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Author Topic: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!  (Read 1229 times)

Tylui

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I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« on: June 27, 2013, 10:38:55 am »

I have a pretty strong mind, in my opinion, and whoever said pot's not addictive is kinda wrong. It's not as addictive as heroin or meth, or even "non-narcotic" tramadol, but it sure had a death-grip on my brain.

Easy fix though: I had my brother come by and steal it from me without telling me when he was going to do it. Without it around, I no longer appear on my couch with a pipe in hand from boredom.

I used to be able to handle anxiety attacks, before drugs, and now it seems I've lost my natural ability to deal. Any tips? Breathing exercises don't usually work for me. As I said, I have a strong(ish) mind and I know, deep down, that breathing doesn't really fix the problem-with-no-cause. I was prescribed Xanax for emergency attacks, but I'm going to try to avoid using those for any little freak out.
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Spaghetti7

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Re: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2013, 10:50:25 am »

Congradeurelations for the lack of the weeds!

Regarding the anxiety problem, there are only a few things that I find help:
  • Take my mind off it: I can't just do that by thinking "I SHALL NOT THINK ABOUT THIS THING" but it's more something like taking a shower, doing exercise or the such. As long as I don't think about myself doing this thing to forget this other thing, that usually works (not sure that sentence was even English, but hey)
  • Tell someone about it: This is actually oddly effective for me. I usually only do it when it starts to get real bad and I feel like I definitely can't deal with it, but the sarcastic "here we go again" sighs and "STOP WORRYING FFS" screams usually make me realise it's just me being dumb. That or sympathy usually kinda sober me up and make me want to stop making so much of a damn fuss so people can save their sympathy for when I actually deserve it.
  • Just stick it: Sometimes, either when I'm not in company I'd share my problems with or have no way of getting a distraction or any way of trying to distract myself without CONSTANT WORRYING ABOUT O EM GEE LIFE WUT IS THIS, I just let it go. Mine comes from something I know isn't realistically going to happen at all, so I just basically say to my body "Go ahead. Try me. I know you ain't up to it". It'll usually then get to a point where I can barely keep it in without just running off somewhere, stay there for a bit, then just start to taper away. I just see it as it giving up, and going back to biding its time and waiting for another time where it can try again.

I know half of that doesn't make sense, and you could be totally different, but HEY! Hope something there kinda helped in some way. :P
« Last Edit: June 28, 2013, 05:21:15 am by Spaghetti7 »
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Vector

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Re: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2013, 09:33:11 pm »

Make a list of things you can control about the problem and things you can't control.  Focus on working on the things you can control.
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Bauglir

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Re: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2013, 07:27:15 pm »

As I said, I have a strong(ish) mind and I know, deep down, that breathing doesn't really fix the problem-with-no-cause.
You could try the Placebo Solution. Since the Placebo Effect is an effect, you can mitigate some problems by reminding yourself that anything you believe will fix something will help, no matter how inane or unrelated that solution might be. Therefore, even if you know that there's no reason for breathing to help because it's breathing, you know that the placebo effect can make it work, thereby giving you the belief in it necessary for the placebo effect.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Valtam

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Re: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2013, 11:25:13 pm »

Now this sounds pretty familiar for me.

Congratulations, it's a hard step and it surely brings more joy to choose when to "have fun" and do stuff, rather than such stuff picking you to do it. As you've said, it's not as physically dangerous as the hard drugs, but still manages to dent your willpower.

Anxiety will be pretty hard to cope in the first months, and if you're not a good dwarf who can handle stress easily then you might be prone to fits of anger and loss of sleep.

Being off from your own mind is a must, as Spaghetti7 said, and doing a lot of physical exercise helps with this, and will get you asleep while your normal sleep rythm gets on track. My idea of physical exercise has to be understood as doing really demanding stuff, like swimming or getting on a bike and get to the countryside and back, because skateboarding or just walking allow a greater degree of thinking, and is just not enough for your body to express itself. There will be a lot of things to express that were just under your smoking habit, expect to lose yourself at times. There's really no need to say this, but you might get pretty fit and healthy, not that you might care but it's helpful.

Claim your old hobbies, play videogames or watch TV when your brain gets overclocked. It's one of the reasons that there are TV sets at mental institutions, they let your mind at ease to go away. It's heavily recommended that you do not practice zapping while watching TV.

Build new habits, out of nothing, so the relationship between your idleness and the environment gets rebuilt. Wash your face every night, write a journal (even better if you use pen and paper) and consign some basic goals for the day. Even if you don't accomplish them you might have some kind of lead for the daily routine.

I see your brother is involved. I hope he doesn't smoke, but anyway, for the time being don't stay in places where people smoke, even if you feel determined and say "no" to any weed offering, doing just that might take your anxiety up a few notches. Remember that willpower is limited, do not abuse that plentiful resource, you will need it. Getting back to your brother, talk to him and ask some patience his side, you'll do better in company for these first days, as you gather more reasons to be confident and certain about your decision. Also, your body has to clean all that waste while your sinaptic links recover their original strenght, somebody who's just there for a pillow-talk or to get a medical check-up is always helpful.

Drink water. Lots of it, for the aforementioned reason. That'll ease the process and peeing happens to be also a blissful routine; as Bauglir said, if you think that leaking the chemicals off from your body is helping you somehow then you should have more reasons to feel more relaxed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As a small endnote, if you're somehow tied to a lot of social media websites as Facebook or Twitter, to name a few, you might do better if you close those services for a while. While it sounds a bit nutty (nothing really does when you're under a panic attack) part of the anxiety stuff derives from your perceived image and what you think you're reflecting to society as a whole. As people behind screens tend to be quite judgemental and tactless, then you should do better without them for a while. Take your time to rendezvous with non-smoking friends, face to face, and do some stuff together a day in a week. I think many of them will understand your choice and will be pretty supportive.

---

Maybe I went way over the original question, but I hope it helps somehow, I've seen this happen a few times. Tell us how it comes.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2013, 11:27:34 pm by Valtam »
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Sergius

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Re: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2013, 12:43:30 pm »

When people say that weed is not addictive compared to other drugs, they usually mean physically addictive.

Not in the "I WANT IT!" sense, but actually feeling sick, actual physical pain, vomiting, and losing control completely trying to get it back, including stabbing your friends or family or whatever, which is what happens with those.

Weed is addictive like chocolate or facebook is addictive or sugar or dancing or extreme sports or being spanked or washing their hands 300 times a day or whatever. It's a learned behavior and it's hard to break the cycle, and some disorders may compound it. When people go "cold turkey" from MJ it's not like they want to murder people or feel their brains are trying to come out of their skulls or have seizures.

Just sayin'.
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Helgoland

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Re: I quit smoking weed! Huzzah!
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2013, 12:04:20 pm »

AFAIK that "not physically addicting" thing goes for cocaine as well - cannabis being non-addictive is bullshit, but I suppose it's very much like alcohol: Because its effects are not overwhelmingly strong at normal doses, most people don't get addicted.
But, more importantly:
Congrats on kicking the habit!
You probably already know about Erowid, but if not, these two links might be of great help:
Erowid cannabis vault.
The Erowid cannabis experience vault. Of special interest to you may be the lower parts, where reports on health and habituative effects are collected.
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