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Maintaining Sanity in Chronic Conditions

Korn,

That's interesting, I had similar experiences for different reasons - when I was young my family was poor and I'd be alone for periods of time because my parent was making bread. It definitely teaches you how to keep yourself entertained. I think that most people talk to themselves, maybe it's a form of self-pacification that's utilized when there's nobody to talk to.

rave_itsrealfun,

Unfortunately melatonin is illegal where I live, I know, it's pretty backwards. On the bright side, 5-HTP is a precursor to melatonin as well as serotonin. Having said that, I'm still having trouble sleeping. Can completely understand the anxiety you're talking about, it only really becomes apparent how bad it is after you stop smoking for a while.

LogicSoDeveloped,

What your grandmother did is plain fucked up. Who the hell drug tests their own family!? It's not surprising that you wanted to block that out with copious amounts of weed, I think anyone else would have the same reaction.

Chainer,

Since I have both empirical and anecdotal evidence to support my claim and you have what seems to be an opinion, I'm going to disregard your comment. EDIT: Not to mention that even if I'm wrong about serotonin, I'm still right about the effectiveness of 5-HTP due to the fact that cannabis use affects melatonin and 5-HTP is a precursor to that.
 
Man I had horrific family issues as well. My parents are both police officers, they only know I smoke dope but they went absolutely apeshit about it. They ruined my relationship with them and never allowed me to let myself grow. I honestly can say that I do not have a family. They were drug testing me at your age and putting ideas in my head that I was a selfish, crazy bastard. I had to get a friend from school who didn't smoke dope to pee in a cup for me on a regular basis. Destroyed my self esteem until I became wise enough to realize that they were the ones who are fucked. It took me so much longer to mature because of this. Even to this day, when I am a 23 year old with an engineering degree, doing really well for myself, they still treat me like a child. It is pathetic. Recently, my mom has been observing my facebook through other members of my family, reading my cell phone texts and internet history, searching my room and taking things like porn mags, completely invading my privacy in every possible way. Then she boasts about the information she has discovered and says she got it from my internet supplier, or heard it from the police at work. I left home and will never speak to them again. There is one stereotype we are all right about - pigs are dumb fucks.

LSD, I remember a time when I was not much younger than you and they showed up at a party where I was chilling with all my friends from school and was wasted. They were laughing together and celebrating as they brought me home, and they took pictures of me puking in the washroom and showed them to me the next day while grinning. That shit still haunts me to this day so I'm just letting you know, you're not the only one with a fucked up family. This has absolutely been one of the reasons why I became such a drug addict. They are going to tell you shit that they know best and you are going to thank them one day. You need to realize that age does not imply maturity and that a lot of people in this world are just plain fucked in the head.
 
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rave_itsrealfun!!! said:
Man I had horrific family issues as well. My parents are both police officers, they only know I smoke dope but they went absolutely apeshit about it. They ruined my relationship with them and never allowed me to let myself grow. I honestly can say that I do not have a family. They were drug testing me at your age and putting ideas in my head that I was a selfish, crazy bastard. I had to get a friend from school who didn't smoke dope to pee in a cup for me on a regular basis. Destroyed my self esteem until I became wise enough to realize that they were the ones who are fucked. It took me so much longer to mature because of this. Even to this day, when I am a 23 year old with an engineering degree, doing really well for myself, they still treat me like a child. It is pathetic. Recently, my mom has been observing my facebook through other members of my family, reading my cell phone texts and internet history, searching my room and taking things like porn mags, completely invading my privacy in every possible way. Then she boasts about the information she has discovered and says she got it from my internet supplier, or heard it from the police at work. I left home and will never speak to them again. There is one stereotype we are all right about - pigs are dumb fucks.
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If you don't like her and her ignorant attitude towards cannabis, move out. You've got an BEng, right, so your chances of finding employment should be quite good, even if initially it's not what you want to do.

I left home at 18 so at 23 I would say you're more than capable of going it alone, rather than being dependent on your parents. If you want to live at home (especially at that age) then you have to be willing to put up with stuff like that. It is her house at the end of the day.

