Mr. Smith decided to re-type his story. He feels more comfortable sharing the horrible truth behind his addiction, the more he deals with it, and hopes that his story will inspire others.
He had dabbled with Marijuana on and off over the past decade or so, and was recently starting to smoke too much of it again. He was always concerned that what he was doing was illegal, and a few months ago heard about legal alternatives to Marijuana that were being offered for sale from retail outlets in Australia (despite current bans, these things had been "reformulated" apparently) so decided to give it a go. The first time he tried the legal alternative was on holiday interstate - he purchased it from a Legal High shop, tried it, and found it to be very similar to Marijuana.
He thought "great - this stuff is legal, and is like pot". So he ordered some online. He started smoking it more and more, instead of Marijuana. He thought that he was doing the right thing, and substituting his illegal addiction with a legal one. No worse than buying cigarettes or similar, he thought.
However, the more he consumed these "legal highs", the worse he felt his personality changing. He became withdrawn, anxious (more so, he suffered from Depression/Anxiety anyway and was on Zoloft for that), started losing heaps of weight, complete loss of appetite, etc. All the while, he continued to order and consume these products in a big way, smoking more and more to get that "pot-like" effect. He started avoiding social situations, getting out of going to work, etc. People noticed that he was losing a dramatic amount of weight. Still he continued to smoke - he was ADDICTED.
Then, he heard that shops and online stores were having stocks confiscated for testing. So much for a legal high - the manufacturers of this stuff are dodgy and just skirting around the law. Enough was enough - his health was deteriorating fast (both physical and mental) and now there were doubts around the legality of these products. The last of it went in the bin. He felt intense withdrawals. His wife noticed that he was acting odd. He smoked a bit of pot to help with the withdrawals to the synthetic legal substances that were in his system. He cannot stress enough how very REAL these withdrawals were, far worse than anything experienced with nicotine or marijuana. Even smoking weed wasn't really helping. He just felt terrible. He felt that he had somehow ruined his life. He had wasted money on this crap, had smoked WAY TOO MUCH of it (considering that nobody knows what it contains), and just felt like killing himself - seriously.
That was a few weeks ago. After he passed through the worst of the withdrawals he also threw the last little bit of marijuana he had out too. He was done with all of it. The only way he felt he could overcome this addiction to cannabis-like effects (which he was no longer enjoying at all) was to throw the lot out. He threw out his smoking paraphernalia. He reported the sales of these legal highs online within Australia to Police - even though sites and shops were having stocks confiscated, they were just getting different stock (presumably reformulated to dodge the law) in and continuing to sell it!
He couldn't be the only person addicted to this after trying to move away from pot - how can a substance this addictive be marketed as legal? Sales need to stop immediately. Support the bans, the Government has it right on this one...
Now that he's a few weeks away from this "legal high" addiction, he still feels really down on himself for having ever smoked it, but is glad it's over. He also is thankful that this whole experience has turned him off pot too. He is turning his life around. He feels like he was a junkie
This stuff isn't like pot at all and should not be marketed as a legal alternative.
He has obtained counseling. He has been reading self-help books. He is on the road to recovery. He has bad days, but never looks at smoking this crap. He is smoking cigarettes at the moment as one of the persistent withdrawal symptoms seems to be a low simmering anxiety that feels like it'd be "fixed" with a cigarette. Has he permanently altered his brain chemistry? He hopes not... but he is scared of that a bit.
Today he admitted his whole story to his wife. He was so scared of doing that, but she was highly supportive - the sense of relief discussing this with a loved one was amazing.
The episodes of paranoia and anxiety are becoming less frequent the further away he gets from this stuff, so he is improving. This week was pretty bad for him, however, and he has felt very low. The relief of admitting this addiction to his wife has made him feel so much better, so it could have been guilt or shame or similar.