Eight years smoking, two days clean!

[cleanfreshair]

Soooo.... I've been smoking pretty much daily for nearly eight years. Typical story I suppose. Started with friends, social thing. Then we were doing it all the time. Then I dropped out of Uni and found myself with three or four folks and we just smoked, and smoked, and smoked, and I reckon convinced ourselves we were really close friends. Then it happened, I found myself smoking alone (even though I always used to say, the moment you smoke by yourself, you're hooked) but it was always rationalised. I never really accepted I was addicted.

Then something happened in me four years ago, I had a major nervous breakdown, deep depression, but I never connected it to smoking. Panic attacks followed, severe anxiety, I really thought I was dying. I was put on antidepressants and somehow managed to function again (but quickly came OFF the anti-D's, were causing more trouble than good, dangerous things, quit them cold turkey somehow, I was on a serious dose, doctor was amazed but I do feel I was just lucky...) But I still smoked.... a LOT. And it's not really until a year and a half ago when I developed wheezing when exercising I really thought.... shit, what am I doing to myself. Also, my parents found out my habit, my friends, and I smoke a lot with my brother (who I never really had a relationship with before we smoked pot together) and also I all of my close friends smoke.

When I take a look back at what I've done with my best friend for the last 5 years, it's just smoke. That's all we do. And he refuses to admit he's addicted. For me, I can admit it now. I quit for 2 months at the end of 2009, but Christmas came around, and I said "Just one joint for Christmas..." and you know the rest. Somehow, I've managed to get and keep a good job, and job hop a couple of times and now I'm in a really great position, and I just cannot support smoking weed daily anymore. I NEED to respect myself more. I have so much to offer and so many things to achieve. The weed is ****ing my brain up and my body, my eyes, my social life. When I don't smoke, first thing I feel is I want to CONNECT with people. It's like a mini awakening each time. And I got THAT POWERFUL URGE to just stop. To put it down. To end the ****ing madness.

So what made me do it this time? Well, I had the hangover from hell yesterday, and that never really makes me wanna smoke chronic anyway, so yesterday was a good time to reflect on my life and I watched this YouTube video which I found SO very helpful. Because I'm new it won't let me post a link to YouTube, but visit the site and put the following in the search bar, you'll find the interview at the top.... very good video "Present! - Overcoming Marijuana Addiction"

Weed has been my best friend, and my worst enemy. I don't actually ENJOY being high anymore. Especially in the last few months, I've been thinking about rolling up another joint while smoking the end of the current one. That scares me. What do I do when weed high isn't enough for me? Tonight is my first REAL night going to bed without smoking weed, and I'm so proud of myself that I had the means to buy an 8th since I finished work at 6pm and I've not done it. I don't expect to sleep well...so I'm dancing around like an idiot to try and tire myself out, but got a craving and thought I'd come on here and type it out for a while.



But I am looking FORWARD to jumping out of bed in the morning, alert and not with a highover. To fill my evenings with interesting fun activities and not just counting the hours until I can get smashed and do nothing. Just turn into a zombie and eat shit. And it seems you are all such supportive people, so HELLO, how are you all doing? I'd love to hear from anyone.

Edit: However I do want to stress that I am pretty scared about what's going to happen. The physical symptoms. Because I do have a history of anxiety and panic attacks, and they are ****ing scary. But I need to be strong. And I will not smoke again. So.... here goes....

[abiogenesis]

Hi cleanfreshair and welcome to the forum,

I guess the fact that we all share very similar stories during our weed use is a very simple illustration which shows that there is a pathological side of the story which is common in all of us: addiction! It indeed is not very easy to admit, especially because the weed users always had the tendency to hold seperate weed from the other drugs. This forum is a making a very strong point on how weed can be addictive for some people and about the extent to which it can damage our lives. Anyway, welcome again and admitting your addiction is the very big step that you already take.

About the panic attacks, physical withdrawals, i.e.. Extend and intensity of these are very dependent on each individual's unique brain/psychology, for instance myself didn't experience any physical withdrawals but experienced strong mood swings for almost six months. So, there is no easy way to predict what will be your experience, and actually I don't know if your vulnerability to panic attacks will be strengthen your withdrawals in that sense. But the important thing is, whatever you will experience, they will be the withdrawing of your body from THC, so withdrawals is a temprory stage that you have to go through but there is a much more important thing that is at stake: your life! I mean, for instance you say that, as it's also the experience of most of people here, smoking weed has been the only thing you did with your best friend within the last five years while there are diverse things in life that we could do together with our best friends. When we become neurologiclly addicted, it is literally some sort of a sick state of mind like schizophrenia where the functioning of our minds are severely compromised. It can take some months before we reach the state of an healthy mind, but if we don't do this, we can live all our lives with this sick state of mind. So as I say, withdrawals is a price that we have to pay but what's at stake is much more important than the withdrawals.

I wish you all the best in your journey, we will try to support and help you as much as we can, you could also make use of the enormous amount of information on addiction and recovery spread out the forum.

