Roofus

heyall It's day 3 and I'm noticing "the tremors"(withdrawl) symptoms getting fewer and further between. HOWEVER my question is more or less on the use of pot to quit drinking. I know there are going to be mixed opinions on the issue. I have been drinking much longer then smoking, but i find when I'm a bit stoned it takes away 90% of the want/wishing to drink. I don't ever do stupid things, if anything I make BETTER decisions LOL. I am able to function just fine, calms me down. It's way cheaper, at least where I'm from. I am just wondering if I am completely out of line or if it has worked for anyone else?

honesty would be appreciated.

thanks in advance

Dee74

A lot of us like to think/hope that maybe there's a drug out there that's 'good' for us...

I never found one and I spent decades looking.

I destroyed my life as completely on pot as I did on alcohol.
For me it was like swapping one set of ball and chains for another set.

I was the problem...I wanted to run away...

but regardless of whatever I used to try and make that happen, I could never outrun myself, y'know?...

I think you already know it's a bad idea Roofus?
D

zjw

never really worked for me to go from one substance to another. In the end i found i just ran from trying to get a fix from one thing to trying to get a fix from another. Booze being a favorite along with dope i was never able to do one or the other personally. I had long since given up dope when i quit drinking and i climbed the walls looking for a fix when i gave up booze a fix i new i had to get over and get past if i wanted to be sober. It was not easy. I did keep smoking cigarettes for a while after i gave up booze i guess but thats not the same.

I'd imagine your running from fix to fix trying to tame the beast I dunno that thats the answer beating that beast is. At least for me so i cant advocate you doing that.

oakwood

Well, we can't give medical advice, you know, and I don't have direct experience with your situation. I just wonder...you say it's much cheaper. Cheaper than what, some prescription medicine to calm you down? IDK, relying on pot to quit drinking just doesn't seem right to me. JMO.

I wish you luck with your quest. I hope someone else can add more comment to your question.

Midlifecrisis

For me it doesn't work. I used amphetamines because they masked my eating disorder, it is still there. I used pot and later heroin (great idea I know) when I was trying to give up amphetamines. Lately I've been drinking to try and get off benzos and opiates.

I keep going around in circles because nothing has changed. It might seem to work short term because it makes you feel better but at he end of the day it's just another addictive substance.

For me it doesn't work because I just get addicted to the next thing.

zjw

I'd like to add I know it sounds corny and no fun to just go without all substances. oh perhaps this one or that one will do so i can quit the other etc..

its like eating cake instead of ice cream hopeing that way you wont get fat. I'm sure ions of folks on this board have tried what your thinking no ones just goodie goodies trying to give you the by the book answer just because. I'd imagine many of us know from first hand expierience that playing in the gray area doesnt exactly keep ya sober.

Ohio1

Pretty much agree with all you guys. I didn't need booze when I smoked and I liked that better however it was arguably worse than booze. Opiates did the same thing- didn't need pot or booze if I had them fortunately I never was able to get too many of those (or benzos same deal).

It really is just all the same, addiction is about the person and the mind not so much about the drug.

A side note on the pot- it will stop working and you will not be able to smoke enough to get high I have seen this many times and experienced it myself. This is when I ended up with booze and pot together and was all downhill from there.

zjw

agree with ohio1 pot also stopped working for me. I'd get tired and unable to breath from smokeing so stinken much of it. giving it up was rather easy but i just consumed more booze for my fix. So yeah my booze addiction got worse and worse. Also like Ohio benzo's woulda been great but couldnt get them either. Addiction is addiction it really doesnt matter what it is. Even an addiction to something good for you like broccoli could cause problems if not kept in order!!. People find themselves addicted too food sweets cigarettes drugs etc.. on and on. Gotta beat the addiciton not trade it for a new one.

RockerChick

I actually prefer weed to booze. But I have teens now and we could no longer discreetly hide the smell. I've been sober from weed for one year tomorrow. Of course I do feel stupid saying I'm sober from a PLANT. Hoping it will be legal in my state one day.

