addicted to spice?

Spice is strong stuff. I finally stopped smoking it after it gave me like 3 psychotic episodes that led me to the ER (not usually by concious choice either). But I'm more susceptable to that sort of thing that normal people. I reccomend a different quitting strategy.
 
i recommend no one smoke 'spice'; i hate how all the good cannabinoids get a bad rap from this 'spice' shit. the problem with these blends are that they are not controlled or regulated, who knows what mix of cannabinoids are on them and who even knows if the stuff they spray it on is healthy in the first place. This does not mean that all synthetic cannabinoids are bad, evil, or even harmful, some of them may have near magical qualities in treatments for disease and such.
 
First post.

I too started smoking Spice (JWH-018) every day, although I knew I shouldn't. When I discovered that I started feeling dumb and alienated (I later found out this is called depersonalization), I decided that I had to quit for real, after telling myself "this is the last time" many times. Finding other (productive and entertaining) activities helped me. This cannabinoid somhow had me mentally addicted to a far greater degree than pot did (never really was mentally addicted to pot), even though I liked pot way better. Every day without it was so boring. Boredom without it is what made it hard to quit, way harder than staying away from various opiates, in my experience. The depersonalization has subsided and I feel bright and clearheaded again. I don't feel an urge to smoke it anymore.

Don't tell yourself you're going to smoke one last time. Skipping the one last time and stopping forever worked for me.
 
The re-outlawing of spice in my state was an absolute godsend. I was horribly strung out on it up to last month as embarrassing as it is to admit that. But, a drug is a drug is a drug. I was ruining my life with it. I'm still drinking and using other substances occasionally, but I am so much better off now that I'm rid of that shit.

For those who still have access to it, do NOT get it twisted. Just because spice contains cannabinoids doesn't make it comparable to weed, it's another beast entirely. I never smoked any cannabis that gave me chest pains, a compulsive urge to redose, physical withdrawals, seizures, blackouts.

Leave that shit alone, you'll be better off.
 
I read your post about spice addiction and it was as if you were talking about me. I am on about 3G per day. I want to quit so bad it's ruining my life my work and my relationship with my wife. Shes been supportive in my efforts to quit but i fear her patience is wearing thin... I started using after I got home from deployment to help with some nightmares and PTSD I was having and now it's gotten out of control. I tell my self Iam not gonna buy it Iam not gonna buy it but I always end up in the car on my way to the store. I used to be in great shape and very athletic now Iam 200+ lbs can't run or play soccer for shit and all I have are empty excuses as to why I need it or the this is my last pack. Man I've been on my last pack for 30+ packs. Everytime I try n stop the withdrawals are brutal. I know Iam gonna end up dying of a heart attack or kidney failure but Its like the only thing that will stop me is a disaster and I have to do something b4 it's too late. I know it's MADD random but I felt like this is my last chance and only way to find some help... Please any advice, positive words or encouragement would be appreciated...Thanks for listening
 
Day 1 of quitting spice for good...pretty much same story as you guys....on paper and was smoking spice instead of weed...HAD NO FREAKING IDEA... no lie yall, i'm on probation for cooking meth and I've never dealt with ANY addiction as bad as spice...fighting the urge not to go get some now...please help. If I don't have this stuff i literally can't stop freaking thinking about how to get it...I have done some stupid shit just to get it. I've walked across town for a 1 gram bag of it,(and was finished w/it and trying to figure out how to get more by the time i got home), I've left work and went to where I thought i threw a half a joint out on the road (and stayed there till i found it)... i've searched for roaches that may or may not have been there....i'm tellin ya it's bad
 
Ive been reading posts made by members in different forums, and everything they say is just how im feeling, been smoking spice for almost 2 years, didnt really think it was bad. i loved the way some blends made me feel. i wouldnt just buy one pack but multiple so i wouldn't run out for days. even though i would smoke every 30 mins or so everyday, for two years. When i didnt smoke i would feel so bored! omg idk how i would make it through one day without smoking. its so fucking addicting. i know i have to stop, ive been wheezing every morning and my cousin went to the er cause it was causing kidney failure. its been causing issues with my fiancee. i spend all our money on it, i even lie to her about it! today was my first day without spice, and you dont know how hard and slow this day was. idk if i can make it a month... but ill try. trust me. dont smoke spice everyday. maybe once in a while. but not till you get addicted, cause once you get addicted, its a pretty hard to quit. i cant even go a day without it..
 
