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Marijuana dependency and treatment
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This is a repost of my thread that got deleted a few days ago.
This thread is for all of you who are asking questions like why am I having suicidal thoughts, why am I no longer happy, will my brain ever be the same, I don't feel like a person anymore, I can't have a conversation with anyone, why am I having mood swings, and so on.
The answer is that these are all very clear symptoms of depression, something that chronic marijuana use is well known to lead to. Marijuana dependency, anxiety and depression are all interrelated. The experiences that you are describing are very common and very treatable with antidepressants, exercise, or both.
Marijuana depresses you and makes you anxious, so you smoke more marijuana to relieve yourself from it. Unfortunately marijuana is a terrible substitute for a real antidepressant and it causes the depression and anxiety to worsen over time.
My suggestion to all of you is to go see a psychologist and get treatment for your problem. Psychologists deal with problems like yours all day and they can cure you. For those of you who say you can't afford it, think about all of the money you spend on marijuana that you could be spending on real medication.
Also, if you want to start your rehabilitation today, quit smoking and start running. If you can run 3-5 times a week within two weeks of the time that the thc is out of your system you will feel 95% better. Most antidepressants take about 6 weeks to fully kick in so this can tide you over.
This is a reply I posted in another thread on CannabisRehab.org about detox symptoms that should also help you out:
___________
I can clear a lot of the psychological symptoms up for you because I've seen both a psychologist and a psychiatrist about marijuana addiction/withdrawal. The psychologist was an MD who said he had had several patients with similar issues and he gave me a lot of useful information about it. To summarize what he told me, psychologically it takes an average of about a year to recover from chronic marijuana use.
The first thing I should mention is that none of this is backed up with studies and it is based off of what he has seen in his patients over a pretty long career. However he is a very well respected doctor in my area and he is a medical doctor which means that he went to college, medical school and then a school for psychology that lasted three years. So basically he has four more years of training than a psychiatrist and he knows what he's talking about, but it isn't definitive because it hasn't been backed up by any clinical research.
The advice that he gave me was also centered around my particular situation. I was addicted to cannabis when i was 13 and I smoked basically as much as possible (3-6 times a day) and I quit on april 20th ( I am now 18). I also experienced an episode of depression when I was in middle school that was resolved with anti-depressants. For the last 2 or 3 months of smoking I was extremely paranoid even when I wasn't smoking which is what ultimately forced me to give it up. I experienced barely any of the physical symptoms that all of you are complaining about but I have experienced a lot of psychological symptoms.
I should note that all of this information applies to any age group, if not more for adults than people who are my age, because the patients he dealt with before were mostly in their 20's although he said he had a few teenagers as well.
He told me that marijuana affects the way you think and that when chronic smokers stop their thought processes are very abnormal. Anxiety and depression are the major short term issues but chronic smokers basically analyze things the wrong way. The extent of the change depends mostly on your brain chemistry and how your mind worked before you started smoking. It seems like the smarter you are the harder it is to get back to your normal thought process.
He said that he has had patients that said it took a year and half to be thinking normally again but there is also a chance that you can recover in about six months.
Anxiety is by far the biggest issue. Marijuana is prescribed medically as a drug to treat people with GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) in some states. However a usual dosage is about once a week. Since the drug alleviates anxiety, and chronic smokers smoke upwards of six times a day, you can imagine that removing the drug causes people to become extremely anxious.
The best thing you can do to get rid of the anxiety is to jog daily. I found that it alleviated the anxiety after about 5 days, although the other problems such as the short term memory loss and the over analysis persist. I also still have some mood swings even when I am steadily exercising but I am always in a much better mood. It is hard work but if you want to fix the issue it is almost a must.
Another approach that I just started is to use is antidepressants. I have experienced moodswings and depression my entire life and before I started smoking marijuana I was taking them. I stopped when I began smoking because I was convinced I didn't need them anymore. Since I stopped smoking all of these issues came back but they were a thousand times worse. If you can afford it I really suggest seeing a professional about getting these even if you aren't normally depressed or anxious because in addition the running they could help you with the anxiety and depression until your brain recovers.
Another thing that the doctor told me that is a really serious issue is that when you are smoking chronically you don't develop emotionally as a person. The crazy dreams that people have are a result of this. I have had many crazy dreams about people that I haven't seen in years and he said this is because my brain is registering the experiences I had while I was smoking.
Another interesting thing he told me was that when someone smokes a lot the brain can't break down the thc fast enough and that it gets continuously broken down throughout their day. For the first month or so after I hadn't smoked I would experience "flashbacks" when I would all of a sudden be anxiety free and basically high for a little while, and then I would come back to reality.That meant there was thc being broken down in my brain.
Once again I would urge everybody to visit a professional about this if they can because it is really something that should be dealt with professionally. The most important things to remember if you can't see a professional are to exercise as much as possible and not to be discouraged because it is a long process to make a full recovery.
______
I want to note that I am feeling much much better everyday and that with the amount of pot I smoked at my age any of you could recover just as easily if not more easily.
