Announcement

**ajh151h** · 04-07-2010, 03:34 AM

This depends on a lot of factors, but mostly on the nature of your psychology. The more you work at it, the sooner you will have a full recovery: if you exercise and avoid drinking alcohol or caffeine you will be able to recover much faster. Personally I cannot understate the effect that cutting coffee out of my diet had on my withdrawal; if you are drinking coffee, STOP.

There is a theory widely accepted by psychologists that your brain's thought processes have gone askew when you suffer from something like depression, and although this is perhaps a simplification this theory seems to basically be true. If your depression is caused totally by the drug you will probably be feeling fine fairly soon, and if not there is a chance you are in for a longer haul. It sounds like you are the type of person that is only suffering because of the drug because you understand that eventually you will get better.

As a side note, what I mentioned about alcohol is only true if you drink enough to become drunk. This amount depends on your body weight, I have a fairly large build and for me this is about three or four drinks. Drinking one or two beers every so often should not harm you, and I found that this actually helped as it allowed me to relax. A psychologist told me that drinking more than this floods the brain with alcohol to the point that it will greatly impede progress, and I definitely experienced this.

Also on the alcohol topic, a close friend of mine quit smoking and continued to drink about the same amount that he did before, even perhaps less than he did while he was smoking, and he told me yesterday that since he quit smoking he has developed cravings for alcohol. He has been drinking a very unhealthy amount for awhile, but I am guessing alcoholism was stemmed off by his pot addiction. It has been about ten months since he quit smoking, and I am guessing that these signs of alcoholism only started to appear in the last few months.

So it is important to watch out for the signs of another addiction building in you while you are getting off of weed. It is very logical that someone who is psychologically dependent on a substance like the drug would more easily become addicted to something else while they are going through withdrawal. An addiction to alcohol would be a hell of a lot worse, in my opinion, than one to weed, so be aware.

Good luck and take care.

**Cannabis Rehab Guest** · 04-07-2010, 07:22 AM

be brave

I feel for you and what you are going through and 6 weeks with out any the drug is awesome, well done. BUT.. here's the thing about weed, if its in your mind even a little bit then you are never going to be free of it. If you are counting the days then its in your mind, and my opinion is that you only recover when its simply not an issue anymore, when its gone from your head. "I know that i could enjoy a lot of things right away if i would just light up a joint." Ask yourself and i mean really really ask.. what would be different about anything apart from you being stoned? Nothing would, its the same. And truth be told you are here because you know that you must stop. You must find a way to deal with the subconscious need for it, its the reason you cant get away. You got to lose the interest, lose the need. Wondering when it will go away by itself wont help you, in fact it only makes things worse, because it won't go away. It wont go away by itself you must find a way to change your mind. You have a conflict with yourself and need to understand it. Like someone else said on here if you are lazy then simply giving up pot will not make you into a workaholic. If you are already depressed then just not smoking wont solve that problem by itself either, if you are socially isolated because of being a stoned all the time then just not smoking wont make you into Mr popular after a few weeks .. i am sorry to say it like that. You got to find a way to move forward from where you are, and its really not easy. I know. But its the only way out. You must take action if you don't then the drug will win and you will be back to where you started, I know because it took me a good few tries before I truly realised this fact. Only one person can do this - you.
Force yourself to get out and do something, anything. Start small and build it up, eg walking in the mornings first thing, start at gym, join a sport club, there's a million things you can do other than be stoned. What did you used to enjoy? Be brave and put yourself out there, try new things and don't be afraid to mess up, go easy on yourself and take it one day at a time - I already know you are very brave cos 6weeks of fighting against that urge inside you to smoke is really unbelievably tough. There is a whole world out there, just let it in bit by bit and things will start to change for you.
You didn't always need to get stoned to enjoy life did you? Free your mind and your ass will follow!

**FIN_no_more** · 04-07-2010, 05:15 PM

thanks for answering i really got some good points out there like that i need to stop thinking when it is going to be gone. I realized that actually when im thinking the days im thinking the drug also.

