Sober For the First Time in Ten Years

Sober for the First Time in 10 Years

Beltane, Reconnecting to the Body, and Claiming My Sovereignty

Honestly, it’s starting to feel a little weird writing for an audience of zero. I’ve been at it since January when I started creating Rainy. The goal was to have my Deity Work series to inspire connecting with the divine and helping others on their spiritual journey, but my blog has turned into a therapeutic outlet for me. I haven’t even launched my platform yet. Still, I just keep typing away as if I have millions of loyal listeners. Ultimately, these posts are really just communion with my inner world at this point. I feel pretty okay with that. Even if no eyes ever gaze upon my pieces, they’ve really been helping me process and evolve. The post of “Why Things Don’t Go To Plan” feels more of a predominant theme in my life now than it even did during the Lunar New Year. It is so interesting to read them back and see what has changed within since then, or what has lingered and still needs work. My biggest struggle for so long has been being in this physical vessel I call home. My biggest issues come down to surrendering, not consuming every waking hour of the day, and being still. Having a body has always felt especially hard for me. I haven’t led many lives on earth. The sensations are too much for me to take in most the time. I have struggled with eating, overthinking, self-sacrifice, self-care, and even breathing is something I have to be extremely mindful of. My teenage years I was escaping reality by overworking myself. When I was close to becoming a legal adult, I was escaping my doing any drug I could get my hands on. In college I was escaping by drinking until I blacked out pretty much every day. Since I swore off alcohol and hard drugs, I developed a very codependent relationship with weed. California sober really will never be as bad as the other routes I could’ve gone down, but it’s become it’s own particular type of monster in my life. This post in and of itself is a very particular kind of daunting in comparison to my other pieces. I’ve been sitting on this idea for a very long time.

Years now I have been pondering what it would be like to let go of the one thing that has made me feel like myself for all these years- my entire adult existence. I have had to relinquish just about everything in my life since moving to Portland. My friends, my father, my home, and many parts of my soul. The thing about manifestation, the emptier you allow yourself to become, the more you have room to create and invite. This keeps taking me back to the New Beginning spell I did around Ostara of 2025. I declared a new beginning in every. aspect. of. my. life. Never did I expect the extremities of my desires to come to fruition so literally. Since then, I bought a new car, sold my condo, ended my first business, left behind the only life I have ever known by moving across the country into my dream apartment, made new friends, started new hobbies, transformed spiritually, and started Rainy Oracle. The list goes on. I’ve been asking, “what more is there for me to let go of without losing myself?” And that is the problem right there. Anything that I have attached my identity to must not be aligned with the person I am becoming. Attachment comes from fear. If losing something or someone means I lose the essence of my being, it can’t be worth holding onto.

I have smoked almost every day for about ten years. Being high has always made me feel normal. It stopped my overwhelming and constant thoughts. I’d smoke before and after doing just about anything. Smoking was a bond I shared with my friends. A common denominator in every hangout. It was even my livelihood. Somewhere among the last year or two, I noticed it not helping me regulate so much. If anything, it started to make me feel more anxious and less capable. It had never hindered me so much before. I could really start to feel into how it ungrounded my energy. It wasn’t always like this. It used to make me feel even more connected to myself and the earth. So, where did it all go wrong?

When I was diagnosed with Grave’s disease and developing severe insomnia for several years, a lot shifted within me. Hyperthyroidism increases your heart rate drastically, causes intense anxiety and it raises your body temperature. A distinct and perfect formula to keep you awake every second of the night, no matter how long you lay there in silence. The thing about insomnia, it breeds a very special kind of demonic possession to your spirit. A sort of unending desperation to rest that will make you do anything to get that sweet release of consciousness. That period brought back a lot of unsustainable addiction in my small body. Pills have always been my favorite, but when they become the only thing that allows you to have proper rest, nothing is comparable to that type of dependency. It creates an unrecognizable version of yourself. Crawling out of this made me a different person mentally, spiritually, and especially physically. I believe this to be the beginning of the end to my addictions. For sleep, rest, stillness, and reconnecting to my body are all my driving motivations to lead a different life, free of the PTSD and lonely, dark nights. The correlation to marijuana is that as my body has changed, so too has my response to smoking. What once helped me rest began to increase my heart rate, keeping me awake for longer. What once held me safely, began to detach me from what really matters in my life. My heart has really been concerning me.

