My Relationship With Substances is Changing… Again

Real talk about plant medicine, harm reduction, and stigma

I’m Tawny, author of Dry Humping and co-author of The Sobriety Deck, co-host of the Recovery Rocks podcast, and co-founder of the vinegar-based botanical beverage, (parentheses)

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My relationship with substances changed when I got sober in 2015. And now… it’s changing again. 

Several friends in the mental health space, my hubby, and my therapist reminded me that I don’t need to discuss this publicly, reminding me that I’m entitled to privacy. Learning the difference between privacy and secrecy helps me differentiate Tawny the Human from Tawny the Persona. I’ve kept a lot of what’s in this issue private for a few years while I figured out what worked best for me and my recovery. 

As someone called The Sober Sexpert, who’s built a career around reporting on the sober and sober curious scene since 2015, I want to discuss what sobriety means to me today. Several recovery and mental health advocates use anti-cannabis rhetoric, which keeps plant medicine stigmatized. So, I wrote this piece to bring some nuance to the conversation.

Essentially, my relationship with substances is evolving—just like me.

Content Warning: This post discusses cannabis, substance abuse, and mental health recovery. If these topics feel triggering, please enjoy this cute cat video, then have a lovely day.

Section Summary:

• Mental Health is Physical Health

• Why Suffer?

• SSRIs

• Weed… the Illegal Seed

• Hiring a Cannabis Doctor

• TL;DR

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Mental Health is Physical Health

A fascinating part of publishing a book is hearing which parts of your work resonate with readers. I’m learning which lines are randomly appreciated and which are popular among readers. I also look at the Kindle highlights on my eBook to see who’s highlighting which passages (Do other authors do this???).

I’m often asked about the line in chapter one where I say, “I have no idea if I’ll ever drink again.” The people who like that line are usually those who still drink (and usually people who want to cut back on booze in some way). They find comfort in the fact that I, a publicly sober author, state that I have no idea if I’m done drinking forever. Shifting your perspective to one day at a time is a novel concept that can have profound effects.

However, that line isn’t a shock for those of us in recovery, meaning those of us who work on our mental health every. single. day by going to therapy, reading self-help books, and streaming recovery-themed podcasts, all to understand why we abused substances in the past and to learn healthier coping mechanisms. We know that one day at a time is the only approach that actually works because how we show up today and how we react to today are the only things we can control. 

I was completely sober from all substances for five years—including several breaks from caffeine. I rarely took Advil or cold medicine. I didn’t want any substances in my body unless absolutely necessary. I even procrastinated on wisdom tooth removal because I was terrified of pain medication. 

Then, the time came when I seriously considered anxiety medication. My anxiety turned into rage, which turned into even higher anxiety, which often turned into bedridden depression. I could no longer handle the heart-racing, impending doom that created an incessant sense of urgency that sat on my chest. I quickly learned that asthma + anxiety = pure hell. I even got an EKG because I was *positive* that my chest pains were a sign of a pulmonary problem. 

Mental health is physical health.

I tried everything to alleviate this chronic mental and physical discomfort: acupuncture, massage, supplements, yoga, meditation, weight lifting, tarot, self-help seminars, and fill-in-the-blank-I’ve-tried-it. Those tools are still regular parts of my mental health toolkit. They just can’t change my brain chemistry.

Jason Chatfield for The New Yorker

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Why Suffer?

Lisa, my incredible podcast co-host and mentor, has a great line that she frequently repeats to me when I come to her in a panic. 

“Why suffer?” she asks. “If there’s medicine that can make your life easier, why would you choose to suffer?”

I think about this advice daily. 

I even brought that advice to my therapist, asking how much emotional pain I’m “supposed” to feel as a “normal” human versus the pain I feel as a human in recovery from PTSD, C-PTSD, an anxiety disorder, and substance use disorder. What level of emotional pain is part of the human experience that I “should” know how to handle without needing something to make life more manageable?

