• Cannabis Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules

Transitioning from daily to occasional use.

Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 31, 2021
Messages
121
Up until a couple of months ago I was vaping 0.5-1g daily and had been for years. Not the most extreme habit perhaps but I couldn’t sleep without it and when I can’t sleep I can’t function so I was pretty much dependent.

I’ve just taken 10 weeks off and have, to my surprise after years of chronic insomnia, managed to establish something resembling a healthy sleep pattern. Now I would like to start consuming cannabis on a more occasional recreational basis, just on the weekends perhaps, while ensuring that I don’t become dependent on it again.

To those who have successfully transitioned from daily habits to occasional use, how easy/hard have you found it to keep your usage in check? Experiences would be welcomed and appreciated.
 
I call it being disciplined with cannabis timing him when it is best for me.

Let's say a couple months ago to a month ago to a few months ago I was smoking a small pipe everyday maybe 10 hits not a lot but still everyday. I was doing it I was doing sativa and CBD before resistance exercise and the indica's later at night and then the hybrids may be a mix of day and night maybe some CBD with that if it brung on some too much anxiety, negative thoughts, so if you do seem to be prone like me genetically on a higher sativa definitely taking some CBD, and you may need a more CBD ratio than sativa

Last couple to few weeks I've smoked three times maybe 10 hits at most each time, three times a week mind you. Like yesterday I did a sativa CBD separate in each pipe before resistance exercise and then like say it's a higher calorie day I'll take in some Indica later in the day. I seem to find sativa or indica's it doesn't matter seem to cause me to want to eat more
 
How were your dreams during that period? I just stopped after years as well and good GOD... I don't even know what to say.
That said, it's important to remember that you lose a lot of magic from this plant if you consume it too often. You'll go from having psychdedelic type highs to just being stoned, bored, sedated, tired, unmotivated. I always tried to smoke only at night but it was hard to manage that, I'd find some excuse to do it during the day when I didn't know what else to do. So basically, if you are bored and feel like getting stoned, just remember, you will only end up stoned and bored. Do something more productive or even just play a video game, sober. You'll escape into it just as much.
 
I did a 3 week break and then back to more moderate consumption. It was easy to not smoke every day again, but hard to do it as seldom as first intended.

Taking care of your sleep and dream quality could be a motivator to stay off chronic use. At least for me and many others, chronic cannabis use has a detrimental effect on sleep and dreaming. It takes a while to set in. As long as i stay out of that zone, i'm pretty good. I want to get high, but i don't want to permanently suppress my emotions. If i achieve this balance, i consider myself alright.

10 weeks is impressive. It shows a lot of discipline, so you can believe in yourself of course. :) Good luck
 
Yeah I can't lie, some of these dreams are so fucking cool. Some are very strange and uncomfortable, but not necessarily nightmares. I never dreamt this vividly while smoking, only occasionally would I be able to recall bits of dreams
 
The dreams were very intense for the first 6 weeks or so though they’re now beginning to settle and I don’t remember them as often. My dreams are usually somewhere between weird and unpleasant so I didn’t miss them, if anything the dream suppression that came with daily use was a positive effect for me.

I am worried about the effect on my memory though as well as just becoming lazy and unmotivated so that‘s reason enough to not slip back into daily use.
 
I personally felt like weed only affected my SHORT term memory while high, while enhancing my long term memory. I owe THC a lot in giving me flashes of perceptions into memories I had at the age of 3 that I likely would've never remembered otherwise, but that's kind of an individual effect it has on me. Lowered motivation I can 100% attest to though
 
The thing is cannabis is enjoyable at high levels when you hit it all the time. Maybe your favorite flower and one or two at the end of the day? Less is more…
 
Tbh, quit for a while first. Replace the time u spend smoking m, doing other stuff. Idk, gym, hobbies, music etc. It's gonna suck the first week or 2 then it shud be fine to get back and smoke again everyonce Ina while.
 
