Cannabis withdrawal?

[VitamaN]

For me when I was an everyday smoker (yeeears ago) I'd get so friggin angry when I ran out. Part of that had to be purely sikeo, but I'm sure a fair amount of that was chemical as well. I have a friend who makes my old weed habit look like a joke and when he quit he got massive aches in his legs like a opiate addict would, headaches, and fits of rage.

 

[421]

Haven't smoked for two weeks now. Since my use has been pretty light for the past 6 months or so I haven't really experienced very heavy wd's. Slight irritability and for a couple of days my stomach was a bit upset.

But there's one thing which is kinda worrying. Completely insane/paranoid thoughts, about people plotting against me. And they seem completely rational when they come to me, questioning them doesn't even pass my mind. No huge conspiracies but like someone trying to get me to do something I wouldn't do otherwise by saying something slick, when most probably they didn't mean anything by it. Or maybe I do actually understand the subconscious motives people have, even if they don't themselves. I don't really know anymore. Anyone experienced something similar?

 

[cj]

Cannabis WD effects are very real. After trying to quit earlier this week I experienced cold sweats, accompanied by almost 3 hours hugging the toilet bowl throwing up. This was coming off a 1-1.5gram-a-day wax habit. In the past quitting was very easy for me and I had no such WD, and tbph I laughed when others complained of cannabis WD, having gone through opiate and GABAnergic WDs before, but now I'd say a long-term, hefty habit can produce WD's somewhat comparable to coming off a mild hydrocodone dependency (10-20mg/ day for a relatively short period of time). Of course, it's mostly of psychological origin, but the results can be very unpleasant. The good news is that after about a week they subside, and tapering seems to help as well.

Damn that is a hell of a habit. Wax strait puts me on my ass

 

[Lube4Jesus]

Yeah I would never recommend it to anybody unless you want to destroy your life. It's pretty addictive shit and is nothing like real weed.

 

[Nighthowl]

Haven't smoked for two weeks now. Since my use has been pretty light for the past 6 months or so I haven't really experienced very heavy wd's. Slight irritability and for a couple of days my stomach was a bit upset.

But there's one thing which is kinda worrying. Completely insane/paranoid thoughts, about people plotting against me. And they seem completely rational when they come to me, questioning them doesn't even pass my mind. No huge conspiracies but like someone trying to get me to do something I wouldn't do otherwise by saying something slick, when most probably they didn't mean anything by it. Or maybe I do actually understand the subconscious motives people have, even if they don't themselves. I don't really know anymore. Anyone experienced something similar?

Yes, same exact thing. It will pass with time. Just try not to go batshit crazy. Honestly, I'm more paranoid sober then I ever am high. With the exception of the withdrawal period. Good luck. PM me if you need to. Peace

 

[Seanbbb]

Hi again, checking back in. I have continued smoking since my last post (typical addict) but have found some motivation to quit. Recently I've been experiencing some brain fog and memory problems. Sometimes when shown a proof in math class I will become confused about a step for several minutes before realizing I had forgotten an elementary definition which clearly made the step logical. I'd say my problem is mostly related to working memory. I'm not sure if this is the pot, but I suspect it is. I am going to get rid of my weed today and commit to not smoking for one month. If at the end of a month my life-situation has not improved I will probably start smoking again. If it has I will evaluate the pros/cons of smoking and make a decision then. I have cut back my smoking to about 1/3 g per day so hopefully this will decrease the magnitude of the withdrawal. I'll post to keep any thread followers up to date on my experiment.

 

[421]

Yes, same exact thing. It will pass with time. Just try not to go batshit crazy. Honestly, I'm more paranoid sober then I ever am high. With the exception of the withdrawal period. Good luck. PM me if you need to. Peace

Thanks. Glad there has to be some kind of pharmacological explanation if it's not just me. My plan is to "go crazy" but to try to come up with positive reactions (instead of, say, violent) to the paranoia. I.e. use the haters, perceived or real, to fuel my motivation to do better.

 

[PillGates]

Id recommend valerian root for the help with sleep. natures natural Xanax is what some ppl say! lol
Also, 100% CBD (Cannabidiol) from the cannabis plant may help..

 

[Mafioso]