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SSRIs

I was on Lexapro for a full year, and it helped. A lot. My anxiety kindly removed itself from the driver's seat and cozied up in the passenger seat. Sometimes, she even rolled down the window and enjoyed the fresh air, fully embracing the present moment. But sadly, my body got used to the Lexapro. She stayed in the passenger’s seat but kept jerking the steering wheel, swerving into lanes I didn’t know existed. But I didn’t want to increase my dosage or try other pharmaceutical meds. Anyone who’s been on an SSRI journey can empathize with this constant battle. 

It was clear that my body and mind required some “as needed” relief, like Xanax or other benzos. I had a Xanax addiction in high school, so that option was out. I desperately wanted to take life one day at a time; I just needed help. So, I took a harm reduction approach and hired a cannabis doctor—a process I discuss on this episode of Recovery Rocks.

Dr. Chin and my therapist worked with me to find the right strains and dosages to alleviate my anxiety disorder. I also had to find a new primary care doctor because mine wasn’t cannabis-informed. She spoke down to me when I told her about my new prescription for plant medicine. But that’s a story for another time. 

The emotional side effects of my anxiety would make me over-commit and people-please until I was completely destabilized and couldn’t get out of bed, having to back out of all the things I promised to do for others. I constantly struggled with emotional regulation. I punched walls. I tore down shower curtains. I screamed and sobbed. It was hell. My anxiety was back in the driver’s seat, going full Ricky Bobby mode… until I rebooted my relationship with cannabis.

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Weed… the Illegal Seed

My relationship with cannabis began as a 14-year-old reporter for the Waco Tribune-Herald, my local newspaper. I wrote the op-ed in the picture below before ever consuming cannabis. It never made sense to me that a plant was illegal when an extremely dangerous drug like alcohol was not only legal but encouraged by societal norms. So I went to the library to research my forthcoming article: Weed the Illegal Seed (still my proudest headline!). I smoked weed for the first time a few months later.

Weed was my first drug and probably my first love. I loved how light it made me feel, a lightness I desperately needed as a teenager with symptoms of what I now know are PTSD and C-PTSD, but as a child, those symptoms felt like anger and sadness and confusion and resentment. I honestly wish I had kept my drug use just to weed. But I didn’t have the emotional intelligence or mental health vernacular that I do now. Being high felt better than the constant heartache.

All I knew was that if two puffs of a joint made me feel better, LOTS of puffs would make me feel GREAT, right? I abused weed until it led to harder stuff. It's super cliche, but that was my story.

Cannabis isn’t always a gateway drug—in fact, researchers disagree on this, and the best studies we have put it at less than 50% chance of a lifelong cannabis user progressing to other illicit drugs. I’m sick of people dismissing cannabis as a gateway drug instead of properly educating their children or themselves on mental health and emotional regulation. That level of chosen ignorance causes way more damage than hitting the occasional joint.

I stopped smoking weed a few years before I stopped drinking because weed made me anxious, or should I say, I thought weed made me anxious. It turns out I didn’t know which strains were best for my brain chemistry, and as I mentioned before, I had zero mental health resources at the time. I had no idea I even needed mental health resources at the time. 

A lot of my life as a frequent college dropout, caretaker for my grandmother, and career bartender made me anxious, but it was easier to blame the plant in my hand than make any significant lifestyle changes.

Eventually, as many of you know, I made that significant lifestyle change a few years later.

On November 30th, 2015, I took a public departure from alcohol. I started a blog called SobrieTeaParty, where I very publicly documented my first few years of sobriety. That turned into a podcast. And a book. And a drink. And a card deck. And a keynote speech. I even met my husband in an AA meeting.

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Hiring a Cannabis Doctor

I visited a dispensary in 2021 to learn more about today’s cannabis landscape. I truly had no idea where to begin.

“I want anxiety relief without getting high,” I told the budtender. He smiled and assured me that this was a common request. He suggested a few products, one of which was a tincture. I’m already a big fan of herbal tinctures, so I was drawn to this approach. “This is a great way to start since you can add as little or as much as you want to whatever you’re drinking.” He was right! Tinctures are still my favorite way to consume cannabis today because I like knowing the exact amount that I’m using.

