[Blarg]

You sound like someone who usually needs something strong, like a new habit, to replace an old one. I can be that way sometimes. I can find it easy to drop an old bad habit if I take up a new bad habit. Or a new good one, too -- my obsessive nature generally lets me get so into something that I can forget things like bad habits almost accidentally, just never get round to them again. The bad habits drop if you're too busy to think about them and don't reinforce them constantly.

You're at the age where if you aren't starting to feel the beginnings of declines in things like strength, wind, and general health, you will soon enough. And you're also still very capable of getting much stronger and laying in a solid foundation of health so any things like bone loss, etc., don't start to just naturally happen and whittle away at you before you realize how much is gone.

I would get into something physically demanding, hopefully that you really enjoy. That will increase your health in a way you can feel daily, and give you goals and take up some leisure time. For some people, just exercising alone can do that, but most get bored and quit, so I'd suggest some kind of sport. Biking, tennis, rowing, martial arts, even hiking, whatever you like.

Both will give you stimulation during your leisure hours, and help you address health issues before they even become issues.

If you already exercise or play a sport somewhat seriously, then that advice wouldn't apply to you directly. But it carries over in that if you are looking to replace one habit with another because that seems to be the easiest way you know to get rid of a habit you have, you can still try to find a good new habit instead of a bad or neutral one.

I don't count pot as a truly bad habit, but think you could probably find something better.

None of this was meant as a criticism, by the way. And I hope it doesn't sound too jerky. What you do is none of my business and I don't disapprove of pot. It just seems there are more interesting experiments out there, especially for a 40-year-old guy who has already smoked pot before and isn't discovering anything new in it. I only mention it because your phrasing reminded me of the bad habits I had and how glad I was to get rid of them by finding another, which then became a problem of its own. I'll always have habits of one sort or another, and I'm a lot better off with good ones.