Shinji Ikari said:
Up until a couple of months ago I was vaping 0.5-1g daily and had been for years. Not the most extreme habit perhaps but I couldn’t sleep without it and when I can’t sleep I can’t function so I was pretty much dependent.

I’ve just taken 10 weeks off and have, to my surprise after years of chronic insomnia, managed to establish something resembling a healthy sleep pattern. Now I would like to start consuming cannabis on a more occasional recreational basis, just on the weekends perhaps, while ensuring that I don’t become dependent on it again.

To those who have successfully transitioned from daily habits to occasional use, how easy/hard have you found it to keep your usage in check? Experiences would be welcomed and appreciated.
Click to expand...
I was a daily smoker for more than 10 years. Then in May 2021 my living situation changed and I can't smoke at home anymore. The first few weeks were rough trying to sleep and giving my hands something to do other than my daily smoking ritual. I still smoke every couple of weeks at my friend's house so I have not been 100% sober all this time. And when I do smoke, it seems I get a more powerful buzz since my tolerance is so low now. Ten weeks is great. I think you have a good plan and it will serve you well for the foreseeable future. Good luck!
 
Hmmmm wasn't aware of its dream suppressing effects (though in retrospect i have heard reports of that.l)

I should stop and see what happens, I only smoke at night, and while im not a big weed person ive smoked it for years now every night, i just tend to catch habits. Don't like what it does to me, I feel like it makes me sort of pissy and stupid, far more likely to fight with my girlfriend as I seem to become far more easily offended, shorter fuse.
 
negrogesic said:
Hmmmm wasn't aware of its dream suppressing effects (though in retrospect i have heard reports of that.l)
Click to expand...
Yeah, you will have crazy hyper-realistic dreams if you quit or took a break after smoking every night for many months/years.

I've been a daily user for 7 or maybe 8 years now, with only some short breaks in between. I did stop smoking during the day a couple of years ago and it made the experience more enjoyable, but I still smoke it nightly.
 
Well I was a daily heroin user for a few years. Now I chip (went full circle you might say back to how I started).
Basically my living situation had just become untenable to me. Personally I found the emotional attachment harder to deal with than the physical dependency. I had started to lean on the drug to basically prop me up because I was very maladjusted. Plus simple habituation is an incredibly powerful driver purely because the brain likes routines, and does not like changing them. Everytime you perform a certain behaviour you strengthen neural connections to do with that behaviour, which in turn facilitates more of it, until you're stuck in a mindless self - reinforcing loop.

For me it was re-discovering old interests, plus adding a couple new ones, which helped the most breaking me out of the habit. Things to enjoy and fill my life with. I'd basically forgotten how to do anything except do drugs and get drunk, so needed to re-direct myself.

What I want to make absolutely clear is that I'm NOT talking about 'distraction' or 'replacement'.
I believe this to be INCREDIBLY counter - productive and self - defeating. The reason being, if you're thinking in those terms you're keeping your focus on the substance instead of genuinely directing it somewhere else.
If you need to 'distract' yourself, then your reference is still the drug, and if your distraction fails you'll blame yourself. If you're 'replacing', then that's a tacit admittance you're engaging in a substitute activity for which your only motivation is that somehow it's supposed to prevent you from doing the thing you REALLY wanna be doing.

So the best advice I can give is this :
First, be absolutely clear on why you want to cut down. Speaking from personal experience, 'because I just should / owe it to my family' is too vague and doesn't keep you going for long.
Secondly, when looking for things to get into, DON'T copy others. Someone might tell you 'oh I never touched xyz since I started exercising' , or the like. Then you start doing exercise but still find yourself at your DOC all the damn time and wondering why the magic power of exercise (or whatever else the other person took up they claim 'made them stop') doesn't do the trick for you. Humans are individuals, not copy - pastes.

