Social I regret smoking everyday

[Thomas Davie]

Jose Rivas Da Silva; thanks for posting those references. Interesting and pretty much what I suspected. Some people can get addicted more easily than others, so the answer has got to be somewhere(s) in the brain.

And there certainly seem to be different levels of addiction; I regularly go on/off cannabis, don’t drink alcohol and quit cigarettes about 22 yrs ago. I was only smoking for 3 1/2 years and that was tough. That I easily knew I was addicted. Ultra light > Extra light > filterless > Camel’s. I started stopping smoking by using Nicolette gum until I realized I was spending more on that than on cigarettes. I knew I was addicted when I’d drive to another province where the price was half and smuggle back 20 cartons (and kept them all to myself).

Throw in the words habituation, tolerance and the degree to which you will take risks....complex.

again, thanks for the references 9i never got published in Nature; just a couple of co/sub author ships in less prestigious journals and only because I was the lab tech who performed all the assays.

Tom

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

to me, it is obvious that weed changes the brain's reward system, everyone who smokes daily knows this, everything is more interesting high on weed, games, sex, food, music, etc., guess why?

I know people who have been addicted to THC or cannabis/hash. They said how if they did not smoke it daily they would feel physically ill, and are unable to function or even eat food.

The only drug I became addicted to is caffeine but I drink it daily in coffee, green tea, yerba/erva mate. On days or times when I have less caffeine or none at all I do not get withdrawal.

I never used cannabis or hash daily as it was expensive, I did not like smoking anything daily and this was before vaporizers were around. I am extremely lucky I never became addicted to any of the hard drugs I dabbled with or used including alcohol.

 

[Ticket]

Cannabis can absolutely be physically addictive. I'm going through cannabis withdrawals right now. I don't have an addictive personality, it's not a psychological thing, in fact I was mystified as to why exactly I was feeling these awful sensations since I'm not on or dependent on any other substances, I was only using weed. Lots and lots of weed, easily up to 10g a day, extremely high quality stuff, but I've on and off been a heavy cannabis smoker for over a decade and never once had any kind of withdrawals so it shocked the hell out of me when I managed to put 2 and 2 together to realize it was definitely the weed. Awful headaches, diarrhea, crazy dreams, body aches, insomnia, panic attacks and intense anxiety, nausea, mood swings, no appetite, etc. I freaked out half thinking the opiate withdrawals were back, but I'm nearly 5 months clean so it couldn't be, and the only thing that made me feel any better was smoking some weed. I'd be out happily doing something, weed and getting high the furthest thing from my mind, and start getting trembles, creeping anxiety, sweats, extreme headaches, and be totally confused as to wtaf was even happening to me. Get home, smoke some weed, totally fine immediately. It's the weed, it's 100% the weed. I was completely convinced that cannabis has no withdrawal symptoms, I've always 'known' that, would've said 'ofc it doesn't, maybe some psychological rebound effects stopping if you're a heavy user but that's it', sworn it up and down like others are doing in here. But hey I was wrong. Now, I had never been as heavy a smoker as I had been for the last 6 months or so, where I was basically stoned all day every day, smoking a couple of grams every 30-60mins or so that whole time as I approached the tail end of my benzo and opiate tapers then through the subsequent withdrawals from those. So maybe (probably) if I hadn't been using quite so much quite so often I wouldn't have had any physical WDs since I never had before. But it's real, and it's pretty shitty ngl. I think physical addiction is probably very rare, and obviously your amount and frequency of use is a factor, maybe some people just aren't affected that way at all even with long term heavy use. But some people certainly are affected that way and it's pretty ignorant and presumptuous to laugh and say it's literally impossible and just not a thing at all just because it's uncommon.

I've never been addicted to nicotine personally, despite sometimes being a full time smoker, sometimes just social, sometimes just coz I'm having a beer and I like the way the combination feels and tastes. But I've never 'needed' a cigarette and if I don't have any or can't have one it's no problem and I won't even think about it for weeks on end with no cravings or side effects. I wouldn't try to tell anyone that cigarettes aren't and cannot ever be addictive just because I'm not susceptible to nicotine addiction though.