The 90-day verdict

On day ninety of the attempt that held, I sat down at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning with a coffee. I read the three answers I'd written on day one. Then I wrote three new numbers underneath, for day ninety. The gap between the two pages was the verdict.

What good looks like at day 90

Five markers, written down.

Sleep score. Most men who make 90 days clean see falling-asleep time drop from 30-90 minutes to 10-20 minutes.

Mood baseline. Score the average day, 1 to 10. Most men land at 7 by day 90 having been at 5 on day zero.

Exercise consistency. Sessions per week.

Money saved. Run the maths from module zero again.

Motivation. The hardest one to score, the most important. The number of "I'd been meaning to do that for years" things you actually started.

The four chapters that come next

Chapter A: Stay off it for good. The cleanest. The argument for going back is now smaller than the argument for staying off, and you can feel it. Don't keep paraphernalia in the house.

Chapter B: Dial it back to occasional, with rules. The trickiest. Three rules that hold:

• Never on a school night.
• Never alone.
• Never in the house.

Write your three rules now. Not after the first one. Now.

Chapter C: Extend by 30. Common at day 88 to day 95. The move is to extend by another 30 days and then revisit.

Chapter D: 90 days off didn't fix the underlying thing. The most important paragraph in this whole Journey.

If at day 90 you're sleeping no better, your mood baseline is a 4, you're more anxious not less, then weed was not the problem. Weed was the bandage.

This is not a willpower issue. This is a clinical issue, and the next move is a GP, not another protocol.

What that conversation looks like in Australia:

• Book a longer GP appointment (30 minutes).
• "I've been off weed for three months. I'd been smoking nightly for [X] years. I'm doing better in some ways but I'm still [insomnia / depressed / anxious]. I'd like to talk about a Mental Health Treatment Plan."
• A Mental Health Treatment Plan gets you up to ten Medicare-rebated psychologist sessions a year.
• If the GP wants to talk about medication, listen.
• Find a psychologist whose CBT or ACT work matches the actual problem.

A man who quits weed and then sees a psychologist for an underlying anxiety disorder is not weaker than a man who quits and is fine. He's earlier.

What to do this weekend

If chapter A: don't smoke this weekend, don't smoke next weekend.

If chapter B: write the three rules now, before you smoke.

If chapter C: extend by 30. Mark day 120 in the calendar.

If chapter D: book the GP appointment this week.

Read what you wrote. Decide what you're doing. Don't drift.