614: What You Must Do When a Loved One Is Struggling with Addiction (ESP MARIJUANA)614: What You Must Do When a Loved One Is Struggling with Addiction (ESP MARIJUANA)
Real Recovery Talk
Tom, Ben and Jack talk frankly about whether smoking weed can fit into sobriety, especially for those with serious addiction histories. The conversation focuses on relapse, dual diagnosis, modern marijuana potency and the practical routines that help Jack stay clean today.
51:08•12 Aug 2026
Is Smoking Weed Really Sobriety? Jack’s Candid Look at Recovery and Relapse
Episode Overview
- Marijuana is described as a mind-altering substance that, for some people, clearly breaks abstinent sobriety.
- High-potency modern weed is linked in the conversation to psychosis and even schizophrenia in susceptible young users.
- Jack emphasises that dual diagnosis and self-medicating mental health issues can drive addiction and complicate recovery.
- Staying sober is tied to routines: consistent medication, sleep, movement, clean living space, and planned free time.
- Relapse risk is reduced by removing reservations, thinking logically, and not sacrificing months of work for moments of impulse.
“Don’t throw away these months of hard work over five minutes of being impulsive.”
How do different strategies aid in addiction recovery? This episode of Real Recovery Talk zooms in on one tough question: can someone be sober and still smoke weed, especially when they’ve got a history of serious addiction? Jack, a young man with a decade of heavy marijuana and alcohol use, sits down with hosts Tom Conrad and Ben to talk honestly about his journey.
Jack has been to five treatment centres, relapsed multiple times, and calls marijuana his “drug of choice” and “biggest relapse.” He explains how weed pushed him into manic behaviour, psychosis-like states, and total self-absorption: work, family, and responsibilities “went out the window.” Tom and Ben challenge the idea that weed can fit into sobriety, referencing Webster’s definition of sober as abstaining from intoxicating drugs and addictive substances.
Jack agrees: “For me, dude, weed, you’re not sober,” though he admits some people use it as a lesser evil compared to fentanyl or hard drugs. You’ll hear frank talk about modern high-potency marijuana, its links to psychosis and even schizophrenia, and why families often struggle to understand why someone would return to weed after months of sobriety.
Jack shares how dual diagnosis, particularly bipolar II, fed his addiction, and how proper medication now gives him a “baseline” to build healthy routines.
There’s plenty of practical advice too: alarms for meds, regular walks, sleep routines, honest sponsorship, and surrounding yourself with people who “keep you in the middle of the pack.” Jack now works at Evolution House in Virginia, helping other men in treatment and tracking his own progress with an app that shows money saved, calories avoided, and extra hours of deep sleep.
If you’ve ever wondered whether weed counts as a relapse or how to talk about “sobriety” in a family where someone still smokes, this conversation gives you clear, lived experience to think about. What definition of sober are you working with—and is it really helping?
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