Board forum blogger

[Catalyst]

So I am sitting here thinking about CannabisRehab.org and how much it has helped me and is helping me. I am wondering was is your story? You give us support and advice for which I am very grateful. But I have a question or two for you. What is your personal history with MJ. What brought you to quit, how long were you on, how long have you been off? What are your battles that you still face everyday. Were you in a relationship? If you were how was it affected? I only ask because we are all searching for answers and you are our touchstone. I suppose you can nix this post if you want to, but I feel like your story would be helpful to alot of us out here. Maybe it is in the archives some where. It would be good to know the person behind the advice and encouragement.
Thanks in advance,
Catalyst

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi Catalyst

My story is sprawled over many threads, bit’s here, bit’s there, if you were to read them all I am sure it paints a pretty full picture, but I do appreciate that now we are starting to accumulate quite a few threads, that could take some time and not everybody has the time to do that. I can’t remember if there is a single thread that has it all, so to summarise I started smoking the drug everyday at around the age of twenty, very strong stuff I would smoke an eighth a day, for a good few years I didn’t seem to experience too much of a problem, apart from maybe the fact that my lungs often felt a bit sh*t and my motivation could have been better, I probably did not achieve as much as I could have and my life was revolving around it, but at around the age of 25, I started to notice it was having a negative effect on my mental health, particularly in terms of anxiety and depression, but after a good few years of using quite heavily I found myself quite dependant on the stuff. I would definitely feel strong cravings for it and feel rattlely and shaky if I went too long without it, but the negative effects were starting to accumulate, the anxiety, social phobia, paranoia and depression were starting to get worse and it was starting to impair my memory and cognitive abilities, but I continued to do it never the less, I truly felt hooked. Anyway my last year of smoking from the age of about 26 to 27 I did start to reduce the amount I smoked considerably, but even though I was smoking less the harm it was doing was getting worse and worse, as well as anxiety and depression I was experiencing dissociative like symptoms, everything was starting to become cloudy, disconnected, weird and surreal, my memory and cognitive abilities were getting much worse it was causing me major brain fog. Like I say I was not even smoking that much anymore, the last few months extremely little, but even a small amount was making my symptoms worse and worse, they were particularly bad immediately after smoking it, so in the end I realised I had to stop, but by the time I did it had left me in a pretty bad way, I was a shell of my former self and my mind was in a pretty bad state.

Anyway I have not smoked for four years now and as a result of stopping I have improved significantly but my mind is still not what it was, it has left me with all of the symptoms described above to some extent, sometimes they are worse than others, sometimes especially the depression can get pretty bad, so although it’s left me with lasting damage I have improved significantly as a result of quitting, I would dread to think the state I would be in now if I hadn’t.

Take care

[Cannabis Rehab Guest]

u say u still get depression, its said that depression isnt just about feeling down its a chemical imbalance in your brain, do u think cannabis caused this

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Well there can be a number of causes of depression, it can either be reactive i.e. as a result of your situation, or of the more clinical type i.e. as a result of the chemistry that is going on within the brain, or even a combination of the two, one may end up fuelling the other. But yes I do feel cannabis significantly contributed to my depression from not just a reactive, but also a chemical point of view.

[trying so hard]

neuronal plasticity

Hi there just wanted to add my bit on this topic as I think people get very scared contemplating that they have done lasting permanent damage to themselves from an addiction to cannabis. Especially me as I have been smoking for 20 years, every day, from morning to night. Not an unusual story.

I read lots of sites dedicated to this cause as it has been a central part of my life and I have been on-and-off attempting to detox for 14 years now. Currently on day 3 after my third relapse this year, pretty depressing stuff but I will never give up the battle of giving up.

Anyway there is a site by an addiction specialist, Dirk Hanson, that man is my hero! He has talked about neuronal plasticity and that is basically as the neurons adapt to any drug they also adapt back when we stop using that drug. Obviously not straight away and from everything I have read this can take up to a year, even more. Which sounds a bit depressing but not half as depressing as believing you have done lasting damage to your brain.

I want to believe in neuronal plasticity with all my heart! And want to reassure people that after a period of abstinence our brains re-adapt back to the state they were before we fell headfirst into the hell that is cannabis addiction.

BFB you are absolutely brilliant for giving so much support and love and hope to people and I want to give you some that you haven't permanently damaged yourself. I have crippling depression which turns suicidal when I am smoking day and night - awful as I am a single mum and my children are my world. I have had lots of counselling and believe that my childhood contributed massively to my depression - it was there when I was a child, way before I touched cannabis.

Anyway hope that reassures people that when we give up and manage a long period of abstinence we can recover, in every way. My longest time quitting is 6 months, 4 years ago and I often make it to 3 of 4 months before the depression really gets a hold and I can't cope with the feelings any more, but I need to make it much longer to test this neuronal plasticity thing I guess......

Good luck to all on here, I recently found this cannabis rehab site and love reading the posts - you give me strength and hope, all who share their jouneys, reveal their struggles and provide help and support to eachother.

xxxxxxxx

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Thanks for the kind words trying so hard you are too kind. Neuronal plasticity is a fascinating subject and something that interests me a great deal too, I need to believe in it just as much as you do, from what I have read the brain can recover to some extent but is never going to be as good as it was, which after 4 years is pretty much what I have experienced, the other thing I have read is that the extent to which it does recover can vary significantly from individual to individual.

Depression and mental illness is a complex thing and every case can be different, some may battle with it for the rest of their lives others can pretty much make a full recovery, there are no exact rules, but yeah there is hope and keeping hold of that hope is vital if you are to give yourself every chance possible, like with many illnesses a big part of it is psychological, depression probably more so than most. So keep your chin up, it’s amazing how adopting the right philosophy can help, that whole Buddhist Zen type philosophy really helped me.

To win you have to fight, so never give up.

Take care all.