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Could psychedelic use have caused my cannabis anxiety?

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DexWeedAndMe

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Joined
Jan 24, 2011
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Hello all. A little background:

Started smoking pot about 6 years ago. It was my first drug, and I loved it. Been a fairly heavy smoker over this period of time, but over the past year or so I've noticed... if I go even so much as a day or two without smoking, I get really intense anxiety when I partake again. Now, this disappears after I smoke a time or two over the day. If I have a steady supply, it's not an issue at all. Smoke, have a pretty bad experience, smoke again, have a less bad (though still not pleasant) experience, smoke again and I'm good to go. That's all fine and good, except that I've been broke and job hunting lately, so I don't have a steady supply, which means I only smoke occasionally, and when I do, it's in a social situation, which makes it all the more miserable. Everybody else is good, while I'm in my head like "Holy shit, this sucks. I need to calm down." I'm wondering if this could have anything to do with my psychedelic use over the past two years? I've done quite a bit of different psychs over the last two years, and it's the only thing I can think that would cause me to react the way I do now to cannabis.

I mean, when I VERY first started smoking, I had a few pretty rough panic attacks, but then it went away and everything was smooth sailing. I used to be able to smoke like a friggin' freight train. If someone put an ounce in front of me and said "You have to finish all of that today." I could have done it. I still think I could now, if I'd already been smoking. But I can guarantee you (it's been two or three days since I've smoked) the next time I smoke, I'm gonna have to talk myself down from an anxiety attack. It's gotten to the point where I already know that beforehand. I don't really necessarily have any particular basis for blaming the psychs, it just seemed like a plausible theory. I believe I have mild HPPD, as sometimes when I'm sober things will breathe and move. Cannabis now gives me slight visuals, as to where it didn't used to.

If anyone has any input on this, it would be greatly appreciated. It's just a shame.. I used to really enjoy cannabis, and I still do. But as I said, if I take even the slightest break, the first time or two smoking again is NOT fun. I'm beginning to turn into more of an alcoholic, rather than a pot smoker. Polar opposite of how I used to be. It might also be beneficial to note that if I'm drunk, haven't smoked in a few days, and I decide to smoke while I'm drunk, everything is fine. I smoked a whole gram with a friend of mine about a month ago while I was drunk. Hadn't smoked in a few days, and usually just one bowl would send me into panic mode in that situation. But I was drunk, and it was no issue to go through the whole gram.

Sorry if this was tl;dr for anyone. Just had a lot to say about the situation. I don't necessarily think there's anything I can do to fix it now, other than just get a fairly large amount and stick it out through the first little rough patch. I just would like to know if anyone has any idea on whether or not the psychs were what caused it to flip on me like this, and if not them, then what?
 
I can relate a lot to your story, I took a fair amount of mushrooms, a lot of acid (tripped on lsd up to twice a week for 3-4 months) and an array of other psychedelic drugs like DOM, ketamine, lots of E pills that contained something more psychedelic then MDMA, etc. Well, after taking what was sold as LSD but later turned out to be a DOx chemical, I started having mild visual disturbances, especially while driving at night. Slowly, weed made me panic more and more and was less and less euphoric and more psychedelic, soon, I had to take a long break from smoking or using any other psychedelic drug. Eventually, like you describe, I noticed that benzos and alcohol helped a lot with the panic attacks and so for like a year, every time I smoked, I either drank or used klonopin. Thankfully, the panic attacks slowly went away over time and I now can smoke pot without having to take any alcohol or benzos beforehand. I know plenty of people who have similar stories as yours and the 1 common theme is psychedelic use prior to marijuana induced panic attacks, my advice is quit tripping and take a good month or longer away from smoking weed then when you do start smoking again, start out slow with just a puff or 2, trust me, I went from where your at to smoking dabs out of a bong with hardly any anxiety if any at all. If you really insist on continuing to smoke pot, I'd suggest using alcohol or benzos with it, be careful though, you don't want to become dependent on alcohol or benzos just to smoke some pot, the possible withdrawals just aren't worth it.
 
Mmmmmhm^^
I've noticed the same recently. Weed is way more trippy these days possibly cuz of my LSD and DXM use. Maybe it's time for a break. The flashbacks aren't always pleasant.
 
You're correct, Nicholai. I know it's no excuse, but I was quite drunk when I made that second post. Malt liquor and I do not agree. So I apologize for the rudeness which you pointed out. That's not an example of my normal self. I'm usually very polite and whatsuch, just... as I said, malt liquor and I do not agree. Not using it as an excuse, simply letting it be known the reason why I posted in such a ridiculous manner.
 
Psychedelics intensifying subsequent weed experiences is a pretty well-known phenomenon. I dealt with this myself for a while.... Honestly though, anxiety is a self-perpetuating condition. If you get yourself in that mindset of expecting something to go wrong, it makes it much more likely to happen. The way you get out of it is to train yourself to act like everything will be fine again. All psychedelics really do is allow the weed experience to open up deeper aspects of your mind than it normally would, which makes the experience a bit more psychedelic than it used to be. So you just have to treat it like a psychedelic and not freak out and go with the flow.... That's been my experience with it anyway. I used to get panic attacks from smoking weed all the time but now I'm back to smoking it how I was before I ever even started tripping.
 
Goddess Mode said:
Psychedelics intensifying subsequent weed experiences is a pretty well-known phenomenon. I dealt with this myself for a while.... Honestly though, anxiety is a self-perpetuating condition. If you get yourself in that mindset of expecting something to go wrong, it makes it much more likely to happen.
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^This.
Just accept it how it is and try to move on. Everything in the past stays in the past.
 
What exactly are you anxious about? Is it based in anything rational?

Whenever I get anxiety in regards to weed it's usually in regards to getting "busted", usually out in public, paranoia and all that. Which is about 99% irrational, because very few people around here care anymore about degenerate pot smokers anyway. Whenever I've been out by myself in the wilderness smoking weed, I've never had any anxiety or paranoia. I've always found that weed paranoia is always based on a kernel of something that exists in reality, but that your weed-infused mind just blows up to hysterical proportions.
 
Goddess Mode and Burnt Offerings have got it right. I'd get anxiety more easily from weed the weeks following a trip. This goes away though once you realize it's all in the mind and set and setting apply just as much to cannabis as they do to other psychedelics. The recent memory of tripping just intensifies that aspect of weed. IME the weeks following a trip a lot my weed experiences are a lot more like how they used to be when I just started smoking. I find it helps to treat weed in that way again. Ie. smoke less, listen to music, meditate, go for walks and do more interesting things. Things like that will reduce the chances of getting anxious while high compared to rolling up a fatty on the couch with the playstation on and a bag of crisps nearby :p.
 
DexWeedAndMe said:
You're correct, Nicholai. I know it's no excuse, but I was quite drunk when I made that second post. Malt liquor and I do not agree. So I apologize for the rudeness which you pointed out. That's not an example of my normal self. I'm usually very polite and whatsuch, just... as I said, malt liquor and I do not agree. Not using it as an excuse, simply letting it be known the reason why I posted in such a ridiculous manner.
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's cool, man.

In my case, it wasn't just a matter of anxiety. I had permatrails anyway, so when smoking weed I actually started seeing patterns and sparkles and shit. LSD definitely had a lasting effect on my mind for quite a very long time.
 
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