It isn’t just the insomnia driving me though. That may very well be my most driving force, but there’s plenty more to it. Throughout my spiritual journey I have had great segments of losing myself. I’ve flown so far from the soil that I never wanted to come down. Spiritual mania has devoured me off and on, which has unfortunately led to a lot of suicidal ideations. There were points I would’ve done just about anything to get off this earth and back to the stars that feel like a home I cannot remember. This is an example of when smoking has pretty much given me a reason to live. A period of when it really did keep me in my body and out of my haunting mind. I see now that it’s way of helping was by numbing me and keeping me from confronting the literal smoke screen in my life. It didn’t remove my problems, it just delayed them. It made me more comfortable when I wasn’t ready to deal with what was really the matter underneath. Really there is no true escape from this earth, I’ve had to just come to terms with that. The more comfortable I am inside of this body, the easier it will be continuing to choose to live. Whether I am escaping my mind, the earth, or anything else that I wish to avoid, all I can do is move through it. However much I smoke, it won’t actually change my predicament. If I truly seek to strike balance between body and mind, I too must seek balance between the earth and the heavens above. At times that I really wanted to end it all, I made smoking be my reason to live. What a silly way to exist. I want to live for the sake of living.

I have also been told by other psychics and in plenty of my own readings that I naturally receive psychic messages through my dreams. I have never been a huge fan of dreaming personally. One thing I always loved about weed was it made it all cease. Since I’ve stopped smoking, I have been receiving the most profound insights and visions that have inspired so much of my creative process lately. It’s practically flooding out of me like I just broke the dam inside of my mind. How much have I missed out on over the last decade of trying to cope? Perhaps stopping would have saved me from the ongoing depression. Maybe it was deceiving me the whole time like a narcissistic abuser, saying “oh, you don’t even know how to be without me.” I always believed it to be my savior, and I am certain it has saved my life more than once; but these days, I am not so sure I need saving anymore.

In no way am I here to speak ill of Mary Jane. For fucks sake, I have a pot leaf tattooed on my chest. She is and will always be a sacred herb. I know our reconnection is unavoidable. The goal is to use more consciously and respectfully. It is the intention that matters going into it. A plant medicine that is to be honored and no longer abused by my insatiable body. Temperance, after all, is about moderation. I expect to slip up every so often and fall back into old patterns, since I am only human. A part of this process is also healing my shadow self. I am learning to forgive more easily, not aggressively shame myself, and give up on the notion of perfection. I have seen reels of other women going sober from weed stating they “wanted to meet the girl they used to be without it again.” Those posts always pissed me off. They made me feel patronized which is one of my least favorite things to feel as I am naturally a challenger. I hated the idea that weed made me turn into someone I am not. I still despise this idea. Weed doesn’t change you as a person. Especially if you’ve smoked like a trucker for as long as I have, it feels more like a weight off your shoulders rather than a transformation of the self; however, I realize now that there is some truth to it, as defeating as it feels to admit. Now my mind is clearer, I feel more connected to by body, I have more time on my hands, all around I feel better being clean. Perhaps I am different, and it doesn’t have to be in a positive or negative light with some type of comparison to my past self. It has been 10 years. I didn’t know who I was when I started my addictions. I am not meeting who I used to be, I am simply stepping into the skin of my higher self.

I think the concept of sobriety is often misguided and also naturally unappealing to users. Most people with addiction really don’t care enough to take any step toward a different lifestyle. It’s so much easier continuing as is than losing your main vices. Normally addictions are just replaced with another. I have seen it happen time and time again. I even started vaping nicotine again and snorting a lot of ketamine when I quit, which I have now completely stopped with everything by the way. This post is really about more than just weed. You see, using becomes your lifestyle. It becomes a part of your identity. That is where the transformation becomes a reality. It is derived from the attachment and whatever the root of your usage is: Loneliness, obsession, depression, apathy, anger, loss of direction, escapism, bad influences, etc. The roots run deep. Not to mention that addiction runs deep in my bloodline. I feel like I've experienced all of it... And I feel like now is a good point for a disclaimer as I have in most of my blog posts- I am not a rehabilitation specialist. Just as I am not a professional anything or whatever. All that I write is based off of my own biased experience.

