USandTHEM420

I am sorry for being such a noob, but posting here is the first step. I am an active/respected forum user elsewhere but the nature of this forum is quite different as mind altering substances can sway decisions for recovery like......THAT!
I am absolutely in love with Mary Jane and I DO want to quit. I need to know if this is the Google of all recovery/addiction sites/forums. Can anyone help a fellow weed smoker out by including links to helpful sites/forums? Common sense /experience tells me there is no "medicine" to make the cravings/behavior vanish for good. BUT, I am ready to try just about anything to help the process. I was surprised to not find very specific and "easy to find info."/tips on quitting the weed...no wonder people cant quit!
Anyways, I sifted through some of the stickys and didnt find help. Like I said, I know there isnt a "perfect" solution, but I need help in ANY form. For example, "week 7 of quitting weed is VERY difficult, and you should try this or this to help...". That sort of info. Kind of like guidelines. Or like a person who went through everything I went through and wrote about what to expect during the recovery process.

There is an experiment(probably popular/old) my philosophy teacher talked about that involves a mouse with electrodes connected to the "river of pleasure". Then there is a button that the mouse presses that gets the mouse "high" every time the button is pressed. Well, as you might be thinking already, the mouse will continue to press the button. The mouse will continue to press that button until it passes out. I am that mouse although I have a larger brain. This brain allows me to smoke and maintain a decent lifestyle(in a lot of people's minds) but not in my mind.

To put it modestly, I am a very smart/wise person. I want answers, I want to hear the truth, I want to know! Knowledge is PoWar!
1. Get through the day(sunlight) w/out smoking. Check
2. Run and start drinking water/taking multivitamin/Omega pills. Check
3. Look for help online while my mind says lets quit! Check
4. Finish this post, and go for a well-deserved bake route. In Process...

Anna

Hi and Welcome,

Yes, knowledge is power and I am glad you are seeking help and information. There is lots of support on this site and there are many threads on marijuana. You might also check out the Substance Abuse forum, if you like. Keep reading, learning and posting.

parentrecovers

nice to meet you, us - keep posting! recovery is possible. blessings, k

Rowan

Glad you are here, and seeking change through recovery.

Rowan

Dee74

Hi Us and Them (great Floyd song by the way)

I wish I knew, man...one of my best friends - the brightest most loving, most non-judgmental and truly human being I know - spends his days zonked on a couch...

I used to smoke heavily too - thankfully, two things happened to me that took weed out of my personal equation: one, I got sick and had to take a big drop in income; and two I moved away from all my old sources and into a home where it just wasn't possible to smoke...if the choice hadn't been made for me, I dunno...but y'know I found things to do, I managed, and today I just don't care about it anymore.

As Anna suggested try the substance abuse forum - I'm sure there are folks there way more knowlegeable than I

peace
D

Emimily

yeah, um... i loved LOVED herb as well. me and herb were buddies! my dog is named haze... helloooo? but anyway, i had a situation where i quit because i was working at a job where i'd be randomly drug tested at any time, and i made too much money to risk it. so i quit, then i realized that i drank way way too much too. so i quit drinking. i went to AA, i went to NA. i made sober friends who have wicked war stories about the past. i still love the smell of herb, i still burn nag champa incense, but i can't smoke anymore... i just can't risk it. i've got to be worth more than getting high is, y'dig?

i mean, your path is your path... if i weren't an alcoholic, i probably would be able to smoke herb recreationally instead of habitually. as it goes, i'm a bit of a drug addict.

good luck in your search, keep me posted.

USandTHEM420

Thanks for the support!

LONG story short(long, but could be MUCH longer): I have been hanging out with "the group" since I was 17 and have been smoking w/them all the time...it became my life(lifestyle). Last June I was "excommunicated"(personal choice) as I came to a realization that these people are NOT my true friends(we hang out/get along because of the drugs). I am 22 right now. So the excommunication was last june, and I started to straiten stuff out; working out, cleaning my room, going back to school, etc. EVERYTHING came back to "normal"(pre-weed/drugs) and life was sooo much easier. BUT, being away from the group which was an addiction in itself, the smoking continued, SOLELY on the weekends. Weekdays were WORK,SCHOOL,WORKOUT which I COMPLETELY stuck to. Then came Friday and I am like "ALLLL my stuff is done and I have the WHOOOLE weekend to do WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT", and I would always end up choosing the weed.