The biggest problem is that i think my brain is totally f***d up right now, sorry for the language but thats the only way i can describe my feelings about it. Well you mentioned caffeine and i've seen you mentioning nicotine also in some of your other responses. Could you possibly tell me more about how nicotine affects when i'm going through withdrawals. I want to know more about it because im also smoking cigs (4-16 a day). I have pointed out that every time I smoke a cigarette i get more depressed and feel even more down, like it make my cravings even worse.

Also i would like to know that why is that my depression and bad mood gets worse after every hour i have been awake. What i mean is that my feelings and mood are at the worst in the evening and at night.

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-07-2010, 05:20 PM

Hi FIN no more and welcome to the forum.

That’s a tough question to answer as I think it can be different for everybody, different people do seem to have fairly different experiences, you can read more about the experiences different people have had on the following threads.

http://www.forummatters.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=1507

http://www.forummatters.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269

It sounds like you are experiencing things that are fairly typical, hang in there they should pass sooner or later, I suppose the other element to this issue is whether you are talking about a full %100 rehabilitation or if you are talking about been more or less back to normal, perhaps there is a bit of subjective difference in what people consider “recovery” to be. I know with conquering any addictive behaviour many people are always a bit different to how they would have been had they not done it in the first place, many recovering addicts often feel some kind of vulnerability when it comes to the use of that particular vice, which is perhaps why some people always consider them self to be addicts even if they are not using, but anyway without digressing too much into that kind of thing, it does seem to be that different people can experience a very different time frame before they get to the point that they consider they have recovered.

Thanks for the kind words about the forum, it truly is appreciated, thanks for posting, take care and please keep us posted.

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-07-2010, 05:33 PM

Yeah like you say it’s best not to try to think about how much work you may have to accomplish, I think the just take it one day at a time type of advice is definitely the way to see it.

The nicotine addiction issue can complicate this particular issue even further if you mix your joints with tobacco and or are trying to quite tobacco at the same time, you don’t know which are the effects of what, people report significant withdrawals from both, although tobacco is probably worse from the physical side of things, this is why some people like to separate the two and quit one at a time, although many especially if they don’t want to be smoking anything like to give both the elbow at the same time, if you are trying to detox both at the same time then you probably do face a pretty big challenge, you may want to consider some kind if nicotine replacement therapy like gum or patches, ect.

Take care

**abiogenesis** · 04-10-2010, 07:30 PM

Hi Fin no More,

I'm also in my 6th week and i'm sharing most of the feelings that you have now. Especially, i'm also feeling like if i will ever be able to feel normal again and enjoy the life like i used to before i was smoking (but people say that all these feelings are also the part of the period of recovery). In my first attempt to quit, i was clean for 8 weeks and observed that the anxiety level had been really reduced a lot at the end of the two months.

Now, i'm using some medication called inderal for anxiety and it really helps me. Actually it's not a psychic medication, it is mainly used to prevent the physical symptoms of anxiety by reducing the amount of adrenalin produced by your body but definitely it also gives a calm feeling to the mind. It had some sideeffects in the first week but they are fairly gone now and although i'm also not really hapy, at least not feeling anxious is a quite good thing.

Also now, i realize that, the cravings are mostly related to being unclear about quitting pot. What i mean is, now, i'm really clear that i want to leave "the stoned period of my life" behind and i haven't had any cravings after the first few weeks.

I was also very impatient about the rehabilitation and that was the reason that i had relapsed after 8 weeks. But, now i realize that the main problem is not to recover from weed, it's the neurological pathways that we should built again which were paralyzed during all this long time that we were stoned. We were enjoying life because it was coded in our brains but the drug replaced all these things and coded our brains in a different way. the drug may be decoded biochemically, lets say after two months, but building the new structure will probably take longer.

I'm trying to be hopefull because, when i read the scientific literature, i'm pretty convinced that the drug does not cause permanent damage in the brain and if i was able to enjoy the life with my brain before weed, i believe i will also be able to do it after weed.

Take care,

**FIN_no_more** · 04-10-2010, 09:40 PM

Thanks for the support i really appreciated it. Its nice to hear that somebody is in the same progress as i am and feeling the same withdrawals as i am. It gets me the feeling that my feelings are something that i can now relate to.

