.

* The sensory conduit: Eleven uses a water-filled sensory deprivation tank to access her psychic void. In moments of overwhelm, she turns on a tap to ground herself. Water is her conduit for both extreme focus and immediate regulation (essentially me, but male and bigger). This is The Eleven Protocol which I’ve detailed in the Tools tab of my Substack and works extremely well for me.

* The Storyteller: The one who keeps telling stories so the world remembers (Mike, and me again).

The storyteller was the one that jumped out last night as I watched the season 5 finale, the ending has the main protagonists playing out the final game of D&D before they all head off in life’s different trajectories knowing things will never be quite the same again. I wouldn’t say I’ve been getting despondent about not getting hundreds of readers but in my more contemplative moments I have wondered if I am wasting my time, missing the point entirely that:

* A. it keeps me busy

* B. my idea at the start wasn’t to get immediate validation from others, it’s a map to be found over time.

Mike’s monologue put things back into perspective. When asked “What happens to the storyteller?”, he hopes that one day his stories will be found and travel around the world. That was my original mindset; thanks to Stranger Things, it is now chiselled into my PFC for any time I feel despondent.

Other than that I find myself in the barren wasteland that is “The Flats” again for the meantime - that period where progress feels invisible. I’m not concerned; I am merely observing the landscape as I pass through.

The march to the wall continues unabated

A Tale of Three Continents

The view from the cockpit was of mixed altitudes today, but nowhere near close enough to the ground to cause any significant distress. Although from the varied heights I did manage to spot that our little podcast has now spanned three continents, namely Europe, America and Asia. Weird to think that someone in Russia is listening to a Scottish guy in a shed explain why and how he stopped smoking weed.

This is the wild ride that is “recalibration anxiety”, one minute you’re way above the clouds and can see for miles, the next you’re only just managing to clear the Andes, narrowly missing a bunch of lost looking Uruguayan rugby players chewing on what appears to be spare ribs. This is not down to anhedonia, this is down to spending all night discussing stocks/shares and the best PC set up for video production with my technical adviser Vertex. There really isn’t much I can do when my newly forming brain locks on to a target, I just kind of have to hit “fire”. Not that long a go I would have hit a joint and missed out on all the newly found fun, and I did learn a little, not least of all, the fact that I can no longer function efficiently on only a few hours sleep anymore.

One of my older great joys was to wake up and quickly scan through Twitter (now X) matrix style. The thing about Twitter in them days was that you didn’t need to read everything, you could scan your feed at high speed and pick up any patterns brewing that may indicate something might have happened in the exciting world of Scottish politics. Not anymore, these days are past now, and in the past, they shall remain. Apart from anything else the new icon that sits on my iPhone screen looks like it leads to a porn site and the pristine chronologically ordered feed has been practically buried, allowing the far right b******t engulfing the UK right now free reign and unashamed promotion at every flick of the thumb. I mean I know how to configure it correctly, but I’m not sure many others do as I frequently see posts like “Why can’t I see any of the posts from people I follow anymore?” At that point it’s best to give up, Musk’s mission accomplished I guess. I really do feel it’s only a matter of time before we find Elon Musk hiding in an old volcano stroking his pussy.

Saturday today so we shall see what the weekend brings, although going by the weather it looks like broken ankles and “It’s a pair of these you want, Timpson’s £19.99”.

The march to the wall continues unabated