Estimated Reading Time: 7 mins
Coping Turns Costly
I had a period in life where I became heavily addicted to smoking marijuana.
Some may argue that it’s not the worst substance, but for someone who had never engaged in drugs before, my experience was very different.
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When I began, I was around 30 years old.
I lost someone I considered a brother — someone with whom I shared an incredibly close bond.
At the same time, my wellbeing was under constant strain due to my condition, PMDD.
My brother was the only person I could confide in when I experienced the worst of my symptoms.
He had a way of making me laugh, even when happiness felt impossible.
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When he died, I was broken.
I had to carry the emotional weight of his loss, along with the ongoing symptoms of my condition — without him.
It all drove me to seek relief and that relief was marijuana.
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I tried to convince myself that my use was temporary.
Eventually however, I became enslaved to the habit.
It went from a short-term remedy to something that controlled my life entirely.
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I was smoking constantly, spending money I didn’t have to feed my cravings, which only worsened my financial situation.
Outside of work, I was barely able to function.
I’d lie on the sofa, constantly high, unable to muster the energy to do anything productive.
Although it felt like I was escaping my problems, the truth was, I was making them a lot worse.
My poor mental state contributed to toxic relationships, self-imposed isolation, and a serious lack of interest in life itself.
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The Catalyst in the Chaos
My downward spiral continued to gain momentum until on one particular occasion I’d overdone it.
I had far exceeded my usual level of intoxication, slipping into the darkest and most destructive state of self-sabotage I had ever encountered.
As I sat in the ‘passenger seat’ of my own mind, like a lamb to the slaughter, it felt as though something else had taken control of my entire state of being.
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My spirit battled the compulsive urge to reach for a knife. Outwardly, I felt like I wanted to end everything, but inwardly, my spirit being wanted to live.
I began asking God to save me from myself.
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As horrific as the experience was at the time, it became a pivotal moment — the shock to my system that I needed and the eventual catalyst that ignited change in my life.
Confronting the state that my life had now become provoked a shift in my perspective.
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Beyond the Visible Struggle
In hindsight, the issue wasn’t the marijuana.
The real problem lay in the unresolved wounds at my core that subconsciously shaped my thinking, my choices, and ultimately my life.
I carried unresolved childhood trauma, untreated pain and rejection, self-loathing, and resentment — all compounded by a condition that ran riot.
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I had been using the temporary highs of marijuana as a means of escape.
Once my life reached that breaking point, I realised I had to make a decision or life would make one for me.
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I began rebuilding from my foundation — finally addressing the pain I had long kept silent, and the experiences I had done everything to avoid remembering.
By combining prayer and therapy with a renewed perspective on faith and intentional action, I began reestablishing a healthier mental baseline — one on which I could cultivate a better version of myself.
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Revisiting the Source
It’s not the contributing factors, such as substance misuse or other environmental conditions, that mentally enslave us.
The way we experience these external factors is merely a symptom of something deeper — our core beliefs.
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When we don’t define our own robust belief systems, the experiences and difficulties of our past can subconsciously dictate them for us — and often unfavourably.
In turn, these beliefs shape the way we perceive life, influencing our response management — the ultimate determining factor responsible for the quality of our outcomes..
As a result, directing our thoughts and actions with optimism, while not impossible, just becomes far more challenging.
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Renew to Rebuild
An unprotected state of mind leaves us vulnerable to being controlled by external influences, which in turn, can shape our lives by default.
To better control our mental state, we cannot neglect our internal state of being, from which the foundation of our perspective is formed.
It’s a process of learning to rebuild from the root.
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Our memories of traumatic events will never disappear completely.
Our aim, however, is to significantly minimise their impact on present-day life — and this requires the type of work that will maximise our ‘being-ness’.
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By doing the work required to become better than we’ve been being, we strengthen our mindset, build resilience, and grow in faith.
But we must first work on renewing our minds.
Romans 12:2 states:
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
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To function in the way God created us to function, we must set aside the influence of the world and lean on His principles for a more prosperous Kingdom life.
The devil’s aim is to keep our focus on lies that sound or appear to be the truth.
These include the lies others say about who they think we are or should be, the harmful influences of the world, and the false beliefs shaped by our past experiences.
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It’s time to move away from everything that produces the opposite of what God desires for us — to renew our way of thinking, behaving, and living.
What we continuously believe and act on to be true, will become more important than what appears as true, greatly influencing what will be true in our future.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee Isaiah 26:3