So i stopped the cigs also because of what Cannabis Rehab Admin replied about mixing the drug and tobacco. I realized that im way more depressed and anxious the more i smoke tobacco. I think it gets me the same feeling as i was smoking a joint, though only in a minor mode. It's really weird that im not feeling any withdrawals from stopping smoking cigs. Im actually feeling much more better. Anyhow Im still feeling depressed and anxious though.

The worst thing right now is that i think my really good friends that i think as my good friends are pot smokers. I mean we have known each other for my whole life (im 20 years old i guess i havent told that before on here), but i cannot hang out with them. They are smoking the drug and i dont want to hang out with people that are smoking weed. Its their way to hang out, smoke weed. Its a crucial dilemma, they are my best friends but i cannot hang out with them. Ive told them about my problems with the drug but they dont take it seriously and says that im taking this smoking thing too seriously, "its not an addiction" they say. Ive tried to explain how it affects my life and how it really is addiction, but somehow they are ignoring it totally. I would like to get them out also from smoking daily.

As im depressed it feels like too much for a work to build up a really good friendship right now. Yes i have friends actually a lots and lots of friends but now i think its turning against me. it gets me more depressed to think that i have lot of friends but only few really good friends. Ive always known how to get along with people but actually that skill is lost somewhere in this journey of quitting weed. It's hard for me to be concentrated in a discussion and be social in it. Its like i dont come up with anything to say to. I think that already is wrong because why would i need to come up with anything to say to? it should come naturally but it doesnt. Thats why i dont even feel like making a really good new friendships at the moment, right now i think im socially wounded and i hate it that way.

Alright i guess that is it for now, i will keep you guys posted as my journey of quitting the drug goes on.

**abiogenesis** · 04-11-2010, 06:49 AM

"It's hard for me to be concentrated in a discussion and be social in it. Its like i dont come up with anything to say to. I think that already is wrong because why would i need to come up with anything to say to? it should come naturally but it doesnt."

i felt like i'm reading my own post when i read these sentences. Hang on mate; if two completely different people from completely different parts of the earth are feeling completely in the same way, it's not because who we are but it's the disease that took over us and we should beat it.

let's really update each other.

greetings,

**FIN_no_more** · 04-19-2010, 12:22 PM

Update and two important questions!

so my two month day is comin up its the 23rd of this month. Im feeling much more better right now. Last thursday I left for a skiing trip and it helped my mood alot, I got back about a hour ago but i felt right away that i needed to post my feelings in here.

Different place and different people around me made me feel little bit better. I can see clear difference between what i was before my trip and after the trip. Im heading to the right direction. Im still having problems with the sleeping. I realized that even when i do sports the whole day i cant get sleep that well. 4 hours of sleep every night makes this much more harder than what this could be. I feel dizzy and tired all day along.

There is couple of questions i wanted to ask, and im directly asking a response from ajh151h and Rehab Admin because i think that you two are always answering with your own thoughts that usually have some really good facts or rationally made thinking process (but all of you that are reading this and feel like answering, please answer, every answer is granted).

So my first question is: why do i start feeling really uncomfortable when I'm having an eye contact for longer than maybe 3-6 seconds? Sometimes it doesnt occur but most of the time it does. Its really irritating because it makes social intercommunication really hard because i cant stay focused anymore of what the other person is saying. The other problem is that when i start to feel uncomfortable my face starts to get blushing and that makes it even more uncomfortable. Thats why im avoiding an eye contact. I didnt use to have this before i started smoking. It started to occur more and more as the time of my smoking went on and on.

The second question that i wanted to ask is: Im feeling really paranoid around people, as with the eye contact thing this also started to occur more and more as the time of my smoking went on and on. I mean im constantly thinking that im watched and that my every move is judged and looked. So pretty much around people im constantly feeling paranoid. Sometimes I even get paranoid for just having a conversation in relay chat. But the times im not around anybody or somehow socially involved i actually dont feel any paranoia. But all the times im around with people the paranoia takes over.

Im a person that is naturally social and never shy around people. Your answers are needed badly, i really need help.

