Anybody use weed to get over booze?
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Maine
Posts: 3,649
Originally Posted by Jauburn 
I like to smoke pot because it makes me contemplative and creative. I have no desire not to smoke pot; i just do not have any connections. I do not worry about those folks who claim it is an addictive drug like alcohol, for I know that the two drugs do not compare. Marijuana is much, much less harmful. To me, it just sucks that it is so hard to get.
I've already stated that I have no problem with pot. I've hung with people who smoke it when all the responsibilities of the day are done as a means to relax. Much like people who know how to drink normally. Then, I've seen people, who when forced to go without, jones just as bad as someone who has a drinking problem who runs out of alcohol and the stores have all closed.
In the absence of pot does the alcohol make you more contemplative and creative?
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: North salt lake
Posts: 3,325
Well I don't know about you but I don't doubt some become dependent on weed. I smoke it. When I don't, I don't crave it. It is not addictive to me. When i was in Alaska the past few weeks, I didn't want weed, I wanted liquor and a lot of it, but I didn't drink. So I will continue to smoke when I want to. I'm sure some will disagree, but we can all agree we are all different and what works for one, does not necessarily work for another.
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Maine
Posts: 3,649
I'm with you on that Raider.
Not everyone will have an issue with weed or other things that you can possibly get addicted to.
So I'm just going to come right out and say it.
If someone smokes weed and when it's not available has to find an alternative doesn't that present a question? If the person is not dependent on weed why would it be necessary to find a replacement? Which then leads to the question as to if it's the high obtained from weed itself or just simply the search for a high with whatever is available.
Not everyone will have an issue with weed or other things that you can possibly get addicted to.
So I'm just going to come right out and say it.
If someone smokes weed and when it's not available has to find an alternative doesn't that present a question? If the person is not dependent on weed why would it be necessary to find a replacement? Which then leads to the question as to if it's the high obtained from weed itself or just simply the search for a high with whatever is available.
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Central America/Florida USA
Posts: 4,064
Let me tell you, friend - I tried exactly what you are talking about and I'd highly discourage you from taking that path.
First of all, let's examine the reason for your post. Why are you asking this question? Maybe it's because you are still looking for reasons to get high. If you are looking for approval you probably won't find it from anyone who has been down that road.
In my experience, I wanted to use weed as a "crutch" and rationalized that it was better than drinking. That might be true, but there are tons of other issues. First, it will cost you a bit of money. Next, you might start smoking alone in the evenings. Next thing you know you'll be smoking in the afternoons. Then mornings. Then you'll run out of weed, and you'll feel anxious and start texting your drug dealer. You'll have to go to his house, meet him on a street corner, etc. Do you want to be checking your phone for text messages from a drug dealer? Is that a good place to be in life? Is that what "recovery" means to you?
You will start the cycle all over again.
This does not make you more "creative". It makes you kind of lazy, lethargic, and unmotivated and paranoid. Sure there are good times - just like alcohol. But the bad outweighs the good.
Not to mention, you'll finally have to kick the weed also. Drug tests for a new job, family, whatever. That comes with its own withdrawal symptoms.
You can do whatever you want, but you're opening up another can of worms with the weed thing. Have you stopped drinking yet?
First of all, let's examine the reason for your post. Why are you asking this question? Maybe it's because you are still looking for reasons to get high. If you are looking for approval you probably won't find it from anyone who has been down that road.
In my experience, I wanted to use weed as a "crutch" and rationalized that it was better than drinking. That might be true, but there are tons of other issues. First, it will cost you a bit of money. Next, you might start smoking alone in the evenings. Next thing you know you'll be smoking in the afternoons. Then mornings. Then you'll run out of weed, and you'll feel anxious and start texting your drug dealer. You'll have to go to his house, meet him on a street corner, etc. Do you want to be checking your phone for text messages from a drug dealer? Is that a good place to be in life? Is that what "recovery" means to you?
You will start the cycle all over again.
This does not make you more "creative". It makes you kind of lazy, lethargic, and unmotivated and paranoid. Sure there are good times - just like alcohol. But the bad outweighs the good.
Not to mention, you'll finally have to kick the weed also. Drug tests for a new job, family, whatever. That comes with its own withdrawal symptoms.
You can do whatever you want, but you're opening up another can of worms with the weed thing. Have you stopped drinking yet?
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 476
Originally Posted by Jauburn
I have no doubt that if it were easier to get (and use) pot, I would have little use for booze at all. But I have used booze over the years as an alternative, and now I use it too much. I fantasize about moving to colorado or washington so that I can toke legally and forget that crap known as alcohol. Anyone done this?
I would be lying if i said it hasn't crossed my mind, i've never picked up a joint in my life or actually tried it. I heard it is a great cure for insomnia however, which i have been suffering GREATLY from since i quit alcohol.
Even though i can technically walk down the street and buy up some weed at any time, i think for the time being ill stay away since it is so early. What worries me is trying that stuff out and then it possibly triggering a craving for alcohol or relapse. Too risky at this early stage of sobriety.
