Recovery What has worked for me to use moderately or not miss drugs so much when I don't have them.

[ItsclearlyFake]

I thought this could be useful information since its something its working for me:
Find something that:

1. You really really like / You are passionate about
2. It takes time to complete, in other words, its something you need to do / build a bit each day. Ideally its a really long term project (years) that you obviously enjoy the process.
3. It is incompatible to getting high. Like, while you are into this project/action, getting high would ruin it or it will make it undoable.

If you find something for you that reunites this 3 things, It will be much easier to handle your use and find something big that is not just about the drug.

This doesn't mean you are substituting one thing for another, it's just to create something that can give you joy and excitement on your own, and where the drug doesn't take place.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Same here! I've made exactly your points one and three in a few posts of mine.

It's important to want to be doing the non-drug activity for its own sake, not 'instead of'. I kept being told I needed to find a 'distraction' and I considered this to be a wrong-headed approach from the start. Because what if I badly wanna use and can't perform the behaviour meant to distract me? ...
And yup, totally agree it helps if the thing is incompatible with being in an altered state. I work as a landscape photographer (a passion I re-discovered after quitting the junkboy lifestyle) and the last thing I wanna be when I'm balancing my expensive Leica on a tripod on a mountain ledge is under the influence. Same when I'm writing (you get one paragraph down and then you drool on the paper while staring into the distance, not so useful xd).