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but I just thought you might want to see if from a different perspective.
 
ProducedRaw said:
Added up, all of these things have made a huge difference to my high and general quality of life. You can pick the supplements up at any health food shop or online.

So, greenlighters, have you found any other ways to reach the clouds more effectively?
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a decent diet, exercise, and supplements. especially omega 3, cant recommend it enough. and exercise is generally amazing for you
 
already taken care of all that. thanks though it was something i needed to hear at one point. after being away in school for 4 years living off scholarships, loans and summer work i was naive to think i could spend any time back there at all. things went straight to shit in no time at all, and oh well, it's their loss, not mine. i'm on my own and have already had a bunch of promising interviews, at optical systems firms and whatnot. however, in order to reach this point i needed to quit smoking pot chronically. if i was still blazing, it would no doubt be preventing me from utilising my B.Eng.

Since I quit smoking pot chronically, everything is coming together just splendidly.

I'm also going to add that I tried everything possible to keep smoking pot and succeed in life. I have been eating nothing but healthy home cooked meals for years, every fruit and vegetable under the sun, exercising for hours on a daily basis, tried fish oil, 5-htp, nothing would do it at all for me. Even after dropping 5 hits of acid and having one of the most powerful experiences a person can have, after the afterglow faded I was back to being the same old burnout. You can only change if you have the will to change and in a case like this, an addiction, there is really no choice other than to quit using entirely if you want to get better. The burnout was incurable.
 
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rave_itsrealfun!!! said:
Interesting points here all around.

First of all, even in the depths of chronic marijuana use I have plenty of motivation to do certain things. For instance, I lift weights for 2 hours daily and love going on long cycling adventures while stoned. I also got a university degree in Engineering Physics and I was absolutely stoned out of my mind for everything, exams and all. As a stoner I felt like I had to be high for every activity I partook in. This is addiction and I was lying to myself.

I too was afraid of life which I believe was the cause of my problem. As a chronic stoner I was choosing not to live. Using MDMA and LSD made me realize that I had to change. Everything is a creation of the mind and I can choose any way of life I desire. I am choosing now to be happy and as compassionate to others as I was during my experiences rolling. Smoking weed habitually closed my mind to the point of making this way of life impossible, so I had to quit.

I too have had minor issues with hard drugs in the past, drugs that I would never even dream of using now (coke). This has been due to chronic marijuana use destroying my willfulness and ability to socialize with others. I have seen social problems occur time and time again in chronic users and it really isn't that uncommon. They usually don't even realize they can do better.

Marijuana is meant to be used on rare occasions like any other psychedelic drug. When used in this way, I find it intellectually stimulating, motivating, and it has an all around positive impact on my life. However, I no longer trust myself with the drug because I find it so easy to fall back into chronic use. It took me the longest time to quit because after 3 or 4 days I would start to feel absolutely wonderful, and I would choose to burn again because I knew I would get a lot out of the high and have a great time. Then I would instantly fall back into chronic use, even if the break prior to this was taken for up to 2 weeks and I was confident I could handle getting high again. Eventually I came to admit that I was a junkie, no better than a heroin addict, and that it was stealing all the love from my life. Me trying to receive the benefits of smoking occasionally at this point is like a heroin addict convincing himself he can shoot up every once in a while.

Although naturally I am a social being, and show compassion to all, there are very few people who I consider close friends. I can see this being a common long term effect of psychedelic use. I became far more interested in myself, and less interested in the common people of this world who seem to be interested mainly in simple pleasures such as booze and pussy. Looking back, the person I was before finding myself on the spiritual path was pretty much a robot. My level of awareness was not much higher than that of animal instinct and I believe the vast majority of the world lives like this, at least where I'm from.

EDIT just one more thing:

Quitting is never going to be easy. It takes constant vigilence and you have to always have it in the back of your mind that it's in your best interests not to be blazing. Getting high is always going to be a really easy choice to make.
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Thank you. You could not have put it in better words. I was also one of those people.