Seanbbb, my guess would be that ya it is cannabis effecting you. We have receptors in our brain that parts of the cannabis plant(CBDs) will bind to those receptors. To put simply, you are stimulating parts of your brain that are involved in memory and reward processes. This will ultimately effect the way you remember things and your motivation. Most stoners will refuse to believe that chronic use will change your brain but it is silly not to. Besides the growing evidence that there is a link between smoking weed and decreased gray matter in the brain, you are introducing foreign chemicals into the brain that would not have been there. When you change the balance of chemicals in your body, your body will adjust and try to return to its equilibrium. Just like anything that is addicting(imo), the withdraw is experienced when you stop introducing the foreign chemicals into your body and your body is "below" the equilibrium. From what I understand the main parts of your brain that marijuana stimulates has to do with the parts that regulate emotion, memory, and reward centers. Stimulate meaning, to put simply, mimic the neurotransmitters(the natural chemicals that bond to receptors in the brain) and thus stimulate different areas of the brain, mostly those mentioned. So the initial flood of the CBDs causes stimulation in areas of the brain producing a feeling of being "high" or euphoric. After prolonged and daily use your brain stops or cuts back on producing the natural chemicals that CBDs mimic, thus you feel more at equilibrium when stoned rather than sober. I've also been told by a psychology teacher that, for a fact, regular cannabis use decreases the chemical in our brain that helps use cope and deal with stress. My guess is this is due to the similar structure of CBD to neurotransmitters, allowing it to mimic the same chemical that allows us to deal with stress. This action would make sense to produce both the effect of feeling relaxed when stoned and anxious when not stoned.

However this is just all info I've picked up from various sources over the years, and I've been smoking weed solid everyday all day for the past 6 years. Some of it is probably inaccurate and flat out wrong, but I think over all that is the general jist of how cannabis interacts with the brain. It is a very complex and controversial subject but I think there has been quite a bit of definitive research that has come out over the last few years. It really is not the harmless carefree drug that most would like to think that it is.

 

[88dood88]

Cannabis WD effects are very real. After trying to quit earlier this week I experienced cold sweats, accompanied by almost 3 hours hugging the toilet bowl throwing up. This was coming off a 1-1.5gram-a-day wax habit. In the past quitting was very easy for me and I had no such WD, and tbph I laughed when others complained of cannabis WD, having gone through opiate and GABAnergic WDs before, but now I'd say a long-term, hefty habit can produce WD's somewhat comparable to coming off a mild hydrocodone dependency (10-20mg/ day for a relatively short period of time). Of course, it's mostly of psychological origin, but the results can be very unpleasant. The good news is that after about a week they subside, and tapering seems to help as well.

I wonder if WDing off heavy wax use would be similar to coming off synthetic cannabinoids? I'm only curious since the latter is so potent, but I seen people absolutely freak out on wax just like someone would freak out on syncans. Although I have gotten a feeling like I wanted to throw up as soon as I started to eat when I was coming off weed and when coming off synthetic weed.

 

[Seanbbb]

I think they would still be different to some extent. As I understand it the cannabinoids contained in cannabis sum to act predominantly on CB1 and as a partial agonist on CB2. The synthetic cannabinoids I've looked at are generally stronger not only based on mg to mg potency, but also because many act as full agonists on CB1 and CB2, and as a partial CB3 agonist. So although they maybe both much more potent than regular weed I believe the withdrawal from synths would still vary based on the extent of the agonism on the various receptor sites involved. I could be wrong though, anyone please feel free to correct me.

 

[rwtrwt]

Until recently, I have smoked a quarter of mid/regs a week for years with the occasional weekly treat of some high grade and never had a reason to quit except for sometimes a few days before pay day. I have always noticed that when I was out for a day or two that It would be difficult for me to eat full meals without some nausea.

A month or two ago, I had some family problems and my wife and I began to see a therapist at $80/visit once a week. After a 4 sessions we stopped for financial reasons. Luckily, While driving down the road I heard on the radio about a study by a local university to help with depression. The free study starts October 6th (2 weeks from now) and I hope that I am put in the group that learns Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques (as opposed to the group being put on FDA approved depression meds).

One of the requirements of joining this study was that I quit smoking weed so I quit about 2 weeks ago. My diet is now back to normal. I felt more depressed and angry about my family problems, probably because pot helped to dull the emotional pain before. I made plans to go out on the weekend but instead I got stuck on the couch watching Netflix and crying while my wife was at work. Then last Sunday night, at the end of a fight with my wife, I made a hurtful remark to her and I had an emotional epiphany. I was finally able to release the sadness and anger and find a place of real forgiveness in my heart. I realized that those feelings, while justified, were only hurting my wife and I.

While I know that time has played a factor in my emotional healing, I also postulate that smoking so much weed was preventing me from feeling the sadness and anger that my heart needed to feel before it could recover. Before I stopped smoking pot, when I we got in a fight, one of us would say "lets just smoke a bowl and calm down." In this way I refer to pot as the "hakuna matata" drug that makes me stop worrying. I think that stopping smoking allowed me to more fully feel the negative feelings of isolation, anger, and depression which allowed me to reach the stages of acceptance and forgiveness.

Before my present situation I never had a reason to stop smoking pot. I even thought that it was "helping" me in the rough times because it made me feel better, literally within minutes. But now I am starting to thing that that "help" was delaying my recovery. We experience pain for a reason and dulling that very real pain may not always be the best solution, especially when the pain is deeply traumatic.

If you are a "smoke every day" person like me and you are feeling severely depressed and want to heal, then try taper or stopping smoking for a while. Feel that pain and work through it. I would have never guessed that it would help me so much in the long term. When the free therapy is over, I look forward to eventually getting super-baked once my tolerance is way down.