On a somewhat related note, you would be surprised by how many pot shops and distilleries have popped up left and right around here - I am really really surprised at how fast the whole industry took off in less than 2 years. They didnt seem to waste any time as soon as that legalization law passed.
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 705
I don't think that quitting drinking by using weed instead of alcohol is necessarily a good idea. It really is just substituting one substance for another.
Having said that however, I will still smoke on occasion. I enjoy it now and then and it helps this lifelong insomniac sleep in case of an emergency. But weed has never had that pull, that constant NEED that alcohol can have on me.
Like others have said, it really depends on the individual person.
Having said that however, I will still smoke on occasion. I enjoy it now and then and it helps this lifelong insomniac sleep in case of an emergency. But weed has never had that pull, that constant NEED that alcohol can have on me.
Like others have said, it really depends on the individual person.
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Vermont
Posts: 41
Hmm, I don't use it as a substitute for alcohol but I did use it in my full blown alcohol binge days as a way to ease the hangover- it made the nausea and discomfort go away and I could sleep through the night.
That just lead to me usually not experiencing the full pain of always being hungover so it took longer to address my real problem with alcohol.
Now, I smoke from time to time as weed is widely decriminalized where I live and like others here have said there's just not that "pull" to do it if I don't have it around.
I'll probably continue to use it in my life knowing it's a lot less damage to my body than alcohol.
That just lead to me usually not experiencing the full pain of always being hungover so it took longer to address my real problem with alcohol.
Now, I smoke from time to time as weed is widely decriminalized where I live and like others here have said there's just not that "pull" to do it if I don't have it around.
I'll probably continue to use it in my life knowing it's a lot less damage to my body than alcohol.
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: uk for now
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Originally Posted by azbluesgal
just a generalized question - how many out there are still stuck on nicotine? Does THAT count as an addiction, or not so much because it takes about a half a century to kill you. Just asking?
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Join Date: Mar 2014
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Originally Posted by Jauburn
I do not think pot is addictive in the same way alcohol is. My own experience proves it.
Have a great evening guys.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Marijuana maintenance has long been used as a treatment for alcoholism with mixed results. In controlled studies, a large percentage of people who were unable to get marijuana for various reasons reverted to their previous drinking behaviors. The problem as I see it is that when you don't work on yourself and your drinking, you've never truly recovered from your alcoholism, nor do you necessarily need to make major changes in your life. Just as someone who continually relapses by practicing abstinence alone, people who use marijuana maintenance as a treatment for alcoholism return to drinking because nothing has changed in their relationship with alcohol to protect them against the first drink. It's a kind of "symptom substitution."
That having been said, there are people who have successfully made the switch. Yet the burning question is how much different their lives would have been had they not replaced alcohol with weed, and instead worked on building a better life. This is something we can never know. Marijuana maintenance is not discouraged and sometimes encouraged in harm reduction models for the treatment of alcoholism for reasons I think are obvious. The perspective that one is not doing as much damage to oneself and to others is, I believe, a valid one, but it still begs the question of what life can be without relying on chemically-induced brain- and mood- changers.
When I was much younger, before I first got sober, I rarely drank when I had a good supply of weed. It was everywhere and very affordable. I liked the effects of smoking...It quieted my anxiety, made a dent in my severe and life-long insomnia, and improved some depression-related symptoms. But mine was not a systematic study; it just worked out that I didn't like drinking when I smoked weed. I imagine that some people function just fine with it -- especially those for whom it is not an everyday habit, and I know a couple of them -- but I'm not willing to take that risk.
Perhaps when I'm old and frail and I need to choose between traditional painkillers and mood stabilizers and medical marijuana, but not while I'm building a sober life that makes life worth living for me. There's also a part of me that would like to smoke every now and then, "just to get high and unwind," but I'm not willing to take that chance, so it rarely occupies my thinking.
That having been said, there are people who have successfully made the switch. Yet the burning question is how much different their lives would have been had they not replaced alcohol with weed, and instead worked on building a better life. This is something we can never know. Marijuana maintenance is not discouraged and sometimes encouraged in harm reduction models for the treatment of alcoholism for reasons I think are obvious. The perspective that one is not doing as much damage to oneself and to others is, I believe, a valid one, but it still begs the question of what life can be without relying on chemically-induced brain- and mood- changers.
When I was much younger, before I first got sober, I rarely drank when I had a good supply of weed. It was everywhere and very affordable. I liked the effects of smoking...It quieted my anxiety, made a dent in my severe and life-long insomnia, and improved some depression-related symptoms. But mine was not a systematic study; it just worked out that I didn't like drinking when I smoked weed. I imagine that some people function just fine with it -- especially those for whom it is not an everyday habit, and I know a couple of them -- but I'm not willing to take that risk.
Perhaps when I'm old and frail and I need to choose between traditional painkillers and mood stabilizers and medical marijuana, but not while I'm building a sober life that makes life worth living for me. There's also a part of me that would like to smoke every now and then, "just to get high and unwind," but I'm not willing to take that chance, so it rarely occupies my thinking.
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