Being away from the group helped a billion times. I kept smoking to only the weekends(fri+sat mainly) and my tolerance went waaaaay down. Put it this way, a gram of dank lasted LITERALLY 1 1/2 months with getting high EVERY fri and sat. Being a smart stoner I knew my tolerance was sooo low that I could take 2 hits, hold em in, and get B A K E D! So that was a bad thing in a way because now that I "controlled" it and did it only on the weekends, I got sooo much higher than b4(I was a true pothead, there were times the weed "didnt get me high"). So now smoking weed was "fun again" since I didnt do it every day 2-3 times each day. It was like a reward system....daily grind Mon-Fri, then Fri. night is the ULTIMATE reward(in my mind). And I would get high EVERY fri/sat because why do anything else if the "anything else" wont make you as happy. So I did this from June 06'-Jan 07' UNTIL........I get a call from the only member of the group I still talked to(he went away to college, so I only saw him 1-2 times/month) and he says so and so want to go on the bake route and they "come in peace". I am a nice/mature/forgiving person so I said sure, I dont mind. I get picked up and there they are, the people I thought I would never speak to again. We smoke up and everything is back to the same old shitt, not right away anyways.

SO, I continued working out/school and so on that I had been doing(I had lost my job a month b4 in Dec.). Well, that lasted a whole 2 more weeks b4 I went back to the SAME shitt. It started slowly, eventually leading up to the daily smoking. Going to the same house(person whose house(aka "the crack house")we would ALWAYS go to, to chill and be the stoners we are. And HERE I AM, relapse is the term(although I never truly quit). The person whose house I for the most part would always go to was/is a best friend. I wanna make clear that we are not in anyway stereotypical losers. I kinda feel like Dave Chappelle in half-baked when he says he's addicted to weed and everyone laughs. I could just begin to imagine how WORSE harder drugs could be(thankful im not a coke-head/alchy). I am not hurting financially because of the pot or anything "truly bad", but I am NOT getting ahead in life as the pot says "every little thing, is gon be alright".

Wrap-Up: Anyways, like I said b4; I feel like the mouse that keeps pressing the button. Y stop?(feel better w/out weed, more money, health reasons, yadda yadda yadda) <--which I completely agree with, BUT, weed to me is just TOO good. I would take weed over alcohol/coke/shrooms ANY DAY. Im 22 and have gone to about 6 bars since 21......Y.......I dont wanna do THAT, I JUST WANNA GET HIGH!

Emimily

i might be confused, but are you trying to quit?

quitting anything involves changing your nouns. your people, places, and things. if you're golden on your weekend plan, then stick to that i suppose. from my own experience, smoking herb on the weekends only led me to smoking when i had a "hard day", to smoking when i went to a party, to smoking when i watched a movie, back to smoking three/four/eight times a day. i can't smoke safely unless i want to be high all the time, and i can't be high all the time if i want to get anything done without having a crutch.

does that relate at all? i'm 22 as well, so we're right next to each other as far as age.

GlassPrisoner

I'm 42, and I just realized that fact about my friends in my teens and 20s , like, last week ;(

Pot was my DOC back then too. Until I discovered I liked to drink.