All the best,

[cleanfreshair]

Hi abiogenesis,

Thank you for replying to my me. It's nice to know somebody is listening. This site is great for reading through information but I do wish there were more frequent posts as I like to communicate often.

So today was day three, and it's now 22:50pm. I had insomnia last night. Was strange, as felt like my skin was itching / creepy crawlies feeling and I could not sleep for hours. I must have eventually drifted off around 3am, but I actually woke up feeling pretty refreshed and alert, and more importantly, postive. If I had been smoking weed and had the same amount of sleep, I would have been DESTROYED today. Goes to show how powerful the shit I was smoking was for my body.

It helped that today was a beautiful day and I am not in the habit of smoking cigarettes at work anymore (I tend to only touch those when I'm out drunk with friends) and I kept looking for things to feel positive about. I also drink a lot of Green Tea day to day (around 8 cups) and have done for the last 9 months, and I read on this site a certain ingredient in it helps with the anxiety of stopping MJ. I also find it regulates my mood and I can handle things better while drinking it. Very calming. One interesting thing, at lunch time I got the most terrible stomach ache. Very painful. Not had anything like that before. But that too I can connect to the withdrawal as I've read on this site. It didn't last too long however. I also couldn't eat very much during the day.

I made the large step of telling a close friend at work (who I know out of work as well, and was aware I smoked a lot and showed concern in the past) that I was quitting, and she was supportive, but still didn't really get what I am going through. I almost didn't want to tell her how bad my addiction is, but I implied it. I did say "Not like I smoke every day but I am used to it" and she said she would help all she could. It helped to tell somebody.

On the flip side of that, I told my best friend I am going cold turkey. He told me I was setting myself up to fail and it's better to smoke socially, like drinking. I rejected his comment and said I couldn't even have one again. He said he wanted to smoke in the sun, and I told him I AM SORRY I can't. I was a bit disappointed he didn't show support, but if anything makes me want to show him I will do it. He is the one who won't admit himself he has a problem. Of course this is about me, not him, but I feel that once I'm clean for a long period of time, he will want to be too. I told him there was 1000 things we could do and not smoke, but I am a little hesitant to see him tomorrow, I need to see him to collect some clothes for a show I have on Saturday, so can't just get out of it during this delicate time. All we really do is smoke weed and not sure how it will be when I will not. I don't want to watch him smoke either. I don't want to be near MJ. He likes to "unload" on me, and I may have to distance myself from him for a period of time. He won't understand but my health is what's important now. I don't know, he might surprise me.

Being home after work was harder as it's my pattern to start smoking around 6pm and not stop until 12 / 1am or so. So I MADE SURE I had something else in store tonight. My housemates girlfriend wanted to watch the new Harry Potter so I loaded up myself with MUG after MUG of green tea and got out of my usual routine. Film lasted three hours so led me nicely to now. Only had two or so real cravings for it but I'm talking myself out of it each time. No desire to smoke but have the cravings that's for sure. My body is saying.... "hey.... what's up...." I will say that today I have laughed like I haven't laughed in a long time, although I do feel hazy in the head as if I have been smoking something chronic yesterday, and I hope this isn't how my brain feels all the time now. Probably just tired.

So now I am about to go to bed, I am genuinely tired, and just did some exercise, so will put on a radio programme and hopefully have a better nights sleep tonight. So far, so good. Not been too bad so far, but I am trying to keep myself alert to my feelings and cravings. Good night all and hope you are all doing well.

[BFB]

Hi clean fresh air and welcome,

First of all well done on your decision to quit. I pretty much had a nervous breakdown from using weed, or a mind melt down or whatever you want to call it , basically my mental health went to shit and experienced severe anxiety and depression amongst other things, I know my smoking was connected to it as I just can’t smoke any no longer, even smoking a very small amount has a dramatic effect immediately after so like I say I know it’s related.

Anyway the bottom line is once you get to this stage, if it is your smoking that is causing you the problem then it’s not going to get any better until you stop, so my advice to you would be to stop as soon as possible, now the problem is once you get to this stage it can seem a bit of a catch 22 as continuing to use can cause anxiety but so can stopping too, it’s one of the symptoms of withdrawal, but the anxiety from stopping will pass, the anxiety from continuing to use is only going to get worse the longer you continue to do so.

A bit of insomnia is also very common, it’s often something you also have to go through, it terms of support from others who are still smoking in your desire to want to quit, well to be honest I wouldn’t really expect much support from there, not wanting to prejudge or anything but it’s not very often that you get much support from anybody who is continuing to do whatever it is you are trying to quit and that goes for most things not just weed, if I had a nickel for every time I heard a smoker telling someone who is trying to quit, “go on, just have one”, whether you like it or not while they are still doing it the chances are they will want you to keep doing it too.

Anyway I hope we can be of some support, I am sure you can do it. Take care, thanks for posting and please keep us posted on how it goes.

All the best

[abiogenesis]

Hi cleanfreshair,

I wanted to check how is it going? Did your panic attacks ease?

Take care,