OK, a bit of an exaggeration. Nevertheless, job-related stress did increase my consumption of alcohol from zero to a whiskey glass every time I came home from work. As I often don’t sleep well after drinking alcohol, I then turned to cannabis edibles and tinctures so that I could (hopefully) wake up fully rested before going back to work. Not a great way to live if you want to do more at home than de-stress from work.

I was told when I started at this job to “not bring your work home with you”. Great advice, but difficult for me (and as it turns out others) to follow through on. So I went through the mental gyrations of why I was so upset/aggravated/tired when I got home after work.

My stress factors in general:

• Sometimes the company policies and procedures
• Sometimes one of a wide variety of people I have to assist as part of my job
• Not being able to help someone as well as I would have liked, usually due to company rules
• On a daily basis having many routine re-occurring tasks to perform and not enough time to accomplish them — and I am good at personal time management

I realized that letting these factors get to me and ruin my home life was not to be tolerated any longer, and that I could change this. I decided a change of mindset was in order.

My realizations:

• I can’t change the rules and there is no point in grumbling about it. What I can do is my best to help those that I come in contact with
• The tasks I do not complete on Monday can be finished on Tuesday
• Worrying tonight does not help tomorrow
• As senior part of a team, I can also delegate when someone else has some free time to help people while I complete the task

End results:

• I cut out the alcoholic drinks. Then the edibles. Now it is just tinctures or maybe a cannacap if I am achy when I get home
• I have more time and energy to spend on myself and my family

Cannabis helps in many ways. But I was using it and alcohol as a crutch to get me through my home time. By dealing with the psychological rut I had fallen into, I was able to go back to using cannabis medicinally.