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Recovery For Those Of You Who Quit Weed

LawyerLife

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 4, 2016
Messages
164
Question For Those Of You That Quit For Good
After an up and down battle, I've finally decided to call it quits for good. Smoked up last on 12/13 and have decided to call it quits.

My problems with weed began sometime about a year and a half ago, when I started to develop anxiety. Whether or not it's due to the weed or my extremely stressful life situation is up for debate. Some people say it was the weed that brought on the anxiety, while others say that the weed unleashes the anxiety and the frustration when I smoke.

Anyway .... I decided to take a long break in May of this year, which lasted until the first week of October when I decided to smoke up again. I was ok for about 3-4 weeks and then the anxiety hit back again. So I decided that I'm done.

I last smoked up 16 days ago, and the past week has been pure hell. Severe anxiety and now deep and debilitating depression. Apettite gone, fog and dizziness, feelings like I'm losing control etc etc .... All the things I've experienced when I quit in May ...

Question - For those of you that quit for good, did you ever go back to being your old self? Meaning, did you come to a point when the anxiety and depression went away for good, and you felt that you were "normal." The way you were before you started smoking.

I first smoked in 12, then smoked pretty much every other day or two days in 13, then went to sporadic use in 14 and 15, and barely have smoked here in 16 ...

Thank you all for your answers.
 
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Whats up LL, I remember my first toke, many many years ago. I had bad anxiety and when I smoked, it eased the stress and tension. Over time, smoking intensified my anxiety, but lessened the depression. It made me happy, but I remember everytime I heard a car door close from outside of my house, I swore it was the police coming to get me for smoking...paranoid much? I quit smoking, but picked up another nasty habit in the form of pain pills. While they helped me feel more mentally stable, everything around me fell to shit.

Your brain, like any other organ in your body, can become sick. You want to heal the sickness, not just cover the symptoms. Doing this will be different for everyone. I would advice to talk to a doctor about it. Dont just go to the doctor once and expect to be cured, it will take time. Maybe medication is required, maybe therapy. The key is to locate the source of the anxiety and depression and treat that. It sounds like the anxiety/depression has always been there for you, but maybe not very noticeable, and when you started smoking, you masked it, and now you can feel it more when you are off of it? It's kinda like me and the pain pills. I have more pain after the effects wear off than before i popped one. Hope this helped, and stay in touch and let us know how you are doing.
 
Appreciate the response. I'm hoping that my stressful life is to blame and not the weed use
 
Hi Lawyer, just quit on friday but I did go 4 months sober at the start of 2016. The time clean from it taught me that it causes anxiety. I too am stressed to my tits. IME smoking weed just masks the stress, and it manifests as anxiety during the high. Getting high and avoiding emotions rather than dealing with them for a good 20 years doesn't build a great deal of emotional strength I guess?

That said, to answer your question - I felt a lot better 2-3 months clean. Keep in mind THC stays in your body for ages, stored in your fat cells etc. It takes a while to detox from it. But the only way out is through.
 
Thanks for the response. I'm done. Gonna work out and try to eat healthy. My days smoking weed are finished. Not worth the pain and suffering. Wanna have emotional stability and be able to feel like I used to. Done and done
 
I quit herb not because of anxiety or panic, as I loved being extremely stoned to the point where I would trip on THC, but because I had quit everything else except herb and alcohol and I had been using both herb and alcohol since I was 14 and 15 on and off. I did not want to wake up one day in my 50s or older and realize I had spent my entire adult life using drugs. It's also not healthy to drink alcohol, or vape or smoke anything for that long.

Have a wonderful new year.
 
Smoking weed used to make me so paranoid. I love it now. I feel for you since weed has so many benefits, but they are over ruled sometimes by the anxiety.

Have you tried eating it? Also when you get paranoid on weed, is it a physical reaction or more like negative thoughts and irrational fears? Did I read it right that the only reason you want to quit is because of the anxiety? Or are there other factors?

Best of luck!

- VE
 
For me starting again is somewhat unpleasant usually because I try to smoke like I did before I quit. If you take 1 hit or whatever super small amount you will enjoy it and your tolerance will build back to where you can smoke normally and socially again.
 
Smoking weed used to make me so paranoid. I love it now. I feel for you since weed has so many benefits, but they are over ruled sometimes by the anxiety.


Have you tried eating it? Also when you get paranoid on weed, is it a physical reaction or more like negative thoughts and irrational fears? Did I read it right that the only reason you want to quit is because of the anxiety? Or are there other factors?

Best of luck!

- VE

I love the feelings it gives. But the anxiety and depression it unleashes a day or two later are just not worth it ... Weed used to be great, those days are behind
 
I love weed, and have found it to be a great comfort as I try to quit heroin and other hard drugs. Recently, I've been considering giving it up for reasons similar to what Priest listed above. No promises yet, though ;).

For those of you who suffer from pot-induced anxiety but are still interested in continuing to use cannabis while avoiding paranoia, etc., I recommend trying to find one or two strains that work for you. One of the nice things about the increasingly gentrified weed market is that the consumer can often choose from quite a few strains. And the difference in effect among these strains can be profound. Maybe your days of soaring sativa highs are over. But you might find that a mellow indica still floats your boat.

...I'm adding this paragraph b/c I realized I didn't answer the OP's original question (no, I'm actually not stoned right now--just being lame). I have quit weed a few times for a couple months each. At each time, I do notice a bit of a 'fog lifting' at first, and of course my cardiovascular strength improves. But in the long run, I seem to return pretty much to equilibrium whether I'm smoking or not. Beyond a quit of a few months, though, I can't speak from experience.
 