I’ve pretty much been declaring I really have had no choice in all of this. There isn’t a god pulling my strings, but the thing is, my life quite literally cannot move forward until I am sleeping consistently. If the hard truth is that my heart won’t allow me to rest because of the smoke in my lungs, then that is a very easy solution to quite literally all of my problems, as much as I absolutely hate that it has come to this. Many nights ago during an episode, I crawled to my altar in tears. That was when my higher self and spirit guides entered the chat pretty forcibly and honestly, quite rudely, telling me to throw everything away. The way I cried and begged was like parents taking away their toddler’s favorite toy. The time has come to reclaim my sovereignty. I have given so much of myself away to people and things undeserving. My generosity and gifts only ever used and bled dry. From people and relationships that are not aligned, to the substances that no longer benefit me. I have no other choice but to regroup and reground if I desire to get back to the things that bring me real joy. I don’t care so much about ‘who I am without it.’

I care about what comes in its absence. The last new beginning of the spell I did a year ago. Challenging everything in my wake may come to my greatest benefit now. For this is one of my greatest challenges yet: daring myself to truly step into the unknown, and doing it only for myself, not for anyone or anything else. A fated healing that will allow me to break free of what has been binding me and blinding me for who knows how long. One thing that alluded me for years, is that I have always had the power to save myself. Trapped inside of this cage forgetting that I swallowed the key. It is just now in the present that I have been sitting at this dead-end feeling like there’s no other way forward that has pushed me past the edge to take the leap of faith. I feel just like The Fool. I am still reluctant to throw my entire stash away, but for now, I am going to sit with how uncomfortable it is. All I can do is practice my newfound virtues and keep surviving the days until it is no longer a driving force. Until I break long enough to experience it in a different way.

I begin hypnosis therapy tomorrow to help rewire my reluctant brain into believing it is safe to come down. We can all only ride the high for so long. Our bodies are not meant to maintain such states so consistently. The in-between has always killed me. The come down never seems to get any easier with or without drugs. I pray this is a means to the end of feeling this way. The trauma has made me fear nightfall for so long that the greatest segments of sleep I have had since remission led me to becoming completely nocturnal. There’s nothing I want more now than to just feel like a normal human being. We may not be omnipotent, but I believe wholeheartedly we have the power to direct the hand of fate. With enough willpower, courage, and conviction, humans are capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for.

The timing also feels so aligned with Beltane fast approaching. One of my favorite sabbats that marks the wheel of the year turning toward the light. It’s associated with fairies, growth, open pasture, good health, the sun, new beginnings, and life-giving magic. It is a supernatural purification composed of ancient traditions and blending of modern spiritual practice. The Scottish Gaelic word translates to “bright fire.” It is the divine union of feminine and masculine energies. A period of embracing the light as life truly begins anew. Ostara may be the energetic new year, but Beltane, along with blooming hawthorn flowers, marks peak fertility. This is when things start to come to true fruition. So too am I ready to begin anew, and grow with the world around me. What better time to reconnect to the earth in a way I haven’t been able to before. What better time to declare my new footing and place in the world. I may not have all the answers or know what is to come, but I have a feeling, it’ll be well worth all of my effort and all of the pain I have lived through. I am so grateful to see another day knowing I am on the brink of great change. For the earth lives within me, and I live among the earth. We are one.

Until I take my last breath. I embrace the one-of-a-kind planet and my vessel that hold me, and I will remain patient to return back to the stars that birthed my spirit.

I appreciate you endlessly, to the few eyes that do happen to come across my pieces. If anyone reading this is struggling with being clean, please know that it does actually get easier. You can free yourself any time you decide to take your own blindfold off. You are not your addiction. I believe in you, I love you, and I am so happy that you are alive.

Remember to stay magical, open-minded, and unwavering in your faith. Till next time!

With love & gratitude,

Raina

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