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**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-23-2010, 10:25 PM

Hi AudacityofHope and welcome to the forum.

It’s hard to say whether you will be able to cut back to just smoking now and again or however much you feel is acceptable, perhaps it depends on how hooked you are, many people who are really hooked on things whatever it is do find that it’s a bit of a all or nothing type thing. I suppose it depends on what kind of a user you are. The best option probably is to detox altogether, that would probably be my advise as I have experienced just how negative an effect it can have when you do it for a number of years and let it snowball out of control, but in order to do that you have really got to want to do it, which at this point I am not sure if it sounds like you are, at the end of the day you have got to be ready, so if you do not feel you are ready yet you can try your half way house option and see how it goes, you will soon find out how possible you find this is one way or the other. Anyway whatever your goal whether it is to detox completely or just cut back we will try to help in any way we can.

Take care, thanks for posting and please keep us posted on how it goes. Good luck!

**AudacityofHope** · 04-24-2010, 05:05 AM

Thank you for the advice.

I don't think I am hooked on marijuana where I need it by any means necessary, I have shown the ability to stop smoking before, but I feel in my lifetime of smoking which is 5 years, I've only quit for two weeks straight, and that was the necessity to get a job. I want to stretch my periods of going without weed, and then show the strength to not smoke for days for a period after I do decide to use again. I will def. consider quiting altogether if this half-way house approach doesn't work,

Thank you for the input and will keep you and everyone else posted as well how well I do, if i do relapse before my June 15th date, the reasons why, and how do I feel after.

**abiogenesis** · 04-24-2010, 07:53 PM

Hi AudacityofHope,

I'm actively trying to detox the drug since one year and my knowledge of the addiction built up gradually in this period. Especially when i read on scientific literature about addiction, i became very clear about one point. People are not being affected in the same way from the drugs and although many people can smoke the drug without becoming addicted, around 10 percent of them can be. And when you become an addict, it means that your brain rewired buy long term abuse of this substance and sadly your brain has a chronical relapsing disorder for rest of your life characterized by "compulsive drug seek and use". This definiton of neurological disease is independent of the substance we use; all of them affect the same part of the brain.

I was in a clinical treatment for four weeks and there were really some experts on addiction whom really reassured me very clearly about the things i read. Some people are very addicted (like me) that I go to my old level of smoking (i was also smoking all day like you) immediately after the first joint, where it can take longer for others. But one thing sure is, if your brain became addicted, you will cary this addiction (the neurological disease) for all your life and when you smoke, your disease will be triggered and the disease will be in control; not you.

Of course everyone has its own opinion about addiction and i don't want to discourage you about "being able smoke in a controlled way" but i couldn't keep myself away from writing of my experince, knowledge and the things that i learned from professionals.

By the way, it's my 8th week of being clean and I feel like i am at the point that i started to built up my new life free of weed. I still see that there is a long way ahead of me, but keeping my hope, and being more patient and especially trying to work on my social phobia which is the biggest scar left to me by my addiction.

Greetings to all,

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-24-2010, 10:49 PM

Thanks for that contribution abiogenesis that was a great post, like you say not everybody gets totally and utterly hooked, but if you do it will change your brain and you will always have a weakness in that respect for the rest of your life and that’s why with proper addicts it does seem to be an all or nothing type scenario, although I suspect that maybe like with many things it’s something that different people will experience to different extents and the more you do it the more you will make yourself this way, so like I say I think the best thing is to stop now, if it looks like you are going that way why risk it snowballing any further. But yeah if you are a full blown addict like many of us here are the halfway house approach in the long term is probably not an option. I am sure the professionals who see it every day speak from experience and I am sure they know what they are talking about. Anyway thanks again for a great post.

Take care

**Cannabis Rehab Guest** · 06-16-2012, 01:53 AM

hiya!

Originally posted by AudacityofHope View Post

Hey everyone, I recently just turned 22 a week ago today and I've been trying to quit/cut down dramatically, marijuana for two years now. I've been smoking since I was 17 years old, which makes me five years with smoking marijuana, even though this seems very short in time, early on I would smoke no less than five blunts a day, I was really addicted then and now looking back I guess I used it to pass time because our town is so boring. I don't want to bore you guys with my story but I basically went through my last year of high school smoking excessively and my first two years of college smoking excessively, I cut down after sophmore year of college but my definition of cut down is totally different from someone else's definition, because I literally smoked all day if I could.

Now I sit here my senior year of college(I graduate at the end of the year), I know what I want to do with my life and that's music, and since everytime I smoke weed nowadays I become so lazy to the point where I won't work on the very thing that brings me joy, this is why I'm trying to quit for a while. In me I'm telling myself that I will smoke but I want to do it when I have something to celebrate, like going 2 months without smoking and within those two months I've made major strides with my music!!

My ultimate goal is to DRAMATICALLY cut down my marijuana intake.(Honestly at this time in life I can't see myself quitting marijuana forever, as I would like to smoke but only on occassion and only after I've taken some sober time to myself and accomplished some of my goals).

At this juncture in my life I have no real friends, because all of my friends are people who smoke everyday and I just can't be around them, I haven't had a real girlfriend since I was 17 (the same time I started). I just want to regain my life, I have a question for any one who can help me.... Do you feel as though my ambition to cut down but smoke every once in a while is a smart thing to do? I know I'm gonna have to show real discipline not to slip back into smoking everyday when I do smoke again. I'm just at a very confused time in my life and I need help. I've read alot of comments in this rehab group and see so many people trying to regain their life as well and this gives me confidence.

I stopped smoking on 4/20 and hope to not smoke until June 15th.

welp coincidentally it is june 15 and i am reading this ...and i just recently smoked.... did ja break down?