Fernaceman

I tried the marijuana maintenance program many times. It worked for a time, but eventually I craved something with more of a punch. This inevitably led back to booze or more recently, the harder drugs. Just my experience tho.

shadesofgray

If you are in a country where medical use of marijuana is legal and it has been advised by your doctor, you should consume only as prescribed and under strict medical control. If you're in a do-it-yourself situation, it's probably not a good idea because you're just replacing one high with another. I have no clue as to how to live without highs, so I'm not the best person to give advice here, but there probably IS a way (like getting your high from playing music or other creative activity as opposed to substances).

flutter

I worked really hard on my recovery to learn how to live life without being in an altered state of mind, and that is really important to me. I guess it depends on what your recovery goals are? We're all different, we're addicted different, we recover differently. Personally I know I'd get myself in the same amount of psychological trouble if I continued using anything to keep me from living my life with a clear mind.

hamabi

It worked for me very well for almost 4 weeks.

desserts

After I quit drinking I used pot as my social drug for about a year. It's really just replacing one vice for another. Granted I never got into a fight or broke something, or ended up in a hospital because of pot, but I'd just say go completely sober. I quit smoking pot september 13th 2012, and have never felt better, though I feel as though my short-term memory is permanently impaired

sugarbear1

any altered state of mind isn't being sober

what's the point??

Sobriety is awesome!

TheEnd

Of course it does, because you are altering your body's natural state. From my perspective, I have done pretty much every drug and while it may seem like it's actually helping your cause, you will always be reliant on some chemical or thing to give you that good feeling. All drugs are pretty much the same, in the beginning they are great, but eventually you will need more and more of it to continue to have that great feeling. It really is not worth your trouble to go down this path, because they all lead to the same place.

tehmazzyland

Although I was a problem drinker from early teens, when I moved to my own place I began using pot instead and was a lot less destructive of my life (although not particularly more constructive). But I found when there was no pot available, the drinking came back and worse each time.

Later on, in my mid-twenties the drinking became a hell-storming problem, and then I used pot when I could - either to manage the cravings when there was no drink, or to send me to sleep when I'd had a drink (better than more drink). Again though - as soon as the pot was unavailable, the drinking came back worse. The pot was masking the issues, not helping them.

During and after rehab I went totally straight and sober, no medication after the first weeks of librium - and there were times I gave myself space to think about pot. It might sound daft but I was almost methodical - on good days and bad days I carved out some space to think as objectively as I could manage "Would things be better or worse, would I feel better or worse if I was stoned right now?".

What I'll say is that for me, fixing sobriety to my life properly, and ensuring my security of staying sober HAD to be done without any other substances. On a personal level, there was no way I would feel as secure as I do now if there had been any intervening chemicals as I was on the journey towards not-drinking. (note (as much to self as anyone else): being secure isn't being confident... because that'd lead to being complacent... and that path leads back to hell. I'm comfortable with my sobriety.)

Since I found some security though, I did use pot during a bad, very bad time. I treated it as self-medication. And at every stage I was clear with myself that a)it was a tool, not an answer and b)those times it wasn't available, then that was that, I stick it through without anything else.

But I'd not recommend it as a tool for getting through the DTs - because it only masks the cravings, it doesn't deal with them. No matter how long you go without drink, if you did it on pot then the moment you run out of pot - you're in serious trouble. (In my own experience.)

BillyPilgrim

Sounds a bit like using a chainsaw to cut your toenails with

Riel

I've met people who claimed that their cannabis use had enabled them to overcome a long-term drinking problem. They seemed sincere in this belief.

Certainly, cannabis would be by far the lesser evil for those for whom it worked. No lining up for a liver transplant, for one thing.

Nowell

Hi there,
I'm a recovering alcoholic, been sober for 6 years. Here is my experience w/marijuana... I was never into weed - at all. It simply didn’t do anything for me. I always knew I liked drinking a little too much and since alcoholism runs in my family, I wasn’t shocked when it got out of control. About 6 months into my sobriety, I was offered pot and thought - what the hell, it never did anything for me and it wasn’t my problem anyway. (It was really sh!tty pot too.) I took 1 hit and IMMEDIATELY wanted more. I knew that feeling all too well (a feeling I now know as the "mental obsession") and I realized that weed was something that I couldn’t do either. Keep coming back