USandTHEM420

I can understand how you can be confused by my story, it takes some time to read and a little thinking. But anyways, I have some more info to share about me. I am a perfectionist and smoking weed I guess makes it seem like everything is fine/perfect. Since it takes all your problems/worries/etc and puts them on a rocket to outer space.
I also like the way weed "tickles" your brain. I like to think and get my synapses firing. Weed just lets me sit back and "enjoy the ride". Most people experience this in the old fashion way..."doood, i just thought of somethin...." But for me it is kinda like I can "see all the anwers" when im stoned. Is it because im happy and I "care" about stuff more when im high?
Another way I look at it is kinda of like "knowing too much". I am very educated about many things including "the real world" and the "real world" is not a nice place. So maybe I just dont like the world we live in...........<---thats where it is weird cause I DO like a lot of things/places/hobbies/etc etc.
Another reason I like pot is the way it lets you step back and think about stuff. Maybe something you did, something someone else did, etc etc. It lets you "see what kind of ******* you were to that person", or "what was that person thinking when he did this/that to me?"<---I like this part of it a lot cause it kinda lets you evaluate life/decisions/people/etc.
I dont know what else to say. When Im high, it feels "right"(duh! dopamine is plentiful at that time!).

parentrecovers

i appreciate your post above, usandthem - but i too am confused. are you trying to quit smoking pot? or just justifying your use? have you made an honest list - the pros of doing it vs. the negative consequences?

i have a 22 year old daughter who is trying to recover from alcohol/cocaine addiction - i know the process is difficult in different ways sometimes for younger people. giving up those old using buddies isn't easy. but there's a lot of young adults at aa/na meetings in chicago - go to the ones in lincoln park, wrigleyville, bucktown - you will be amazed. great aa mtg just for young people at a church on fullerton on sunday nights - there's sometimes 100s there.

blessings, k

wezzy55

Are you ADHD? Lot of my friends who smoked weed are, and they say it slows there mind so you can think clearly...

Anna

I also wonder, as Emily said,

Are you trying to quit? That's what we're here for, to help you quit.

SaTiT

Just google up above the influence there's info
there on how MJ damages the brain.

Nobody or anykind of informations could tell me
oneway or the other. I knew weed smoking
or any other drugs and alcohol intake was unhealthy me
from a very young age. After all I am smart enough to figure it out.
Anything, anything in life i would continue doing until i suffered
enough consiquences. The only problems is i have a high tolerance
for pain and weed smoking kept me in an alter state and a buzzing
all the time and I love getting high.
Can't say life is too rosie...the craps that's still happening
in this world today , i rather not look at or deal with.
Making decisions didn't do a damn thing for me becuase
i just sat on my arss and thought about it.

I stopped smoking weed, when I stopped smoking weed.
Didn't ask for permission to start smoking it and
didn't asked for permission to stop.

Validations....yes ?..maybe?

USandTHEM420

It might sound like I dont have a problem, or that I am perfectly fine w/smoking weed. Like I said b4, I feel like Dave Chappelle in Half Baked cause most people here are alcoholics/coke heads which have a MUCH harder time than I do.

Thats why I started the post asking if I was in the right place. Sure anyone that has an addiction has something in common w/me but, weed has a special group of people like other substances do too.

I guess the best buy to get my feelings/thoughts across would be with the case of amotivational syndrome. I cannot insert hyperlinks but here is a copy/n paste. This "amotivational syndrome" really appeals to me as to how I feel/what's going on w/me.

totse.com/en/drugs/marijuana/amotivat.html

It has sometimes been observed that when a young person starts smoking marijuana there are systematic changes in that person's lifestyle, ambitions, motivation, and possibly personality. These changes have been collectively referred to as the _amotivational syndrome_, whose symptoms are:

"... apathy, loss of effectiveness, and diminished capacity or willingness to carry out complex, long-term plans, endure frustration, concentrate for long periods, follow routines, or successfully master new material. Verbal facility is often impaired both in speaking and writing. Some individuals exhibit greater introversion, become totally involved with the present at the expense of future goals and demonstrate a strong tendency toward regressive, childlike, magical thinking[1]."

There is no doubt that many young individuals have changed from clean, aggressive, upwardly mobile achievers into the sort of person just described at about the same time as they started smoking marijuana. What is not clear, however, is a causal relationship between the loss of middle class motivations and cannabis. Which comes first, the marijuana or the loss of motivations? This is not easy to answer. In fact, there may be no clearcut answer. To begin with, all we know about the amotivational syndrome is a result of a few case histories. These data cannot answer questions about: a) how common the syndrome is; b) whether the marijuana actually caused the change in behavior; or c) if the change is caused by marijuana, if it is best described as a change in all motivations, specific motivations, or something other than motivation, like ability or personality.