I told a couple friends about this problem.. because they smoke about a gram... more every day.. I told of about my physical symptoms the last at me and said yeah right.. like I would make that shit up staying up for 4 days straight sleeping very little with leg cramps cold sweats hot sweats.. and no I wasn't doing any other substances at the time.. it's been months of no use dryer before that

Yeah I had the same experience, in my opinion spice can be physically addictive if you smoke a lot of it. Intense, undeniable, PHYSICAL withdrawal - sweating, cramps, insomnia, anxiety, restlessness, just like you had.
 
i smoked a very large amount of that shit dragonfire in 2011-2012 like every day as if it were weed. when i quit i had no withrawls. but my memory was fucked. i couldn't remember if i clocked in atwork even though it was five minutes later so i would always be putting unneeded timeclock corrections in to the bookkeeper and they started asking me what was up with me and that timeclock. i hated that shit. or i couldn't remember what i did the previous weekend at all. i would have to go in order from Friday on and break it down for ten minutes to tell someone what i did. i would, and still do see trails on shit like if i wave my hand in front of my face. and had crippling anxiety on or off it. it didn't matter. but i havent smoked it in a year and feel really good. i basically stopped all other things when i started heroin but in regards to withdrawls i don't really know about that as it never happened to me... smack withdrawls on the other hand that shit happened to me that is some shit right there. i got like a month clean. new better higher paying and higher responsibility job so that's keeping me busy and saving my life.
 
I got off heroin using a (low-dose) suboxone/spice combo in mid 2011... tapered the subs from 1mg/day to .25mg/day (doctors way over-prescribe that shit, they told me to take 1 whole 8mg strip twice daily, obviously knowing nothing about suboxone or how it works) to completely off and managed to stay off heroin with excessive spice use by late 2011... i figured smoking spice couldn't be worse then shooting smack. Let me explain excessive: I found a smoke shop selling 5g bags for <cheap>, I'd go through those in 2 days. I was smoking this out of a 2' tall, beaker styled, 7mm thick glass on glass RooR - I'd white-wall that bitch with massive hits of this crazy-ass shit, and hold it in as long as I possibly could, every single time, every half an hour or so. What a waste of a nice bong eh? It got worse, and I started going through those in 1 day - 5g a day! That "blend" disappeared so I switched it up and was managing a 2-4g daily habit, still taking massive hits out of my massive water pipe. I have a job, so I wasn't smoking from morning till I got home. My last 2 hours of work were terrible. This was costing me nearly $200/mo. I got into the night time habit of waking up every 20-30 minutes, groggily walking to the bathroom, taking a massive hit, groggily walking back to my bed, rinse and repeat. All night, every night. This was my life from late 2011-about a month ago. I only managed to quit spice by selling my bong (something about smoking it in joints or regular pipes just wasn't the same after years of massive waterpipe hits...) Withdrawals weren't as hard as I'd expected. I had tried to quit recently and nearly gone insane - forcing myself into a mental&physical state of anguish that mirrored a cold-turkey heroin withdrawal until i was driving 90 mph up the freeway to the stupid smoke shop that was of course open until midnight every night pretty much solely for spice addicts. I was so addicted to this shit I would use a sticky lint roller on the carpet below where i loaded my bowl. then scrape what tiny pieces i had off the sticky paper. then smoke that. I would use small pieces of toilet paper to clean the resin that was building up in my bowl and downstem, then I would smoke those pieces of toilet paper. I WAS SMOKING SPICE RESIN! HUGE WHITE-WALLED BONG RIPS OF SPICE RESIN AND TOILET PAPER, AND HOLDING IT IN FOR 45+ SECONDS!! I'm surprised I'm even still alive! But apparently the spice addiction really is a mostly MENTAL ADDICTION! Your mind is what tricks your body into showing physical symptoms, at least that's what I think. Or maybe the fact I wasn't using 9-12 hours out of every week-day (weekends was 24/7 non-stop) and i quit on a Tuesday during a busy work week helped... kept my mind busy, y'know? Anyway, that's my story, and now for my questions:

1.) Has anyone else out there smoked as much of this shit for nearly 2 straight years every single day as I have who isn't dead yet?