**FIN_no_more** · 04-19-2010, 12:40 PM

To BFB

could you change the title of this thread to something like: My thread of quitting pot (or something similar), I think it would be easier to use the thread that i already started as a thread for myself where i update my journey of quitting pot. The reason for changing the name of thread is that i dont think this thread is anymore about "How long does it get to fully recover" and it would be nice for me to have a thread where i have all of my personal thought process. For me it makes this updating more logical as all the information for my own feelings about my own journey are on the same thread. I would really appreciate if you could do this.

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-19-2010, 01:55 PM

Hi Fin no more,

I don’t know if you have read in my previous posts that I suffer from exactly what you are describing, I believe it is referred to as social phobia and I first noticed it when the drug was really starting to screw with my head, so while I can’t say for certain that it was definitely the drug and while people who don’t smoke the drug can suffer from it too, I think in my case it had a significant influence, social phobia is another phobia type anxiety disorder and we all know what the drug can be like for causing or triggering anxiety. While I can identify with exactly what you are experiencing far more than most, as far as knowing the solution I am afraid I am not in much of a position to advise as I still suffer from it pretty badly to this day, I have got a bit better, when I was at my worst I would not even open my door or even answer my phone, but unfortunately it’s one of the lasting mental scars that I have been left with which I believe is at least to some extent related to my the drug use. Although I am perhaps not totally ignorant of the kind of approach I probably ought to be taking, like for many people putting it into place is another matter, it is something that I still really struggle with. In your case it may well pass completely, if it doesn’t then both you and me are probably in need of some sort of cognitive behavioural therapy, although I have had it for other things like my OCD and to be honest I never found that a six week NHS course did me that much good, but I know some people do respond better than others. Personally I find studying things like Buddhism has done me more good than anything the NHS has ever been able to offer when it comes to dealing with the mental health problems I have experienced, even so no matter how Zen I try to be about it this is still one area in which I am still not too good, although I try not to worry about it too much, maybe this is the right approach I don’t know, I too would be interested in what ajh151h thinks, he will probably be in a much better position to advise on this.

I have renamed the thread for you.

Take care

**ajh151h** · 04-23-2010, 01:05 AM

This is a really complicated issue and I think it is the thing that people who are addicted to marijuana worry about the most if they suffer from it. I know that I was at a point where I didn't give a damn about any physical or short term psychological symptoms, all that mattered to me was being able to have regular social relationships, whether that meant being able to do this ten months or ten years from the time I stopped smoking. Much like you I was afraid to answer the phone, go outside, talk to anyone at all, and so on.

It is really a very painful thing to go through and it seems to have a lot of causes that are difficult to alleviate. On one hand you are suffering from an array of psychological symptoms like anxiety and depression, and on the other hand these symptoms do seem very much justified, as you are very lonely and can't gain the comfort of regular human communication. The anxiety and depression make the social problem worse, and the social problem makes the anxiety and depression worse. I don't think that it is this simple, but I do know that if you are going through a moment where you have high anxiety levels or high depression levels there is absolutely no chance of getting over this problem, and that alleviating these symptoms are important to do while you are recovering.

There isn't really a quick solution to this, as I think it is just a result of horrible mental habits that stem from smoking, habits that are very difficult to get out of. Or, perhaps it is a lack of mental habits. Once I quit smoking, I had basically forgotten what it was like to live in society. There are a lot of mental habits that people who haven't suffered from an addiction develop over time, which allow them to relax. They organize their thoughts so that they have a response to any social situation.

All of the ideas I had developed about people in the period that I was smoking were totally destructive, as I looked at people as either people who could supply me with the drug, or people that could endanger my smoking, or people that I was afraid of because I knew something was wrong with me. I had smoked for so long that these types of ideas were deeply buried in my consciousness.

For me it became a very, very big deal, to the point where it was a complete obsession, and it was all that I thought about for a very, very long time. This is the major error you will begin to make. If you continue to obsess about it, you will probably (this is my experience) withdraw more and more until you are even more isolated than you ever imagined you could be while you were smoking. Your anxiety will get worse the more you think about it, and depression will naturally come, as you will get lonelier and lonelier.