I had hesitations about bringing cannabis back into my life. Can I use cannabis safely after I abused it in the past? Am I still sober if I become a regular cannabis user? Am I comfortable taking an SSRI *and* plant medicine every day?

Those hesitations were quelled by arduous research and hiring Dr. Chin, to show me the ropes. I attended Dr. Chin’s six-week Chemistry of Cannabis course at NYU to learn about the problematic history of cannabis prohibition and how to responsibly use my new favorite plant. I read study after study. I had long talks with my therapist to see if cannabis was the next right action in my recovery.

For over a year, I had anxiety about my anxiety medication. Per my therapist’s suggestion, I wrote MEDICINE on the tincture bottles and gummy packages to remind myself that each dose is just that… medicine.

Working with Dr. Chin was refreshing after hearing countless recovery advocates stigmatize plant medicine. She understood me! She understood plant medicine! She understood addiction and harm reduction and mental health and how cannabis fits into all of those categories! Most importantly, Dr. Chin assured me that I could use plant medicine and still be a person in recovery. 

Because I believe that destigmatizing plant medicine can save lives and ease suffering, I’m sharing my microdosing prescription from Dr. Chin:

2-5mg of THC as needed for anxiety relief 

• Indica is preferred as it has more calming effects, which works best with Lexapro

• Use a 1:1 ratio of CBD and THC (CBD is a whole other important discussion!)

• Take Cannabis in gummy or tincture form, as I prefer not to smoke because of my asthma

• Start “low and slow,” which means taking very small doses to see how your body and mind react to the plant. This approach also helps patients find medicinal relief without feeling high

The term microdosing has become a bit of a joke at this point, but this approach helps me tremendously. As someone with no desire to get stoned who still wants anxiety relief from plant medicine, microdosing works for me. 

There are plenty of videos that show how cannabis can instantly help someone with physical ailments like seizures or Parkinson’s, but I can’t snap a before and after selfie of my brain on generalized anxiety disorder vs my brain on plant medicine.

The best way to describe my post-dosed feeling is that my anxiety is no longer in the driver’s seat or the passenger’s seat. She’s living her best life in the backseat, reading a romantasy novel, legs stretched out while her bare feet dangle out of the window, tapping along to Khruangbin.

I have my life back.

Full control of my brain and my thoughts has finally returned.

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TL;DR

Through this journey, I stumbled into a great paradox: If the point of being sober is to be fully present for life happening on life’s terms, what do I do if the only way I can be fully present sometimes is by using cannabis?

I’ve wrestled with what all of this *means* to both Tawny the Human and Tawny the Persona. I’ve dealt with guilt and shame due to the cognitive dissonance of being a mental health advocate who destigmatizes mental health support while beating myself up, thinking I “should” be able to tough these symptoms out without help. 

My therapist thinks that I’ve never felt true relaxation until now. I always used substances to escape reality by black-out drinking or getting extremely high. This is my first time using a substance in moderation to feel closer to reality and closer to myself. 

Where my relationship with alcohol pulled me away from myself, cannabis helps me embrace myself.

I’m not sure how much I’ll write and talk about cannabis overall. I don’t want to become The Cali Sober Girlie. While my commitment to mental health recovery encapsulates every fiber of my being, my relationship with substances is such a small part of who I am.

In the same way that I don’t know if I’ll ever drink again, I also don’t know if Lexapro and cannabis will be part of my daily life forever.

My job as a journalist is to observe what’s happening, to see the objective truth from all angles, not just my opinion. That’s how I’m treating this new era of recovery. I’m observing my own behaviors, not labeling them or assigning value. I’m studying and reading published research on plant medicine while documenting my own data, one day at a time. 

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A few questions I’m asking myself right now

• Why am I trying to squeeze into a box that may not fit me anymore?

• Why do I still care so much about what people think of my life choices?

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Links

• NYT - What Does Being Sober Mean Today? For Many, Not Full Abstinence.

• TikTok - @burnthestigma is a great account about harm reduction

• Making Cannabis Accessible for Folks with Disabilities

• Dr. Peter Grinspoon
  writes an incredible evidence-based newsletter about cannabis

XO,

Tawny

Robert Riese Photography