My weed story

[nathan14]

I started smoking the drug about a year and a half ago. I am now 21 years old and a senior and College studying psychology and criminal justice. Throughout the course of smoking the drug virtually everday I have numerous instances where I would think to myself that this would be the last bag and I am not going to buy anymore. Yet I would continue buying more and more bags even when I didn't have the money to really buy them. I would buy bags when I only really had money for my bills and then would ask my Dad for help for my bills. I never really saw this as a problem and always justified the behavior to myself as the college thing to do. Everyone else is doing it and weeds not addicting. Thats what i always told myself. I always told myself that ill quit when i want to yet the time of wanting to never really came until i started having negative feelings associated with smoking. Towards the last two months of smoking I would start getting really bad anxiety and paranoia and these feelings really didnt go way too much whenever I wasnt high. I knew it was time to stop. 2 months ago I started seeing a psychologist who has helped me overcome some of the obstacles of smoking marijuana and the feelings that have come from it. 5 weeks ago i quit smoking marijuana and it was very difficult living in a house full of other guys who smoke habitually. Living like this has damaged my education, work, and social life to an extent that i never want to smoke again. I have been depressed about all the negative I have been through recently that i used to not care about because i was always high. I am doing everything in my power to get away from marijuana including making a transfer of schools. I am going to live at home with my parents and commute to a school. There I have many friends who do not smoke marijuana and will have a solid social foundation to keep me from going back down that road. It has gotten so bad here that I used to be an average student never having too many problems to the point where I could not focus or understand anythign that i learned this semester. I am making an effort to detox from classes so I do not damage my GPA. My point to all this is before to marijuana being introduced in my life I was very confident about my education, my social life and work and it has aided in the destruction of all of those. My self esteem while smoking the drug was very low and i never wanted to take any personal responsibility for my actions which now being 21 I feel i need to start doing. I am now going to take responsibility for all of my actions that i am taking to get away from marijuana and to make strong long lasting positive changes in my life. I will say the real reasons i decided to detox at the time was the feelings of strong anxiety and paranoia and depression. All of which i still feel to some extent but not nearly as bad as i did before. 5 weeks strong cold turkey and thats living in a house where its available at any time.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi nathan14 and welcome to the forum.

It sounds like marijuana has had a significant effect on your life, I think so many of us here have experienced the anxiety, paranoia and depression, I would probably say they are some of the most common problems people who use marijuana experience. I have often said that when it comes to mental health problems and marijuana the issue is not so much about schizophrenia but more about anxiety paranoia and depression, which in themselves can make your life a total misery. It does indeed sound like it has not helped with your studies either, so I think you are doing the right thing in quitting.

5 weeks cold turkey is very impressive especially when you consider the temptation of student life, so well done, take care and please keep us posted on how it goes.

All the best

[nathan14]

anxiety and paranoia

anxiety and paranoia were some of the main reasons i chose to detox smoking and i didnt know if this was something that others have felt even weeks after quitting. I will say i do not feel anxiety or paranoia near as much as when i was smoking but i do feel it still on and off. Some of my sources of anxiety and paranoia are concerned about having a personalilty disorder that either A. was covered up by the smoking or B. was there before I ever started. It probably does not help that I a psychology major so I think I am more concerned about these issues anyways. I find myself sitting on the internet looking up different criteria for certain disorders and I seem to always think I have one of them such as antisocial personality disorder and also maybe bi-polar. I can't seem to decide if this is just anxiety and paranoia leading me to think these things or if i should really be concerned. I question myself because it seems that beings 5 weeks of smoking that I should not still be having symptoms of anxiety and paranoia.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi again Nathan14

You don’t know how much what you have just said exactly mirrors the situation I have experienced. I also experienced anxiety and paranoia from marijuana and spent many hours reading on the internet, I too thought I was either bi polar or had any number of personality “disorders” and maybe I am or maybe I do, but to be honest I have long since given up on trying to self diagnose, besides so many of the symptoms for these sort of things overlap and I am not even sure if the qualified “professionals” even know half the time, I have read many stories of people repeatedly been misdiagnosed or getting two different diagnoses from two different professionals and when you experienced all of the symptoms I have at one time or another, you could probably qualify for a diagnoses for any number of them. Anyway both smoking and withdrawing from dope can cause, or for anybody who may have been a bit that way to begin with at least exacerbate a whole range of symptoms of mental illness, but before you diagnose anything it’s probably best to give it a couple of months without smoking any, so at least then you will know what’s the drugs of lack of them/withdrawal and what’s just you, although if you are having an absolute crisis you may need some kind of immediate treatment, I suppose it depends on how bad you are I guess. But anyway a lot of what you are feeling may just be anxiety and paranoia from withdrawing from it, some people go through it really bad, so there’s a good chance it will calm down significantly in the next month or two.

Take care and please keep us posted.

[nathan14]

anxiety relief

I have been experiencing a lot of anxiety since quitting marijuana and there is something that I think should be addressed with it. Anxiety, like smoking mairjuana can be addictive in itself. You are in a sense addicted to worrying which brings anxiety. Whether you are worried abouth how you are going to live your life without marijuana, if you are worried about relapsing, are any number of worries that could revolve around the drug these can become addictive worries that run your life. So just like you become addictive to the drug its almost as if anxiety can be replaced as an addiction after you stop the drug for a while. I have recognized that I have become addicted to worrying about everything in life, like it has to be done a certain way that it has actually made me become very counterproductive. Once you start analyzing your thoughts a little bit you will notice that you think about the same things repeatedly and if you can make the realization that you are constantly over worrying is when you can truely start to break free of it.

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

You are absolutely right an anxious way of thinking can become a habit and the parts of the brain like the Amygdala which are responsible for anxiety can get stuck in an anxious fight or flight anxiety like response and way of thinking. But it is something that we can control at least to a certain extent and we are able to help break what can sometimes become an obsessive like pattern of thinking. Some of it especially when drugs like marijuana are involved can be as a result of that, which if you abstain for long enough will pass, but yes the way you react to it in your way of thinking can make a huge difference, that’s why it’s so important to try to maintain that positive way of thinking or maintain that “skilful thought” and remember if you are experiencing anxiety a lot of the problem is probably just the results of the influence of drugs been involved, more than the actual issue that’s playing on your mind it’s self and is perfectly natural given the nature of the situation and will pass. So hang in there and try to take it all in your stride, I am sure if you maintain the right attitude and abstain for long enough you will feel better soon.

Take care and please keep us posted, I am sure you can do it!

[nathan14]

slightly discouraging

reading this article on addiction was slightly discouraging. it makes you feel like the road to rehabilitation will be a little more difficult than previously thought. i simply thought quitting marijuana would be a choice i make and then thats it. i will chose to smoke it or to not smoke it but here after reading this it almost frightens me that relapse it a definite possibility. http://www.spiritualriver.com/the-re...m-addiction-an d-alcoholism/

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Well whatever the habit is relapse will always be a definite possibility, but and especially with marijuana the extent to how difficult you will find it can vary significantly, some don’t really find it that difficult while others really struggle, the main thing to do is to always be mindful of your experience of this as an individual and realise that this may vary significantly to that of another. Yes you will need to be on guard against the possibility of a relapse that goes for whatever the habit is, but you can never know exactly how hard you are going to find it until you try, with any luck it may not be as difficult as you fear and even if it is that all important positive mental attitude is going to be more important than ever, so chin up and think strong, I am sure you can do it and remember you are not alone we will be with you every step of the way.

Take care and hang in there mate, I know you can do it!