I think that in a nutshell this obsession just came down to a bunch of theories about how I could suddenly start moving about in society normally if I could only remember one key thing that I used to know, which I had forgotten.
I was constantly romanticizing about two things while I was going through this. The first was how I used to be socially dominant before I began smoking, and the second was how all of life's problems would suddenly vanish if I could somehow conquer this problem.

Eventually I realized that I had to accept that neither of these things are true. Yes, I might have been above average at socializing before, but this is not something that comes completely naturally to anyone. Socializing is a constant occupation that everyone is constantly thinking about. Before, I was just in the habit of doing it correctly, and it took years of trial and error to be able to do it correctly. When I was a child and I didn't know how to act everyone would laugh, but when I was older it became a much more serious thing. Everything depended on my ability to talk to people including work, sex, friends, etc.

I also had this idea that there was something wrong with my personality that people thought was strange, and that if I could just develop one personality I would be universally accepted. This is not remotely true. Social relationships are very creative and intuitive things: one person has one idea of what the relationship is, the other person has another idea, and in reality neither of you really understand what is going on. The relationship goes back and forth like this. Even when you are around your closest family members, your social relationships take on patterns that you follow; you act a certain way around certain people and a different way around other people.

It is a difficult thing to relearn, but relearn it you must. You will be very surprised at how easy it is once you get started and relax a little bit. The one thing that I realized I had to detox doing was thinking about how I used to act. Trying to figure that out and trying to emulate it was very destructive, as I had changed completely as a person. I had an entirely different perspective when I stopped smoking than before I began smoking.

Like I always recommend, do whatever you can do to keep your anxiety down. The worse your anxiety is, the harder it is to see things as they are. It is not very difficult to overcome anxiety for a short time when you are alone, but in this state you will not be observing people in a social sense. I would have moments (and I still have these moments) where I would zone out and totally stop thinking about any of my problems, but I am not sure if this helped me combat my problems.

The biggest thing is, DON'T TRY TOO HARD. It will come naturally, but it will come SLOWLY, in steps. Try NOT TO CARE. This is the biggest piece of advice I can give you. When you are coming out of an addiction like this, your motivations for socializing are completely different than virtually everyone you talk to. You kind of end up seeing a certain side of people that you normally wouldn't see, which makes you able to figure out certain things about people that you wouldn't normally figure out. At the same time you don't see things the way others do.

When I was seeing things this way I would look around and think ok, everyone is doing x. That wasn't what they were thinking they were doing, and if I tried to imitate this behavior I wouldn't be able to do it. People change their social actions very fluidly, very rarely even consciously thinking about any changes they are making.

I guess that this is the big problem, that is, that you have lost your fluidity. Although you are still in the same body and maybe have the same long term goals that you used to have, and are just as capable as you have ever been, you have kind of been separated from a rational means of achieving anything. Most people don't have more than one goal that they are trying to achieve at any given moment. You are probably thinking about all of your goals at once, and thus you are overloaded with anxiety and paranoia.

A great way to phrase this condition, one that Dostoevsky uses in his novel "notes from underground" is that you are suffering from overly acute consciousness. You are picking up on all kinds of things that other people aren't picking up on, but it is rendering you unable to communicate or do anything with other people. You are on an entirely different wave length. The things you worry about are not the same things that other people worry about.

Try to pick up on other people's wavelengths and let them lead relationships (this applies to anything, even buying things at the grocery store) as best as you can. Try to be whoever you think they want you be, try to say whatever you think fits in the conversation. If you can get into the habit of doing this, you will slowly come down out of your head (although maybe you will be getting more into your head I can't decide which this is).

I know there are a lot of thoughts here, and this is because I don't really have any concise answers for you. Hopefully you can try to understand some of these things and maybe they will help you. I know that I have not totally recovered from this aspect, but I am getting very close to the point where I don't even think about it anymore.

In response to your Buddhism solution I would say that this would probably be very beneficial to continue doing, and the more correctly you are able to follow buddhist practices the better off you will be. If you can I think that going to live at an Ashram for a little while where you can cultivate a sense of discipline and peace would be very, very helpful. I know that I couldn't do anything until I had sorted through my thoughts, which was very difficult to do while trying to deal with immediate things affecting my life.