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Some people are sensitive to THC and get anxiety from it. Likely, this is the case. Some people would advise a more CBD heavy strain, but I don't believe this is necessarily "the answer". I have been unable to quit weed/shatter. The longest break I ever took was about 9 days. Needless to say, I, alongside many others, find the experience to be relaxing. If it's not relaxing, then it's not for you.

A lot of people report the "type of reaction" they get from weed changes after you've used it long enough. It sounds like this is what happened.

I applaud your efforts to quit. I don't know if I'll ever be able to.
 
Some people are sensitive to THC and get anxiety from it. Likely, this is the case. Some people would advise a more CBD heavy strain, but I don't believe this is necessarily "the answer". I have been unable to quit weed/shatter. The longest break I ever took was about 9 days. Needless to say, I, alongside many others, find the experience to be relaxing. If it's not relaxing, then it's not for you.

A lot of people report the "type of reaction" they get from weed changes after you've used it long enough. It sounds like this is what happened.

I applaud your efforts to quit. I don't know if I'll ever be able to.

I have so many great memories from my early cannabis days. I will hear an old song and almost have a photographic recollection experience of the innocent first time perceptions I had in the day. But when I try it nowadays, I can't get it back. I don't know if my brain has changed due to all the prescription drugs I've taken (or just age) or the times have changed, or both. Maybe it's a bit of a set and setting thing like they used to say about acid. If it works for somebody, they should absolutely be able to use it IMHO.

My wife has even suggested I get off the bupe and lyrica type meds and use it instead now that it will be permitted here. I haven't given up on it. In my mind it will always be an honored sacrament.

About the anxiety thing, we used to sit around and debate why we smoked it if it made us paranoid and decided and decided that paranoid feeling was actually something we liked.
 
Some people are sensitive to THC and get anxiety from it. Likely, this is the case. Some people would advise a more CBD heavy strain, but I don't believe this is necessarily "the answer". I have been unable to quit weed/shatter. The longest break I ever took was about 9 days. Needless to say, I, alongside many others, find the experience to be relaxing. If it's not relaxing, then it's not for you.

A lot of people report the "type of reaction" they get from weed changes after you've used it long enough. It sounds like this is what happened.

I applaud your efforts to quit. I don't know if I'll ever be able to.


That was my experience. I used weed daily for years, sometimes just after work, sometimes all day long. It brought me nothing but chilled times for 20 years and suddenly it turned on me. Admittedly I had no control or cognizance over what strand I was smoking - just whatever I could get my hands on.


I couldn't have seen me quitting smoke without the change in the type of reaction. I smoked to unwind but now it only winds me up tighter, which is just too dangerous while I'm putting smack behind me.
 
Thank you all for your responses. I'm done for good. Been a hard few weeks, severe depression and anxiety, but I've been here before. Not smoking again. Done and done.
 
Good on ya Law. Me too mate. Sorry you had a hard time of it but it's gonna be worth it.
 
It is what it is. Perhaps when I navigate the rough waters that I'm is my life right now, I'll be able to relax a bit more .... For now I've decided to give up just about every single thing I can. I never smoked cigarettes, so don't have to worry about that. I'm gonna cut back on coffeine and alcohol too. I drink a few drinks every few days and I'm gonna cut back on that.

I want to get back to natural living as much as possible.
 
I quit for almost a year when I got pregnant and was breastfeeding and ha, I way over did it the first few times when I started back. It was so unenjoyable that I stopped for about a month and when I tried again, I just took a couple hits and it set well with me. I'm still not smoking near what I was before I quit the very first time.
 
I've had this experience of the bud turning on me many times as well. A very typical "veteran" smoker in my evenings and weekends when I wasn't busy with life, but then every now and then I'd get really short of breath and dizzy. It was essentially triggering anxiety attacks. I still smoke, but I have to be very aware not to overdue it. I'm considering a period of abstinence myself .... considering.
 
yeah that was basically my experience also. Loved weed, smoked every day for a long time. Tried to quit, and came back to it, quit again, came back. Eventually it stopped being fun and started to cause anxiety. So I'd medicate the anxiety with benzos or alcohol or opiates or all of the above. And eventually it became apparent to me that this was dumb, that I no longer enjoyed smoking weed. For whatever reason, I had changed or my brain chemistry changed or something. But it was no longer enjoyable. So that was a couple years ago and I haven't smoked since nor do I have the desire to.

I think possibly what happened is when I started fucking with opiates I realized how much better they were than weed. And then that created another problem. Which I also ended up having to face.
 
Life After Weed - My Monthly Progress Report

I decided to give up on my love of weed when it became apparent that it no longer produced euphoria and relaxation. I've decided to do a month to month update for those who are seeking guidance and want to quit. I'm curious to see how I will feel once the weed is totally gone and if my own feelings will return to where they were before I smoked first in late 2012.

I last smoked on 12/13/2016.

DAY 30:

First 10-14 after quitting I had absolutely no issues. As if nothing happened. But when I hit day 18, all hell broke loose. I became severely depressed for 3 straight days, and developed anxiety. Around day 22, depression went away, replaced by anhedonia and anxiety. I literally have no joy in life. Constant state of mellow sadnes and anxiety. Appetite is gone, having a tough time sleeping. Sex drive has been gone for a while, and I have depersonalization around women mostly. Lost all motivation to do almost anything. Forcing myself to hit the gym. Taking vitamins D, B6, B12, Zinc, and a multivitamin. Situation sucks.
 
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