My best friend who also smokes (he is not a chronic stoner.. occasionally smokes weed and uses LSD/shrooms) wonders why I just can't smoke weed "occasionally" or "once in a while." For the longest time, I thought too... why can;t I just smoke once in a while... whats the harm?

The last 2 or 3 times I told myself that - I smoked and was dancing with the devil. I came dangerously close to buying another dime and falling into that same cycle. "Once in a while" turns into once a month, then once a week, then weekends, then every night. I guess the reason why my mind is telling me NO is because of that same reason - I just cant trust myself with the substance.

I also find it weird that after I smoke (now that I quit - ive been clean for 6 months) the last time I tried to smoke after I quit chronic use was 3 months ago. I got bad anxiety and was not present minded. I wasnt aware of what was going on socially and I blew a big chance with this girl I was seeing. Ever since then I convinced myself that smoking only does me harm.

Looking back, my social functioning while being a stoner was at an all time low. (It wasn't very high to begin with before I started smoking chronically - probably one of the reasons I got into it in the first place - I was in denial) Something that I now strive to improve every day was being held back by a substance that I was addicted to, and I didnt even notice. I blew many chances with a lot of girls and new friends - but I have no regrets. Being a chronic user has taught me a lot about myself. I wouldn't change what I have now.

thanks for listening
 
Nice post, it's great to hear I'm not alone on this. If chronic smoking has such a poor effect on our social functioning, why did we do it in the first place? I as well just realized that my social functioning wasn't that good back then, before I got hooked either. I think smoking all that weed has improved it immensely in the end. It did put me in a state of mind that, if nothing else, was great for introspective thought, about how not only myself, but also about how other people functioned. All I know is that I love who I am as a person now, I'm smarter and more alive than I've ever been, and I wouldn't be this way if I hadn't put myself through such an experience.

I've been thinking and I don't regret blazing so hard in the slightest. It was the perfect time for it; it no doubt enhanced my understanding of what I was learning in school. Crazy quantum mechanics shit, optics, lasers, particle physics, spacetime, telecommunications, electromagnetic theory - who wouldn't want to be high as fuck while spending all day learning about how the universe can be described in terms of mathematics? Sure I missed out on some pussy, but oh well, there is plenty of pussy to get in the future. I just know that if I were to continue to blaze presently, now that I'm done school and should start making something of myself, I would probably end up throwing my life away. I want a goddess wife and a high paying career and I'm never going to get those things in that burnt out state of mind I've been describing.
 
ColtDan,

Good tips, exercise works wonders for mood. I've actually got some flax seed oil laying around that I haven't been taking so I'll incorporate that into my diet.

rave,

I'm seeing a pattern here - we're all people who have been treated badly by others at some points in our lives. Apart from unintentional neglect, I experienced emotional abuse from one of my mother's boyfriends. Since chronic smoking (no pun) lowers serotonin levels, and serotonin being the social neurotransmitter, maybe we were trying to get away from humanity for a while to figure things out. Maybe it let us cut off those negative connections to the people who hurt us so that we could heal the wounds. It's almost like chemo in it's effect - it destroys the cancer but some healthy tissue gets caught in the cross-fire. It also reminds me of a zen proverb which goes: "First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is."
 
ProducedRaw, I like your insightful comments and I actually just ordered Cosmic Trigger. I'm all for enlightening reads. I think weed definately has a dissociative effect. I was someplace else for sure, a safer place, but at the same time, I was all alone over there. Anyways I think everything is going to work out, we are just all going to have to say goodbye and come back to reality at some point.

ndub, how long would you say the recovery period was? I expect to think less and less about my problem, and pot itself, as time goes on. It hasn't even been a month for me, and I'm still definately in a transitionary period where my body and mind are stabilizing. My thought processes are way overactive - I think way too much while awake, like I'm hyperactive, but I kind of still feel a little burnt out in a pot-related way, and have extremely vivid dreams while sleeping. I'm getting better every week though.
 
Let me give you a little backstory.