After rereading this post I realize that it is not very well done. Unlike anything else that I have written on CannabisRehab.org it was a stream of consciousness. I have a massive amount of work on my hands right now and I will try to post a better answer in the future. This won't happen sooner than tuesday although it probably won't happen until about a week from now, because that's when my exams end. This is the most difficult question I could possibly try to answer, but I really do hope to give good advice because I think I have a lot of perspective on this issue as it dominated my entire mind for about two and a half years (it started well before I stopped smoking).

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-23-2010, 08:51 PM

It seems we have all been struggling with this together, it does seem to be something that spending a long time smoking the drug can leave you pretty vulnerable to, I am not saying that I never experienced any difficulty socially before of course I did who hasn’t at least to some extent at some point in their life, like you say it’s something we all learn though trial and error, even before the drug I could sort of swing a bit between being pretty dam good to being fairly bad depending on who I was mixing with, then again that also probably goes for most people as well at least to some extent, perhaps that’s what we call whether we “get on” or not. Overly acute consciousness, yes I think that hits the nail on the head and again something that I probably struggled with a fair bit even before I smoked weed, I think that probably applies to most people who suffer from ocd, I think it’s kind of part of the condition, again it’s probably something that everybody experiences to some extent at least at some point in your life, but I think there are some people who are much more vulnerable in this area than others and I think I was definitely one of those people, like I say I experienced anxiety (maybe even a bit of social phobia), ocd, depression and an overly acute consciousness before I smoked weed, but smoking the drug heavily for around 6 years just made them all ten times worse, this is the thing with the drug if you have any vulnerabilities in any of these areas if you do enough the drug for long enough it can really magnify them, like I say I think it’s a significant influence, I think it can make all these things a lot worse, I am sure there are a lot of the drug smokers who can identify with these things.

Perhaps there is no easy answer to it, once you have found yourself in this situation, unlearning things can be pretty difficult, but perhaps the best way is to stop fighting it and engage with it as little as possible, I too try to be at peace with it and accept it as much as possible. Who is to say whether this is right or wrong, but it is just the way of coping I think works best for me.

That was still a pretty good post ajh151h even if it was just a stream of consciousness, they are still very good points, thanks for taking the time to write that even though you are extremely busy.

Take care folks

**ajh151h** · 04-27-2010, 02:42 AM

I can't give the same type of advice on this as I could on the general detox symptoms. While the general detox symptoms have more clear cut solutions that are important to actively understand for a good recovery, the social anxiety problem is almost the exact opposite. It is best not to try and understand it completely, and let it resolve itself as intuitively as possible. Although it is originally caused by a chemical problem the thought process that it involves can linger on. This thought process is very much tied into, and is perhaps greatly exacerbated, by over analysis. Trying to analyze it is usually a mistake.

However, I do have thoughts about it, and hopefully they can help you.

I think it is important to look at it from the perspective that it is not one isolated problem, but that it is involved in many aspects of your thought process. Social anxiety in my case seemed like a manifestation of a broad problem that was absorbing my life. The way I analyzed things was very skewed while I was smoking and when I stopped it continued on. The terms "over-analytical" and "introspective" really wouldn't do it justice.

For example, where I used to label people and deal with them accordingly, I no longer could. This made it difficult to communicate, as I couldn't be sure who I was communicating with. I was so introspective that I was trying to find out what was going on in other people's minds while I was talking to them. The marijuana addiction really took me for a massive spin. I had become very isolated, I couldn't think straight about my situation, I was suffering from paranoia, etc. etc.

The best thing to do about the symptom itself, in my opinion, is to try to avoid thinking about it entirely.This probably seems impossible, which it might be in the short term. But, if you get into the habit of thinking about it, it will make it worse. Don't think thoughts like, "this is never going to go away." There is no way for you to know this, and chances are this is wrong.

Focus on the here and now. When moments of anxiety come up don't try to fix it, just let it come, work itself out, and pass. For me this happened over and over again and finally it became rarer and rarer and less and less extreme. Eventually I got into the habit of not worrying about it at all, and the problem just slowly went away. For a long time I feared the symptom itself, which I think made it more prevalent in my life than it actually was.