Whatever you choose has to be individually and personally meaningful FOR YOU. That's why I can't recommend you any specific activity. The important thing is that you should find it fulfilling and enjoyable IN AND OF ITSELF. I don't for instance climb up mountains with my camera so that I don't chase gear all day long instead, I do it because I want to be doing that very thing. It's not a case of 'better make myself do Z otherwise I' ll end up doing F', and that's a crucial difference. What are your interests, what might you always have thought of trying out but never got round to -? And ideally it should be an activity that's incidentally incompatible with being high, for obvious reasons. Sorry to disappoint if you were hoping for a precise step - by - step instruction on how to change a habit, but that's never how it works.
 
Last edited:
Man I had the craziest dream last night involving Harry Potter but it was John Lennon as Harry and they went out a window, snuck into a trailer park home where characters from south park lived, but they were like claymation, and for some reason slept in a bathroom for 2 weeks straight and each day in the bathroom passed like 10 seconds and they were all moaning. It was so weird.
 
negrogesic said:
Hmmmm wasn't aware of its dream suppressing effects (though in retrospect i have heard reports of that.l)

I should stop and see what happens, I only smoke at night, and while im not a big weed person ive smoked it for years now every night, i just tend to catch habits. Don't like what it does to me, I feel like it makes me sort of pissy and stupid, far more likely to fight with my girlfriend as I seem to become far more easily offended, shorter fuse.
Click to expand...
Something to do with THC interfering with REM sleep supposedly, though I don’t know the ins and outs of it. That might also be why stoners are notorious for their poor short term memory.
 
It's true. When I've been stoned in the past I came up with the most brilliant fucking ideas I've ever had. And then within seconds I forgot, and it's like NOOOOOOO
I got into the habit of trying really hard to stay on track when a revelation comes to me when I'm stoned, which is very often. Or write it down as quickly as possible.
 
BourbonMac said:
Yeah I can't lie, some of these dreams are so fucking cool. Some are very strange and uncomfortable, but not necessarily nightmares. I never dreamt this vividly while smoking, only occasionally would I be able to recall bits of dreams
Click to expand...
I always found it odd that a lack of dreaming was an issue for some people. I've been a heavy, daily use smoker for over 35 years and some nights I wish the dreams would stop. They aren't nightmares either, it's just over the last 5 years or so now I keep having variations of the same dream. Different locations, different people, same goddam dream. Not every night though, other nights I have the kind of dream where you wake up thinking, "What the fuck was THAT?" :unsure:
 
I definitely still dreamt during my daily smoking period, but the crazy vivid, complex dreams were a lot less common. And I'd more quickly forget lots of them. At the same time, getting high would randomly allow me to remember dreams I had at random points in my life. I'm not really sure why. I go into it a bit above but sometimes when I was really stoned I'd get hit with this surrealistic perception, and then a slap in the face, an image of a dream I had at the age of 10 that I've never remembered until that very moment. Both with dreams and random memories. That's why I think THC gave me a better long term memory.

I feel you though. I had recurring dreams through childhood. Oftentimes the exact same dream but there would be a different colored fog around it, if that makes sense. Maybe it's similar to what you describe.
 
That's one of my biggest complaints - the dreaming when i take a break....and then when i smoke more regularly, i barely remember any dreams

but im not a big fan of dreaming either

anyway--

i smoked for 20 years straight, took up to 6 month breaks and various other breaks - i still take them sometimes - but i still always end up smoking 3 to 6 times a day once i start - it might start off slow like just once before bed, but my favorite time to smoke is in the morning....

when i take really long breaks, its always hard to get back in because i just keep getting too uncomfortably high - so im better off smoking more often so i don't get that uncomfortable high

so i think the more i smoke, the better off i am :)


but really it's all about that morning high for me - i can honestly go the rest of the day without it if ive got a lot of shit going on


i think there's a good chance you end up smoking like you did before eventually because that's what always happens to me and im really disciplined

see what you can do tho

good luck
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top