Question by athomewithkyle: Finding a hobby after quitting drugs?
I’m a 19 year old male who went away to college freshman year. Prior to going away, I found myself involved with alcohol and marijuana. I think I was led to this path after I tore my ACL playing baseball when I was 13. That ended my hobbies… sports. With no sports in my life I found myself getting a job at the age of 14 and I constantly held a job. However, work for most people, especially teens, is not fun. This is where I believe the alcohol and marijuana came in.

Come Fall semester last year, in addition to drinking and smoking weed, I found myself doing ecstasy, salvia, shrooms, percocet, ambien, adderall, xanax, and promethyzine. I only did all those a couple of times, except ecstasy. I fell in love with ecstasy and went on to do it 7 times in the span of 4 months.

During the 2nd semester, I was arrested for drug paraphernalia (smoking pipe). That gave me enough reason to stop smoking marijuana. 2 weeks later, I took some ecstasy and come towards the end of the night and my “roll,” I thought I was going to die. This was enough to get me to quit all drugs. A week later after this incident I was rushed to the hospital for dehydration and that’s when everything went downhill. After I was released from the hospital I felt horrible for the next week. I went to urgent healthcare on campus just about every day with the same symptoms of dehydration. It turns out, what I was experiencing was heavy anxiety and a little depression. After this week of hell, I knew it was time for me to head home and get my health back together.

I stopped all drugs including alcohol for 2 months. Then I found myself drinking again. Not as much as I used to, but I still went back to it. I stayed clean from all other drugs for another 2 months and then I found myself using marijuana again. I would smoke 5-6 times a day and pretty much was high all day. This lasted for 2 months, until this week.

During this week, my anxiety has gotten bad once again and now I just want my life to go back to normal. I no longer feel like I’m living a normal life. I go to work and come home now and repeat this every day. Drugs were my hobby and now my life has a huge gap in it without drugs.

How can I go about finding a hobby that I can enjoy and keep my mind of these drugs and hopefully get my life back together.

I would love to play sports, but at my age it’s hard to play unless you play at a competitive level. Since I haven’t played competitively in over 5 years, I most likely won’t make any team especially since I never got surgery on my torn ACL. Art is out of the question, I absolutely suck at it and can’t bare to watch myself attempt doing it haha. I love music. However, most of the music I listen to deals with drugs (whether it be hip hop or indie rock). I’m not good at any instrument and my singing isn’t too pleasant.

There are many things I would love to get involved with, however those hobbies are very expensive. Some things I would love to get into, but cost way too much for someone my age who has to pay for school: jetskiing/boating, skydiving, and working on my car more.

I would love to try snowboarding as I tried it once when I was 8. However, I live in Long Island, NY and the closest ski place is like 2 hours away.

I would also love to work out more. But, every time I’m nearing the end of my workout, my anxiety decides to be a pain in the ***. I think this has to do with the fact that working out will make you sweat, increase in heart rate, weak…. which I experience all when I’m having a panic attack. Also the reason I was rushed to the hospital for dehydration was due to working out at the gym.

So now I’m open to any suggestions as a hobby for a 19 year old male. I know this was a long *** post/question but I appreciate anyone that took the time to read it all and contribute. You may be able to change a young mans life.

Thanks!

Best answer:

Answer by John
You spend a long a** time with that 5 paragraph essay. No ones going to read it.

Answer by Alan
brother, i hear you. I was released from the military for a severe disability. It took what youth a had away from me. no more baseball for me either. I battle with the drugs and booze too. anything to fill my time and keep my mind of the crazy stuff. my best advice that i have to offer is….. fish. I started out with a small tank and worked my way up. it was a good recovery for me with the substance abuse because it allowed me to take care of something else. Something else depended on my sobriety. After a while you start to watch them grow and change and it gave me a little sense of pride. for me…. my 2 tiger oscars are my best support group, as lame as that sounds. good luck man, keep possitive.

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