All I want for christmas is to be clean from dope...

[Rudolph]

Hello to one and all.

Newbie to CannabisRehab.org and must comment on how supportive everyone appears to be. Having scoured the net for advice on quitting smoking dope/hash/weed/you name it, this seems to be by far the least judgemental site that I can find.

If I am trully honest, admitting my addiction to varying forms of MJ is not something that I am comfortable with. I work hard, have a professional career, 2 kids, wife, own house yada yada yada but still I come home and smoke till bed time. I do feel that my reliance has impacted on what I could have achieved and want to change this.

Both my wife and I smoke and have inbibed varying forms of social drugs over the years stemming from our rave days in the early 90's. We have both come to the realisation that although we have cut out all other forms of recreational drugs (alcohol doesn't count for us), we cannot continue to smoke hash. It has impaired our lives to the extent that we have alienated frends, lost jobs through anxiety/stress related illness and failed our kids in giving them as much of our time as we could/should although we do give them more than many others.

We have made decisions before to detox but always on the premise that we could simply reduce our intake but this has never worked. This time, we have resolved to detox full stop. This is day 3 (lame I know) and we are finding the whole thing quite hard at times even at this early stage. To give an example, last night was the first night in possibly 16 years when I have not drunk, smoked or taken anything to "improve" my mood. To this end, I found myself staring at the alarm clock at 5am this morning having still not experienced the blessed joy of sleep. I managed to grab around 30 mins lof sleep last night and this cannot continue.

We always project our weakness' on one and other when quitting by telling the other to get a smoke if it's that bad. In short, this is code for "i want a smoke but if I say it's to ease your pain, then it alright".......

Having read the supportive threads on here, I'm hoping that someone can relate and give some advice. I'm well and trully knackered and tonight can not be the same as last night.

Thanks in advance for any advice that can be given..

[Inpatient Outpatient]

Hey Rudolph

I am not an MJ addict but for the sleep problems. I would say to just except it. Try not to lay there and think about trying to sleep, or even trying to get to sleep by shutting your eyes for 3 hours and then realizing you have been doing just that for 3 hours.

Try and be productive if you cannot sleep. Maybe go on the couch and curl up into a nice warm blanket and watch a movie, or have a nice warm bath. Anything that satisfies you or even rewards you the slightest, or to the fullest.

I suffered from sleep problems because I am bi polar and when I couldn't sleep I would try for hours just to try and get a bit of sleep and it frustrated me because I wanted to, so much to sleep but couldn't, so the best you have to do is except it. Get up, make a smoothie for yourself, watch your favorite comedian that's on tv. Play a video game, if your into that. Anything to get your mind off wanting to sleep. Eventually, you will just find yourself tired as you will have forgotten all about wanting to sleep and you will go to bed, and when you feel tired, and your mind and body feel tired, they will all work together and eventually, you will be asleep. It might only be an hour, or two hours, but fighting with yourself to sleep is not the answer, and you can't let yourself raise your stress level.

Good Job on trying to quite by the way. It is a hard thing to admit, but it's the right thing to do, and we would all give you a high five on here if we could.

You will go through detox and it is pretty horrible but when things get horrible, think about why your quitting. Make a list or a poster with pictures, of maybe your kids, or your wife, or yourself, or you dog, anything that inspires you to quite and when you see it, helps you think about wanting to keep going, no matter how hard it gets.

I hope it helps a little bit. I hope you get what you want for Christmas. Have a happy new year and I wish the best of luck with you for the year 2010

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

Hi Rudolph and welcome to the forum.

I am glad you have found us and find us non judgemental we do try to keep it as supportive as possible, thanks for the compliment. I can identify with your situation, it will take you a little while to readjust and can mean a few sleepiness nights but it’s just something you have to go through I am afraid. I think most of us found that bit by bit it slowly took over our lives and became to some extent far too much of the focus of our existence, but it sounds like you have lots of other great things to live for and have now realised that they must come first. Well done on your decision to quit, you sound like you know what you want so I am sure you will succeed. Don’t forget to check out our how to detox smoking marijuana post for tips and advice. It may not be easy at times but whenever you are finding it tough please come and tell us about it, most people find it helps.

Thanks for posting, take care and please keep us posted on how it goes.

[Rudolph]

I am not an MJ addict but for the sleep problems. I would say to just except it. Try not to lay there and think about trying to sleep, or even trying to get to sleep by shutting your eyes for 3 hours and then realizing you have been doing just that for 3 hours.

Try and be productive if you cannot sleep. Maybe go on the couch and curl up into a nice warm blanket and watch a movie, or have a nice warm bath. Anything that satisfies you or even rewards you the slightest, or to the fullest.

I suffered from sleep problems because I am bi polar and when I couldn't sleep I would try for hours just to try and get a bit of sleep and it frustrated me because I wanted to, so much to sleep but couldn't, so the best you have to do is except it. Get up, make a smoothie for yourself, watch your favorite comedian that's on tv. Play a video game, if your into that. Anything to get your mind off wanting to sleep. Eventually, you will just find yourself tired as you will have forgotten all about wanting to sleep and you will go to bed, and when you feel tired, and your mind and body feel tired, they will all work together and eventually, you will be asleep. It might only be an hour, or two hours, but fighting with yourself to sleep is not the answer, and you can't let yourself raise your stress level.