It isn't something that gets "fixed" over night, but hopefully it isn't something that will stick around forever. I think that a very high number of people in western society have serious problems like this, many more than I would have ever realized before I entered that state of existence. For most of these people it seems to be an unconscious way of thinking, although I am sure they are aware of it in a long view, if that makes sense. For these people this way of thinking is more or less natural. For you, it isn't, and if you let your brain do its magic it will eventually correct itself. The human brain is an unbelievably powerful instrument. This is something that I will never lose faith in for as long as I live.

I think that a big part of marijuana addiction is that introspective thinking makes you conscious of these problems, and you grow increasingly worried about it. I am certain that social anxiety exists to some extent in everyone's thought process; if it didn't people would not behave even close to the way they do. From the moment you begin socializing, it becomes a factor. I think when people are high on marijuana their social anxiety lifts almost completely, and that a major part of the detox (if not the entire thing) is once again getting used to experiencing the thoughts that cause social anxiety and learning how to deal with them. I tried to find quick solutions to it, where I would ask, "what is everyone else doing that I'm not?" but ultimately I realized that most people are just more used to these feelings than I was, and know how to act so that it is less of a problem.

Look around a lot and see how other people are acting. You will notice that they are not much further off than you, and that they barely even notice the way that you act. They are worried about the way that they appear, and if they don't know you at all, however you present yourself is who they think you are. Try to form an identity that you are comfortable with in awkward social situations, one that is unassuming. Don' feel any pressure to talk if there is nothing on your mind. Try to develop instinct where you intuitively say the right things and act the correct way.

I think that working helps a very substantial amount, more than anything else. This is especially true if you work with other people, as social precautions usually give way to practicality in these situations. It is very good to get caught off guard like this. When you are an isolated marijuana addict you simply lose sight of your instinct to communicate with people. However the instinct is still within you, and in moments when you are not concentrating you will find it comes out.

The best thing that you could possibly do is get extremely focused on something else for an extended period of time. By this I mean well over a week, the longer the better. Have something time consuming on your mind. It is very good, for example, if you are thinking about some other activity while you are trying to go to sleep at night rather than worrying about the same old social anxiety dilemma.

I have found that people won't quickly change their behavior or mental habits that are very embedded unless they are forced to. They might slowly change over time, but not as quickly as one might like. If you were to put yourself in a situation, for example, in the Peace Corps, this problem would almost certainly become a thing of the past by the time you were finished. You would be so preoccupied by a pressing situation that your old anxieties would become unimportant and forgotten.

Like the original poster said, activities like skiing help alleviate it. For me, I needed something more serious and long term, which is what led me to the serious study that I am doing now. I know that if you seriously devote yourself to something you will get much better very quickly, as it becomes just one more obstacle in the way of a more important goal. Making a habit of some kind of sport is a very, very good idea, as it is an activity where you lose yourself, with another person or group of people, while getting exercise. I have been learning how to play tennis and I have to say it has helped phenomenally.

Based on what I've heard about behavioral cognitive therapy it also seems like it may be a solution. The thing about psychiatric therapy is that it really requires some very serious effort on the behalf of the patient or it won't work. It's not as simple as going to the doctor and getting a prescription and having the problem melt away: you have to confront the problem and learn how to deal with it as best as you possibly can. The more effort you put into it, they better your results will be. If you put a great deal of energy and serious thought into it, you could very well be cured just from this.

I can't really say how much you are suffering from this problem, but I had it very badly and these are the sort of the ideas that I have after I beat it. I know that there are people who suffer very, very badly from social anxiety disorder their entire lives, and that they frequently manage to find treatments that work.

OK I might have repeated myself a few times but hopefully you can sort of get the general idea of what my experience with it was. Keep in mind that I had a very extreme problem, as I was grieving for a dead relative, getting over a bad mushroom trip, graduating from high school, and doing this all at the same time. For the original poster, it sounds like you will be totally fine, as it has already been a month and you are able to organize your thoughts and write on this board. I wouldn't have been capable of that after my first month.

Announcement

If you feel a post is inappropriate

My thread of quitting pot

My thread of quitting pot

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment