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So I was a daily heavy smoker for over 10 yrs. I didn't realize how much it was affecting my life until recently. On 4/20 of this year I smoked what they call a "caviar" joint that is a lot stronger than a traditional one. All was fine but then I realized my heart was beating abnormally fast and completely out of rhythm. I feared the worst and informed my room mates that I believed I was having a heart attack because I truly did. Little did I know I was actually experiencing a panic attack. I believed it was a heart attack so much that I took a very expensive ambulance ride to the hospital.
All was fine. They did an EKG and took chest xrays and said nothing was out of the ordinary. I was so relieved that my heart was ok. But my mental health was far from that and I slowly started to realize it. So the next few days I decided not to smoke at all in fear of it happening again. I was fine, and then the cravings came and at this point I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to completely quit or not. So I decided to have a puff. One puff off of a small pipe. I felt it immediately and thought well we will see what happens. I laid down and tried to relax, but that's when it all went bad. I had another panic attack, this one being a little different than the first.
I learned breathing techniques from one of the nurses at the hospital to slow your heart rate, so I was doing that as much as possible but I wasn't really feeling my heart. My arms and hands seized up to the point that my hands and fingers were bent into a shape I can not mimic normally and I could not move them. I picked up my arms and they stayed in that position which freaked me out more. I was new to the whole panic attack thing. I just laid there and breathed in my nose and out of my mouth slowly and it went away about 30 minutes later. I was absolutely terrified.
After that, I knew for a fact that i could no longer smoke weed. I gave all of my paraphernalia to my room mate along with the flower and concentrates I had left over. It's been one month since I quit, and I feel a little better than the first two weeks. I'm still having very vivid dreams, but my appetite returned almost fully and I'm able to sleep decently at night again. I know, it sounds like everything is going swell, which it kind of is, but not at the same time. I feel a sense of dullness to life which I know is a normal thing after quitting. I don't enjoy things as much as I used to.
I'm constantly thinking to myself that if I smoke, things can go back to normal. But that's not the normal I want to go back to. I realized after quitting that it was holding me back from my true potential as a person. I would smoke and just lay or sit down and play video games or watch movies. When I'd get off work it was the first thing I would do and just melt into my bed. I don't want to wake up one day and ask where the time went. When I was smoking every day, all days seemed to not matter and I had no drive at all. Now one month sober, each day is a battle in it's own.
I suffer from anxiety which I started taking meds for and they really help me. I just would like some advice on how I can cope with not smoking. It's been a month, and I want to stay sober for myself, and all the things that are possible with it. I keep finding myself going back to considering smoking again and I hate it. I know if I do it's back to square one and back to no motivation/hazy mind and all the bad things that go with it. I don't want that. I live in Colorado which doesn't help because everyone and their mom smokes weed here. I don't really mind being around it and it doesn't trigger me. But I'd still rather not. I just want to find things to do to keep me busy every day, so that I'm not constantly thinking about this. Sorry for the novel I wrote just now. If you have any advice or tips for me I would greatly appreciate it.
Many thanks,
Sora
All was fine. They did an EKG and took chest xrays and said nothing was out of the ordinary. I was so relieved that my heart was ok. But my mental health was far from that and I slowly started to realize it. So the next few days I decided not to smoke at all in fear of it happening again. I was fine, and then the cravings came and at this point I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to completely quit or not. So I decided to have a puff. One puff off of a small pipe. I felt it immediately and thought well we will see what happens. I laid down and tried to relax, but that's when it all went bad. I had another panic attack, this one being a little different than the first.
I learned breathing techniques from one of the nurses at the hospital to slow your heart rate, so I was doing that as much as possible but I wasn't really feeling my heart. My arms and hands seized up to the point that my hands and fingers were bent into a shape I can not mimic normally and I could not move them. I picked up my arms and they stayed in that position which freaked me out more. I was new to the whole panic attack thing. I just laid there and breathed in my nose and out of my mouth slowly and it went away about 30 minutes later. I was absolutely terrified.
After that, I knew for a fact that i could no longer smoke weed. I gave all of my paraphernalia to my room mate along with the flower and concentrates I had left over. It's been one month since I quit, and I feel a little better than the first two weeks. I'm still having very vivid dreams, but my appetite returned almost fully and I'm able to sleep decently at night again. I know, it sounds like everything is going swell, which it kind of is, but not at the same time. I feel a sense of dullness to life which I know is a normal thing after quitting. I don't enjoy things as much as I used to.
I'm constantly thinking to myself that if I smoke, things can go back to normal. But that's not the normal I want to go back to. I realized after quitting that it was holding me back from my true potential as a person. I would smoke and just lay or sit down and play video games or watch movies. When I'd get off work it was the first thing I would do and just melt into my bed. I don't want to wake up one day and ask where the time went. When I was smoking every day, all days seemed to not matter and I had no drive at all. Now one month sober, each day is a battle in it's own.
I suffer from anxiety which I started taking meds for and they really help me. I just would like some advice on how I can cope with not smoking. It's been a month, and I want to stay sober for myself, and all the things that are possible with it. I keep finding myself going back to considering smoking again and I hate it. I know if I do it's back to square one and back to no motivation/hazy mind and all the bad things that go with it. I don't want that. I live in Colorado which doesn't help because everyone and their mom smokes weed here. I don't really mind being around it and it doesn't trigger me. But I'd still rather not. I just want to find things to do to keep me busy every day, so that I'm not constantly thinking about this. Sorry for the novel I wrote just now. If you have any advice or tips for me I would greatly appreciate it.
Many thanks,
Sora
its crazy hard. I’ve stopped for almost 2 months now and am trying to find activities that excite me also (before weed made everything a artificially exciting which makes it tough to live real life), the problem was quitting made me very depressed and anxious, to the point where I couldn’t enjoy anything. Make sure this isn’t happening to you, it’s very important to distinguish this. I also didn’t think I was creative without weed anymore, felt boring and plain, now I’m realizing slowly I can go beyond what I could while smoking! It’s a process to find yourself again, specially if you were a daily smoker as I was for years. It can take time to find joy and experience your normal self positively, don’t be discouraged by the boredom and don’t let it beat you into relapsing. Think of things that could be potentially fun, nows the time to seek them and explore things that this addiction has hindered you from.
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