This seems to be a long-dead thread - maybe (hopefully not) it's rehashed elsewhere I haven't found yet.
I want to share my story:
Started smoking pot at 18. Nicotine came along as a companion. I've smoked on and off (mostly on) for over 15 years. This was self-medication due to unresolved trauma and living with one foot in nature and one in the abstract, painful world of late-stage capitalism (tech/ai/vc/greed/violence/waste/etc.).
I'm eager to become a boot and follow the rules because here is a life presented where all my reasons for 'medicating' are removed or muffled. There's plenty of valuable, healthy work and invention to do. There's little to run from or numb - rather quite the opposite! The timing is great too because I've been forced to face myself over the last few years and taken great care with my healing.
Even planting some growies and researching earth homes and walipinis (which led to permies.com, SKIP/PEP/PEX, and working my first few BBs); real change was affected in my lifestyle: heavily reduced pot consumption, improved sleep habits (well, except the podcast listening and forum reading some nights

), jumping out of bed to cut down a tree or send a stick down a septic tank, engaging with neighbors to trade labor for tool use, learning state and city code for dry toilets and setting up a small humanure project, digging into records to contact land owners about possible light stewardship and more. I'll be sober shortly, and it feels like a great gift rather than a burden.
Phil's personal journey to purity and permaculture - the pot chapter