In high school Ive never really been good with girls. In fact, I didnt even kiss a girl until I was 20 (im 21) now. At age 18 towards the end of my senior year of high school and throughout the first couple months of university I was scared and depressed. My roommates introduced me to mysterious plant "weed." I've heard of it before through all those DARE classes i was forced to take in middle school (i never really cared for them, thought they were a joke but I never did any other drugs - i just drank with my friends on the weekends) After that it was all history from there. Until the end of my sophomore year I had been smoking chronically for 2 and a half years.

I believe the reason why I chose to smoke is exactly what you just said - it gave me a "safer place" to be in. I was shy and I didn't want to face reality and actually grow some balls and go out to meet new people. It gave me a new, safer world to live in sure, but I was alone. I also believe that it gave me a sort of feminine energy that I never experienced before. I was never good with girls so it was a nice change of pace

As for the recovery process, I realized I had a problem during the summer right after i finished sophomore year. I had some depression, mainly due to regrets. I also realized that before I was a chronic smoker I was pretty serious about my weight training, and during my addiction I was just going to the gym to go through the motions. I had no intensity, no social interaction - I was a robot. A couple months after I quit I started dreaming again, which was amazing. I hadnt had a dream in a good 2 years up until that point, and my short term memory was slowly coming back. To this day my short term memory is still pretty bad. I think I might have destroyed it, for lack of a better word.

Fast forward to present (6mos) I am in the best shape of my life, eating healthy, training hard in the gym, and surrounding myself with positive people. I now have that social intuition - I can easily see who would be destructive or constructive in my life. Weed does come up, but even when Im out drinking or in good company I decline. I'm still trying to figure out whether its all in my head that I get anxiety over the occasional smoke or my body/mind telling me to just give it a rest. I'm still trying to figure that out.
 
ndub,

Regarding the anxiety you get from occasionally smoking, I've noticed that strong sativas, like the skunk we get where I live (I'm not sure what it's called in the US but it provides a very strong heady buzz), are far more likely to induce it than more balanced strains. It could be worth experimenting with indicas or indica/sativa hybrids. Personally, I've noticed that the high quality hash around here is far less likely to induce those feelings and generally has a calming effect. The difference can be huge, as demonstrated here.
 
Shocking how similar your story is to mine. I had terrible back acne from high school all the way til 2nd year university. And if you read my previous posts you'd see that my parents were destroying my self confidence as well. I was scared of females and I was very, very shy. When I went away to university everyone was getting laid, all the time, except for me. As university progressed I managed to fuck 5 girls, but I was wasted every time, sometimes in combination with hard drugs and I didn't really enjoy it and up until the last girl, last November anxiety killed the experiences. In fact, I don't even really remember these experiences and still don't even really know what it's like to connect intimately with a girl. I am still pretty lonely, but chronic pot use was exacerbating this loneliness in an extreme way and my mind became perpetually focussed on it. However, it was also the only thing I knew how to do that would ease the pain of it all. Now that I have quit, I can socialize again and I have no problem talking to girls, so I'm not depressed anymore. There is certainly a hell of a lot of hope for me now. I don't see it in a negative way anymore. I've experienced a hell of a lot and I still have one of the most wonderful experiences a person can have left over to enjoy.

Man I totally agree with the feminine energy point you made as well. I became really passive, had too much yin energy, I started getting into yoga and stuff. I felt like I was invisible to girls. I felt like I had been defeated by them and that every problem in my life was because of them. But really, every problem in my life was because of being stoned as all hell from morning til night every day. Nowadays I'm turning into the alpha male I should have been all along. I have become a man at this point, for the first time, and I'm 23.
 
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Smoking is a valuable tool for me. I'm a writer and it helps me be more creative. However the creativity is the first good effect to go away for me.

Smoking really does loose alot of it's benefit when you dont do it in moderation. Lifting weigths and eating healthy definently keeps the negative side effects at bay, including anxiety. Eat healthy people, excercise and take vitamins! It really works!

So when I get the good effects only it's completely worth it. If smoking gives you anxiety and makes you feel shitty; dont smoke so much.
 
