Has anyone gone back to sober sessions?

Yeah there are a few of us around I think. I still haven't matched the level of THC sessions in my sober sessions, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation anyway, since I was never able to do that sober. I'm probably back to the level I was at before I started smoking weed though... which is something. And a definite improvement over how things were in the first few months of quitting.

It's hard to say exactly how long I've been away from weed, because I've tapered-off over the course of about 2+ years. I did a few months here, a few months there, occasionally having a stoned session, then back to months of not smoking. It's hard to forget how good those stoned sessions were, and just walk away from it, especially when the alternative is conspicuously bad sober sessions. So I think I went back to weed a few times out of frustration. But my sober sessions have improved now to the point where I have new and interesting things happening again. And it's rewarding enough, that I don't miss weed, and I don't feel like weed is the missing ingredient to my session.

But that's my individual experience of it... I guess it would depend on your usage. I was smoking 2 or 3 times a week for a few years, only having stoned sessions. Like I'd only have aneros sessions stoned, and I'd only smoke weed to ride, so I think I really conditioned myself hard between the two. It's to the point now where I don't think I could smoke weed without having it launch me into aless. So if anyone expects me to smoke it socially, I'll be passing on that. 😄

I think there's a lot of sexual boredom to ride out, and I did that by experimenting with other things, like erotic hypnosis, Mindgasm, and even total abstinence. What ever part of me needed to recover and re-calibrate from weed, seems to have mostly done that. Though I could probably still improve my lot by taking better care of myself in other areas too.

I found weed was affecting my everyday life in a way I didn't like, and for what? An orgasm? Of course that was a blissful, magical 3 hours, but it felt like the rest of my life had become some kind of weird hangover. So it wasn't a good trade-off.

Agree with everything you said. Smoked and got into erotic hypnosis / aneros / VR porn then decided it was time to stop.

Can not smoke or take any thc at all now or else the prostate just goes into overdrive.

Funny enough tried to sober session today with meditation and had a super session. Nothing will ever compare to those thc sessions but it was much better than I expected.

Thanks for your detailed reply.

Posted by: @jiji2000

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Nothing will ever compare to those thc sessions

I'm a little more optimistic than that. I did 100% sober sessions for around 10 years before I introduced weed, and the best sessions I had during that time were plenty intense enough for me. So I don't think it's completely out of reach. I know there are overwhelmingly intense experiences to be had sober. The thing about weed was how easy it was, and how consistent. I never had a dud session stoned. So it's really hard going back to asking myself if I'm in the mood or not, and sometimes finding that I'm not. When I was smoking weed it didn't matter, everything just snapped into place, immediately hit max speed, and stayed there.

Keep it up though, I found things continued to improve even 8 months out. I remember one guy on /r/leaves saying that when you quit long enough, one day you'll notice music sounds amazing again and hits harder. And I've been experiencing that lately, he was totally right. I guess I'd forgotten what being able to enjoy music was like sober. I hadn't even noticed until that guy mentioned it.

The overwhelming majority of my sessions are sober. I use THC maybe once every 2 months or so, and a really low dose (2.5mg THC+CBD) even then. My  sober sessions are often really great, but the THC-aided sessions are still peak pleasure. And I'm totally fine with that. My sober sessions are really enjoyable and more fun in some ways. I don't find them boring; on the contrary, the lack of THC forces me to be more curious and experimental and focused, and I learn something new each time. Whereas with the THC sessions, once the weed starts to take effect, I settle into whatever position/technique I know works for me and surrender control for 2 hours.

My sober sessions serve as research expeditions for my THC-aided sessions, in a way.

I agree with everything @clenchy said, it's spot-on as far as my own experience goes. 

It's like you have to consider THC sessions and sober sessions as two completely different things, although there are similarities. For instance I can't expect a sober session to be going full blast after the first 10 minutes, but on the upside, I also don't have to be on the lookout for a panic attack or terror at the gates, and I don't need to pace myself when I'm sober. The challenges are different.

Are the terrible sleep and general brain fog a fair price to pay for the hours of Os ? In the end, for me, no. I think I'm at the "getting over it" point. Almost. It feels like starting over, but worse, because I know precisely how things should be going, but it's no happening, and I understand that it's going to be a grind of going through the motion, doing the flexes and breathing, for "X" amount of time until it eventually starts working again. It's taking longer and it's harder than when I first started... All the while, 75 cents worth of cannabis could fix everything right this instant, just like magic. It's a bit of a Faustian bargain, and like I read somewhere else, the idea is doing pushups in the back of my mind, but at least now I know it's really not a good idea. 

Posted by: @jiji2000

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After quitting THC now for 4 months. I have little urge of using the Aneros (Even tho I still have constant Aless every day. I think once you have woken your prostate it never goes away)

Just knowing how the sessions are when i was sober vs being on THC is such a big difference. Has anyone successfully gone back to using it Sober and had any sort of decent sessions.

 

Sessiosns should be sober, weeed is a dangerous game. Or is it just pure THC youre taking?

Posted by: @zentai

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Are the terrible sleep and general brain fog a fair price to pay for the hours of Os ? In the end, for me, no.

Yeah me neither. I think because I wasn't smoking every day, I just never got used to it. I could notice the after effects rising and falling over the course of the few days I was leaving between sessions. I was very much tuned in to the fact that I had more difficulty thinking of words on-the-fly, and my (already natural) anxious tendencies were flaring up. But then I sometimes wonder whether this was the weed directly, or something that might also happen otherwise, had I been blowing out my dopamine receptors by some other means. Like maybe what I was experiencing was more acute than just a THC roller-coaster, because I was pretty much fucking my own brains out on top of it.