This thread is for all of you who are asking questions like why am I having suicidal thoughts, why am I no longer happy, will my brain ever be the same, I don't feel like a person anymore, I can't have a conversation with anyone, why am I having mood swings, and so on.
The answer is that these are all very clear symptoms of depression, something that chronic marijuana use is well known to lead to. Marijuana dependency, anxiety and depression are all interrelated. The experiences that you are describing are very common and very treatable with antidepressants, exercise, or both.
Marijuana depresses you and makes you anxious, so you smoke more marijuana to relieve yourself from it. Unfortunately marijuana is a terrible substitute for a real antidepressant and it causes the depression and anxiety to worsen over time.
My suggestion to all of you is to go see a psychologist and get treatment for your problem. Psychologists deal with problems like yours all day and they can cure you. For those of you who say you can't afford it, think about all of the money you spend on marijuana that you could be spending on real medication.
Also, if you want to start your rehabilitation today, quit smoking and start running. If you can run 3-5 times a week within two weeks of the time that the thc is out of your system you will feel 95% better. Most antidepressants take about 6 weeks to fully kick in so this can tide you over.
This is a reply I posted in another thread on CannabisRehab.org about detox symptoms that should also help you out:
___________
I can clear a lot of the psychological symptoms up for you because I've seen both a psychologist and a psychiatrist about marijuana addiction/withdrawal. The psychologist was an MD who said he had had several patients with similar issues and he gave me a lot of useful information about it. To summarize what he told me, psychologically it takes an average of about a year to recover from chronic marijuana use.
The first thing I should mention is that none of this is backed up with studies and it is based off of what he has seen in his patients over a pretty long career. However he is a very well respected doctor in my area and he is a medical doctor which means that he went to college, medical school and then a school for psychology that lasted three years. So basically he has four more years of training than a psychiatrist and he knows what he's talking about, but it isn't definitive because it hasn't been backed up by any clinical research.
The advice that he gave me was also centered around my particular situation. I was addicted to cannabis when i was 13 and I smoked basically as much as possible (3-6 times a day) and I quit on april 20th ( I am now 18). I also experienced an episode of depression when I was in middle school that was resolved with anti-depressants. For the last 2 or 3 months of smoking I was extremely paranoid even when I wasn't smoking which is what ultimately forced me to give it up. I experienced barely any of the physical symptoms that all of you are complaining about but I have experienced a lot of psychological symptoms.
I should note that all of this information applies to any age group, if not more for adults than people who are my age, because the patients he dealt with before were mostly in their 20's although he said he had a few teenagers as well.
He told me that marijuana affects the way you think and that when chronic smokers stop their thought processes are very abnormal. Anxiety and depression are the major short term issues but chronic smokers basically analyze things the wrong way. The extent of the change depends mostly on your brain chemistry and how your mind worked before you started smoking. It seems like the smarter you are the harder it is to get back to your normal thought process.
He said that he has had patients that said it took a year and half to be thinking normally again but there is also a chance that you can recover in about six months.
Anxiety is by far the biggest issue. Marijuana is prescribed medically as a drug to treat people with GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) in some states. However a usual dosage is about once a week. Since the drug alleviates anxiety, and chronic smokers smoke upwards of six times a day, you can imagine that removing the drug causes people to become extremely anxious.
The best thing you can do to get rid of the anxiety is to jog daily. I found that it alleviated the anxiety after about 5 days, although the other problems such as the short term memory loss and the over analysis persist. I also still have some mood swings even when I am steadily exercising but I am always in a much better mood. It is hard work but if you want to fix the issue it is almost a must.
Another approach that I just started is to use is antidepressants. I have experienced moodswings and depression my entire life and before I started smoking marijuana I was taking them. I stopped when I began smoking because I was convinced I didn't need them anymore. Since I stopped smoking all of these issues came back but they were a thousand times worse. If you can afford it I really suggest seeing a professional about getting these even if you aren't normally depressed or anxious because in addition the running they could help you with the anxiety and depression until your brain recovers.
Another thing that the doctor told me that is a really serious issue is that when you are smoking chronically you don't develop emotionally as a person. The crazy dreams that people have are a result of this. I have had many crazy dreams about people that I haven't seen in years and he said this is because my brain is registering the experiences I had while I was smoking.
Another interesting thing he told me was that when someone smokes a lot the brain can't break down the thc fast enough and that it gets continuously broken down throughout their day. For the first month or so after I hadn't smoked I would experience "flashbacks" when I would all of a sudden be anxiety free and basically high for a little while, and then I would come back to reality.That meant there was thc being broken down in my brain.
Once again I would urge everybody to visit a professional about this if they can because it is really something that should be dealt with professionally. The most important things to remember if you can't see a professional are to exercise as much as possible and not to be discouraged because it is a long process to make a full recovery.
______
I want to note that I am feeling much much better everyday and that with the amount of pot I smoked at my age any of you could recover just as easily if not more easily.
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