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ProducedRaw - Very interesting video. I did notice that when I tried to smoke occassionally that sometimes I would get that "morbid" feeling she was talking about and other times I would have an amazing ride. How can you tell which strands you are getting from the bud itself... is there a way to tell just by looking at it?

Rave - I have never connected intimately with a girl either, never had a girlfriend.... but you know what? It doesn't fucking matter. What matters is the now and where we are going. I've noticed that when I have the "I don't give a shit" attitude when I go out, and I just wanna have fun... I have a MUCH better time and I am much more successful in that area of my life then if I am consciously thinking about getting laid or getting a girl... It reeks of desperation.

Surround yourself with people in that same mindset, and cut the ones that always bitch about not having a girl, the ones that go to the bar with the "i wanna get laid" mindset, yet just stand there and stare the whole night. I mean, i'm not gonna lie... I do think about it sometimes when Im alone. It IS constructive to think about how you failed in the past so you dont make the same mistakes again in the future. But when you let that shit get to you when your out with your friends or out by yourself people definitely notice whether you think you can hide it or not.

I'm always looking for those types of people to chill with. If weed taught me one thing it's this: Never underestimate the value of good company and friends. They truly are hard to find.
 
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rave & ndub,

The feminine energy you guys are talking and the inability to connect with women seems to be another commonality, I've experienced the same thing, also never had a girlfriend. During my heavy smoking periods, while tripping on certain substances, the feminine feeling was particularly pronounced. I guess there's a benefit to it because it's easier to understand how women normally feel.

ndub,

I don't think that there's a reliable way to tell just by looking at it unless you know the local product that goes around. One way to infer what kind of strain it is would be to look at how people who are already smoking it are acting (in other words, use human guinea pigs). The other way is to try a small dose and judge it by how you feel.

hydrochron,

I do some creative writing too, in the form of poetry, and don't want to give this up entirely because, as you said, creativity blossoms on it. What kind of smoking schedule works best for you? How long do you leave between sessions?
 
I too feel like I understand women better after going through this. I think after I really got into smoking weed, and started burning out, it was the closest thing to female energy I could experience in my life and I was using it to fill that void. I came to see it as a relationship and something to pour my love into as well, kind of sad. I actually have a friend who has been smoking massive amounts of pot chronically for ages, and has decided recently to change his identity. He changed his name to a female one, left his whole life behind, is taking hormones that make him grow tits and raise the pitch of his voice, has an operation to cut his dick off coming up, and has a boyfriend apparently. When asked if he's gay he replies "I don't think so. I just don't feel like I'm a man." I know for a fact this guy used to fuck hot women.
 
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rave_itsrealfun!!! said:
I too feel like I understand women better after going through this. I think after I really got into smoking weed, and started burning out, it was the closest thing to female energy I could experience in my life and I was using it to fill that void. I came to see it as a relationship and something to pour my love into as well, kind of sad. I actually have a friend who has been smoking massive amounts of pot chronically for ages, and has decided recently to change his identity. He changed his name to a female one, left his whole life behind, is taking hormones that make him grow tits and raise the pitch of his voice, has an operation to cut his dick off coming up, and has a boyfriend apparently. When asked if he's gay he replies "I don't think so. I just don't feel like I'm a man." I know for a fact this guy used to fuck hot women.
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that female energy thing is weird now that you mention it. i feel like i understand women more, and one time my mom took me to costco when i was super high, and i was helping her pick out fake plants, and apparently i picked out the best ones they had on selection cuz we were swamped with other women as we were walking out of the store and everyone was making a big deal about them. sometimes i watch chick flicks too, like a few weekends ago i watched black swan. while it wasn't my favorite movie, i still made the decision to rent it, which i'm sure a lot of guys wouldn't just randomly rent black swan lol.

note: i don't act feminine in any way if you saw me in real life, and i am definitely not attracted to guys, nor do i plan on having a sex change operation any time soon (or ever for that matter lol). while you're friend's case may be one of the extremes, that point that you made is rather interesting about the feminine energy.
 
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