2.) If so, what affects are you noticing on your bodily functions?

I never went to the doctor for spice, never freaked out to the point that I'd get dragged to the ER by my wife or anything like that. But now my bowels are going crazy! I go 3 days without a shit, then i drop like 5 pounds of liquid shit in one sitting, then the next day ill take 6 tiny shits throughout the day... Constant GAS by the way... not really bloating, just constant flow of gas lol. I'm getting an MRI done soon, hopefully that explains what the hell is going on. But other then that I'm worried about my lungs, heart, brain and pretty much everything else about my body! I'm literally thinking I'd be better off had I just stuck to the needle! And that's CRAZY! Anyway I'm 1 mo. clean of spice, 1.5 years clean of H, so I guess I'm on the right track... I just hope I didn't destroy my body too much too soon too fast in the process!

Any advice or experiences with yourself or others would be greatly appreciated.
 
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I too was addicted to spice and to those that are able to smoke pot, that is what helped me. Pot did nothing for the first few days after quitting spice, but it it kept me from having the bad physical symptoms that I had experienced while trying to quit in the past without pot. Although it will take weeks to feel completely normal and you may not feel as sharp as the spice may have made you feel, after a few days your body and pockets will thank you. I believe that the reason it is so addictive mentally is that the high is so short lived, that when you come down you feel so on top of things because you are completely sober. There are no lingering effects as with THC. But the chemicals they spray on this stuff is poison!
 
You want to quit using Spice because of health risks? Okay, that's fine, but for a lot of people (and it sounds like you too), looming fears of how health *could* go bad isn't quite enough.

"I want to stop drinking so that my physical body doesn't turn to shit."
"Then why did you drink this morning?"
"Well...because I woke up feeling like utter shit!"

Drug/alcohol abuse trains people to think in the short-term. A drink, a joint, an injection, it's all instant gratification. Long-term consequences are often ignored, especially after that first drink has gone down (hell, after two or three we don't even care about that god-awful hangover tomorrow morning). Point being, a person used to living to maximize short-term conditions is not going to be that strongly motivated by things in the distant future - good or bad.

Instead of of thinking "if I drink, then [Bad Thing X] will happen down the road," try thinking "This [Good Thing Y] will be negatively affected by me using TODAY."

So instead of your using only possibly having a negative effect in your long-term, as long as you keep your life full of Good Things, using will rip apart these good things in the short-term.

Some of my good things are that I workout every morning and I read a good mystery novel in bed at night. If I got wasted right now, would I really (beyond superficially) care if it might help lead me to liver damage in twenty years? NO. But would it stop me from a good gym session in the morning? Yes! Would shooting some dope after work permanently collapse every single vein in my body? NO. Would I probably nod out and miss the last chapters of this weeks book? Ya.

Nobody likes worrying about their health, but I kinda do like working out and reading my cheesy novels. So as much as the goal is quitting your Drug of Choice, really it's also about coming up with interests, routines, little Good Things to fill your day with that you actually like doing and would not want to have interrupted. Seriously, pick anything, but boredom is the worst enemy for a lot of us TDSers.

Just drop the negative thinking - I cannot use because it will destroy my health. That's just like a sober person always thinking I can't go to the bar. I can't go to the casino. I can't go to the wedding. All this negative pressure leads to nowhere but trouble. Take a bottom-up approach, and build a life around you that has enough potential that there's no need to complicate it with either excessive worrying or drinking/drugging.

I like your style.