Posted by: @zentai

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I think I'm at the "getting over it" point. Almost.

It took a few things to get me to that point. One was going back to THC after months away from it (a few times), and re-experiencing the fog and shitty feeling, and deciding "Yep, I definitely hate this". Another was my sober sessions improving a lot over time, to the point where I can have a meaningful and novel session without getting stoned. Then there's a sort of weening-off factor, where, after a time, I'm not feeling addicted to those big pleasure dumps like I used to be. I'm fine with not having 2 hours of shaking, back-arching pleasure several times a week. I think of it as borrowing pleasure from myself in the future, and I'm just going to have to pay it back anyway.

Another thing is (something I think you mentioned before) how much more "real" a good sober session feels. I'm finding there's something deeper going on with sober sessions. Where a stoned session would take a superficial level of pleasure and launch it into space, I feel like with sober sessions there's more depth and substance to it, in a way I can't put my finger on. For example, I recently felt after a session that my prostate felt relaxed as though it had a nice massage (which was a nice feeling in its own right), and something that I'd felt before many times, but not during the years I was riding stoned. Little weird details like that.

Posted by: @clenchy

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But then I sometimes wonder whether this was the weed directly, or something that might also happen otherwise, had I been blowing out my dopamine receptors by some other means.

The only thing that makes sense for me, is that there's a synergy taking place that makes THC+Super-Os at least feel like something else. MDMA, maybe ? I don't know, I never tried anything besides cannabis, and this might be completely wrong, and I'm not going to test the theory, hehe.. But I don't believe that cannabis is generally known to give instant hour-long orgasms to people. This feels, I don't know, like what I would imagine low doses of harder drugs to feel ? With the related effects on dopamine, but of course, to a level that is manageable by the body and won't send someone spiraling down. 

It does absolutely feel like I'm going to have to pay myself back in some way. Like I stopped and started again several times. The first day is always great. If I could only have that one day and then a week off, I think that side-effects would be minimal. But it does feel like 2-3 days to really recuperate. One week of use ? Takes a month to really feel right. And so on.

Like you, I'm fine with accepting what I'm getting right now. I started having daily sessions, 45 minutes to an hour for the last 3 days, and they're ok. Better than just masturbating, which I would do anyway, so it does not feel like they're duds or anything. Sober Os are more like something I achieve, vs. THC Os being somethign that happens to me. In the long term, this makes a difference, it did make me lazy and impatient in a Super-O sense. 

@zentai 

Agree I just use the session now as the same time I would meditate for. I try do an hour a couple times a week. So I just put it in an meditate and whatever happens happens. With the main focus being on clearing the mind and meditating first (I always meditate with 8d music as I struggle to concentrate)

Over 50 yrs old and have no desire for action unless I am high. 
I use infused coconut oil, so I minimized health effects. Life is more interesting with cannabis.  

Early on in my quitting, I think it was largely a case of being desensitized and having dopamine issues. This far into my quitting effort, I finally feel like I can build a proper session again. I'm still not having my mind blown like stoned sessions, but I feel like I'm approaching that kind of depth. I'm having sessions that are actually breaking new ground for me, which is a place I haven't been in a long time (at least while sober). For anyone interested: I haven't touched weed in over 3 months, and only smoked 3 times in the past 11 months.

Now that things are picking up again, I'm noticing different roadblocks. I think one of the things THC was helping me with (temporarily) was a kind of body-anxiety. As a generally anxious person for many decades, I think I have certain patterns of dealing with it, and one of them is asserting control of my body in some subtle ways. I've noticed when invountaries are stirring up, I jump on them and try to convert it to a different (but similar) kind of twitching that I'm more in control of. It's hard to even notice I'm doing that, it feels so automatic. But I think it's an anxiety-reflex that's been flying under my radar... maybe on some level I'm afraid to feel what the involuntaries were starting to create, but I'm not conscious of it. Compared to when I was stoned, I would have just lay there and not given a single shit what happened, I was greedy for pleasure and allowed everything to happen. Plus I think I was too faded to even micro-manage anxiety on that level, even if I wanted to.
Maybe there are some lessons I can bring back with me to sober sessions after all. Having the sense-memory of what being "physically open" was like, gave me a new frame of reference for what "physically closed" might look like.

Well I have come from the opposite side of the equation and have thus far experienced my entire journey sober - every super O I’ve had whether aless or with a device I’ve not partaken of any cannabis and generally no booze either.  I suppose I wanted to make sure whatever success I had was not reliant on cannabis to achieve it… 

As an experiment I had some alone time this past weekend and did get a good buzz on before and during my session.  I used a Eupho syn which is my go to these days and I will say that it was in my top 5 sessions ever.  It’s hard to control for variables on this journey as we all know - mood, rest, general feelings of wellness etc… all impact a session potentially so it’s hard to say if cannabis, by itself, facilitated a great session or if I would have had one regardless.  

Still it did feel different in some ways.  My SO’s have always been of the rough seas variety.  However this time I came closest I’ve come to what I think is a calm seas O … I was sort of feeling like I was floating with a warm fuzzy feeling all over that went on for some time.  It was completely different than my typical spasms.  It was delightful.   I also felt like I could feel the device more clearly and was maybe a little more in touch with my body.  My perineum for example felt more engaged directly than I typically experience.  I do attribute some of this to cannabis as I was more relaxed and somewhat inward focused than I am at times sober - I can get there but it takes longer and more focused breathing etc… to achieve the same level of relaxation.  

Next session will definitely be sober just to see how it compares in a relatively close timeframe.