It does not appear as though the amotivational syndrome is all that common among marijuana smokers. In one survey[2] a sample of almost 2000 college students was studied. There was no difference in grade point average and achievement between marijuana users and nonusers, but the users had more difficulty deciding on career goals, and a smaller number were seeking advanced professional degrees. On the other hand, other studies have shown lower school averages and higher dropout rates among users than nonusers. In any case these differences are not great. If there is such a thing as amotivational syndrome, its affects appear to be restricted to a few individuals, probably the small percentage who become heavy users.

Laboratory studies provide additional information on the causal relationship between motivation and marijuana. The Mendelson[3] experiment, where hospitalised volunteers worked on an operant task to earn money and marijuana for 26 days, found that the dose of marijuana smoked did not influence the amount of work done by either the casual-user group or the heavy-user group; all remained motivated to earn and take home a significant amount of money in addition to the work they did for the marijuana. It seems clear that marijuana does not cause a loss of motivation.

While marijuana does not specifically diminish motivation, it is clear that cannabis affects attention and memory, and these are intellectual capacities usually considered necessary for success in educational institutions. We know that a significant tolerance develops to these effects and they can be suppressed voluntarily at low doses, but consistent smoking of high doses of marijuana must impede a successful academic career. In fact, achievement motivation must be high indeed in any individual who combines high levels of cannabis use with a successful academic career.

Since most reports of the amotivational syndrome originated in the sixties in North America, what they seem to describe is a tendency for college students to 'drop out' and assume a lifestyle that rejects traditional achievement motivations of their parents' generation. In an effort to understand this rejection it was very easy to believe that it was pharmacological and to dismiss it as 'amotivational syndrome.'

Anna

Well, you are definitely in the right place.

In my opinion, addiction is addiction. It's not so important what the substance of your addiction is - mine was alcohol. I think what was important for me, was understanding that I was trying to numb my feelings and escape reality. I had to learn how to cope with life's ups and downs without some substance to lull me through things.

wezzy55

I've also read and used every reason for my loving to drink...and I may pull out another one before bedtime...But right now I'm gonna ride with the ones trying to recover---

SaTiT

weed makes you lazi everybody knows that.

parentrecovers

i smoked pot in high school - it made me do poorly in school, spend all the money i should have saved for college and a car, pissed off my parents, got me in trouble, made me lazy, made me paranoid, made me drive recklessly, made me gain weight, kept me from being motivated to do things like getting to work on time and keeping up hobbies like painting and photography which i was actually fairly talented in. those are just the things that come to the top of my head.

blah. wish i had made this list 25 years ago.

NYCGirl

I often think back to my pothead and Grateful Dead days and all the drugs I did... I smoked pot almost every day from age 12 to 33... the day I found out I was pregnant I quit pot, drugs and alcohol.... I have always found it odd for lack of a better word that I was able to walk away from Pot and never look back...not to say I don't relish the though of a buzz on occasion.... but the alcohol I just couldn't quit... even pregnant I had a few... And went back hard and heavy after...

.... for some reason as much as I loved the high for many reasons you speak of, I found it easy to quit I just didn't go buy it anymore and if someone offered I just said no thanks.... I truly believe my pot smoking was nothing more that a learned habit for me ... but the alcohol is a definite addiction.

Most people I know that quit, did just that quit... maybe that's why there is no THC Anonoumous... and I am not trying to be sassy, your thread has really made me think about this... I have friends that have detoxed for just about everything.... kids I grew up with have OD... another who is a walking H zombie.... 5 miles north drunks live homeless on the streets.... but I have never know anyone to OD, flat line or loss there home from smoking weed or got a DWStoned....

.... so maybe those who do struggle with quiting are left with little help and support... with all the people I have met hear in almost year you are the first that ever mentioned pot...

.... I guess I have been of no help... the only think I could suggest is maybe PM one of the administrators and since was have a substance abuse section and an alcohol section maybe they could dedicate section to Marijuana.... who knows how many people just give up trying to quit because they can't find help!