Dealing with social anxiety and isolation.

I only just started nofap a few days ago but ive had anxiety most of my life. Also been smoking cannabis for 20+ years. One thing i can tell you is for me weed isnt really a solution to anxiety. It just numbs my senses so I might not notice it. Also cuts motivation down so youre more likely to netflix and chill with your ✋. Nofap to me is about impulse control. Denying your mind the crutch of smoking weed in my mind would only increase the benefits of nofap. Easier said than done but thats my goal. My suggestions for you are quit weed and get a job doing something where you talk to people. My anxiety has been less since i started working as a waiter. Anyway man good luck

 

At this point you probably already know that we fight more than one addiction, and this process is more than just stop PMO for 90 days. As I regain more brain clarity I started to notice more compulsive behaviors, but most important of all, I started to notice all those hidden feelings that led me in those addictions in the first place. I propose you the following activity next time you're about to use drugs or start to edge: identify in your body where is that feeling coming from, then put your hand in that area and let yourself to make noises, or try to give a voice on that specific feeling. It will help you to identify part of why you're doing that, and then look for an answer for what is troubling you. If as you say the origin is your story then accept what you can't change and compromise yourself in what you can change. I grew with a religious mother too, but I could only forgive her when I recognized she did the best she can to rise me. She may have been rised that way or not, that is her own story and choices, but me as her son all I can do is accepting her.
I send you my best wishes, bro

 

Acting weird when on cannabis in public places are quite normal to people. Reason is that you start overthinking about what people think and you believe they deffinetly notice that youre high, so you start acting weird and unnaturally. Use some sunglasses and dont think about what others think. Or stop using. For me cannabis was wonderful at first, but at the and all i got was anxiety and bad trips. So I quit. And its all good now.

 

Understanding of how we were raised and the deficits we experienced (growing up without a father figure) or trauma and abuse that happened to us is very important to seeing how we were set up to choose unhealthy coping mechanisms (pmo, drugs, alcohol,etc) that attempt to fill those voids and deal with the effects of trauma.
Going beyond that and saying that they are the cause of your current behavior or addictions is a trap that will keep us bound by those experiences and unable to move past our behavior into a healthy way of dealing with life. It luls us into the belief that we don't have a choice when in fact we do. We are just powerless to make some healthy choices because we have unresolved pain, anger and hurt that is overriding our cognitive ability to think clearly.

This is vital!
And it is also very, very difficult. It sounds good and true, which it is and we can accept, and then we find ourselves right back where we started wondering "what the heck?". It takes some time and most often takes some help to work through some of those things that keep tripping us up. And that's just the stuff that happened to us that we really and truly didn't have control over. There is also the shame that we feel about choices that we have made that is also present and can keep us shackled.
There truly is more to this than just stopping a behavior. That is a great first step on a journey in which we learn to accept that we are loved, how to love ourselves and how to forgive and love others in their brokenness.