Good Job on trying to quite by the way. It is a hard thing to admit, but it's the right thing to do, and we would all give you a high five on here if we could.

You will go through detox and it is pretty horrible but when things get horrible, think about why your quitting. Make a list or a poster with pictures, of maybe your kids, or your wife, or yourself, or you dog, anything that inspires you to quite and when you see it, helps you think about wanting to keep going, no matter how hard it gets.

I hope it helps a little bit. I hope you get what you want for Christmas. Have a happy new year and I wish the best of luck with you for the year 2010

Nakisai,

Thanks for the advice and the support offered. Good news is that the lack of sleep seemed to catch up last night and I slept like a baby. Hopefully tonight will bring the same...

The idea of mapping out exactly why we are making this decision is great. On balance, any rational minded soul would see that the decision os a no contest when considering the pro's and con's. There is simply no pro when I think this through now that the haze is clearing.

We both used to see the smoking of hash as a pro - enjoyable, social, little to no impact on others and safe. However, as I say, when the haze has cleared some I can only see one thing now....selfish behaviour.

I see that you are post 3 weeks clean now. Well done. That is inspirational to us considering we are now just on day 4.

Wishing you all the best for 2010 yourself

[Rudolph]

Hi Rudolph and welcome to the forum.

I am glad you have found us and find us non judgemental we do try to keep it as supportive as possible, thanks for the compliment. I can identify with your situation, it will take you a little while to readjust and can mean a few sleepiness nights but it’s just something you have to go through I am afraid. I think most of us found that bit by bit it slowly took over our lives and became to some extent far too much of the focus of our existence, but it sounds like you have lots of other great things to live for and have now realised that they must come first. Well done on your decision to quit, you sound like you know what you want so I am sure you will succeed. Don’t forget to check out our how to detox smoking marijuana post for tips and advice. It may not be easy at times but whenever you are finding it tough please come and tell us about it, most people find it helps.

Thanks for posting, take care and please keep us posted on how it goes.

Thanks for the kind words.

I've read through the how to detox post and there are some very valid points contained which will no doubt help.

May I ask how long you have been off the smoke now? You speak with considered wisdom that I find is usually attained through only time spent on a subject matter. What was your key driver in the decision to quit? I don't want to appear invasive but having said you can identify with our situation, I would assume it to be similar in position?

[Cannabis Rehab Admin]

It’s been over four years now since I quit. The main reasons I decided to detox was because of the effect it was having on my mental health, I can identify with the way it takes over your life and it having been years since you tried to get through a night without any artificial chemicals, which I would probably say goes for most of us here, although our exact situations can vary. If you want to read a summary of my story you can find it here.

Take care

[Inpatient Outpatient]

Nakisai,

Thanks for the advice and the support offered. Good news is that the lack of sleep seemed to catch up last night and I slept like a baby. Hopefully tonight will bring the same...

The idea of mapping out exactly why we are making this decision is great. On balance, any rational minded soul would see that the decision os a no contest when considering the pro's and con's. There is simply no pro when I think this through now that the haze is clearing.

We both used to see the smoking of hash as a pro - enjoyable, social, little to no impact on others and safe. However, as I say, when the haze has cleared some I can only see one thing now....selfish behaviour.

I see that you are post 3 weeks clean now. Well done. That is inspirational to us considering we are now just on day 4.

Wishing you all the best for 2010 yourself

Well I was never addicted to the weed. That's one thing. I can go off and on it when ever and how ever I please. I can smoke every day for two years and bam, just go off it like that with no problem, but I stopped because It destroyed my boyfriend and our relationship.

Like you said, all it brings out is selfish behavior and you are 100% right. I never saw it that way. I am glad you are deciding to get rid of that pot and hash in your life. CannabisRehab.org will really help you.

It has helped me because it helps to let me know that there are still people in the world that want to quite pot, and don't see it as the greatest gift from God. You know, the people I used to hang out with where pot worshipers. Kinda like a cannabis clan. All they did was talk about pot, smoke pot, plan hang outs that had pot involved with it.

I think my boyfriend first started getting involved with the grow up (his dad owned) when his good friend Jubby became involved in a grow op as well. When Jubby worked at his grow op, all my boyfriend would talk about was how jealous he was of him that his friend had a great job, and got to work with the drug all day, and get payed free the drug plus money. So when my boyfriend started getting involved with his dads pot business he was all excited and happy at first. He loved it. He also talked about wanting to start his own pot business. It was just a mess.

Pot clouds your world. I agree with you on that. You don't know what is good and bad in your life. All you know is the pot, and when that haze starts to go away, your like, oh my gosh, how did I not see this before.

I went through that when I quite and I saw my boyfriend for what he really was. It was sad, hard, and made me want to kill myself, but I am learning to except it and move on because 99.9% chance he will not change.

So great job, and I am glad you slept like a baby. Bottom line buddy, is that is can only get easier, and it can only get better. If you go back on the pot, it can only get worse, if you stay off the pot, it can only get better.

Good job, and good luck buddy