I was addicted to spice for about a year back in 2011. lost my voice from smoking it so much and was stealing after I sold every video game and blu ray i owned. I wouldn't allow myself to buy the pure chemical because i knew it had given me 3 seizures before. One of those seizures put me in a 3 day coma and gave me sever amnesia lost about 10 months of my life due to the stuff. Finally I got caught stealing and my family forced me to go to rehab and kicked the shit. Though I just replaced the stuff with having a few drinks a day. it's a lot better for me than smoking myself to death on spice spending 30 bucks a day on the crap also.

Spice ruined my life for quite a while and still have sever anxiety from it which i never used to have. Even gave me a stutter when i get really nervous that I never had before. Now if i could just kick this anxiety and start living like I did before discovering this shit. Did way too many RC's and i more than likely should be dead right now.
 
I've been addicted to spice about a year now although I been smoking it for about 2 but just this past year it got bad I would spend every penny and every moment of my time smoking. Although i had heard all that they say about spice i never really reasearched anything about how it was effecting me. Then Monday one of my friends that also smokes spice calls me freaking out tell me I need to quit right away because it causes kidney failure. Well I instantly started looking up info and sure enough 30 known cases so far. Then I realized reading all these postings everything my body was going thru everyone else who smoke spice was goin thru. The more and more I read different people's experience the more I got freaked out so I flushed my stash and decided right then and there I'm worth way more than that I want to live a long healthy life not be on dialysis or something like that for the rest of my life so I will be honest Tuesday was the worst the withdrawals were horrible but today day 3 i feel 10 times better i don't think my mood been this good in over a year and physically no pain and feel fine no withdrawals at all not even psychological. I plead with anyone who is smoking this crap STOP immediately love yourself more its real people are dying having kidney failure going blind throwing up blood nothing about any of that is normal and that's only some of the things happening to people due to smoking spice. I will be updating my progress I just want anyone who reads my posting to know how serious that crap is and that its more than possible to quit!

THIS. I had kidney failure from AM2201 and went into a nasty coma after having a seizure and upon falling down broke both my shoulders. sad thing is i didn't know what caused all of this because the coma gave me amnesia and about 6 months later i picked the shit back up. eventually rehab helped me kick it for good. thank god
 
Did way too many RC's and i more than likely should be dead right now.

That's how I feel. We who have abused multiple research chemical's and have not completely altered our ability to comprehend or even think straight should be very thankful. I have an old friend who IVd 2CB and was never the same afterwards. Kept talking about colors not looking the way they should and other weird shit.

Also, my advice to anyone who reads this - If you are on an "Antidepressant", DON'T MIX IT WITH ANYTHING - ESPECIALLY RCs (smoke shop available RCs included)! My brother drank a tincture of "SPICE" tea while on some random antidepressant (I'm not sure which one, his doc had him jumping meds more then anyone I've ever known) and ended up in an insane asylum for 3 months.

Antidepressants are dangerous and react to pretty much every other drug out there yet doctors still prescribe them as if they're prescribing lortabs for a broken arm. Fucking idiots.
 
Don't use synthetic Cannabis long term or even medium term, is my advice.

I have particular concerns over it's long term use, I would not want anyone I know using it regularly.

It's muck.
 
Don't use synthetic Cannabis long term or even medium term, is my advice.

I have particular concerns over it's long term use, I would not want anyone I know using it regularly.

It's muck.

AMEN!!!

Synthetic cannabinoids are as dangerous as cannabis is safe. In other words synthetics (all of them) are shockingly dangerous. I know way to many kids trying to find an alternative to weed that end up down the synthetic road. Spice is probably worse on your body than most other drugs. I've heard horror stories of people ending up in the er with irreparable damage of some sort just from smoking spice.
 
Not all synthetics are super dangeeous. I never saw many problems with the early jwh blends. Its only when they where banned and the AM and WIN blends hit the market that shit went bad.
 
I forgot how bad that shit made me stutter. or I couldn't find a common word when trying to make sentences. I would be stuck like "wtf was that word for that"? I been better lately it all kind of came back to mme once I left it alone for a year and a half.
 
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