FJCruisin

Okay, so my wife uses marijuana for her anxiety. However, I just don't feel like this is a good idea for several reasons, the biggest being I'm a recovering addict/alcoholic. She says she has to take something for her anxiety and pot is natural. I'm just not sure I agree with this logic. I think she has developed a physicological dependence on marijuana. If she does have generalized anxietty disorder, is pot the best solution?

Latte

That isn't for me to decide. Has she seen a physician for this?

Kjell

I can only say that of my own past marijuana use, that sure, sometimes it helped with anxiety, I'm sure it did, but it also created anxiety as well.

Just like my drinking.

Kjell~

Zube

FJC-

At one time I smoked it daily, 2 to 3 times a day, mostly "recreationally" I guess. I remember having a LOT of anxiety when my hook-up was out and I couldn't find any.

Gave it up for about ten years, then when back and didn't really like it, so I stopped. Gave the bag away to one of my smoking buddies for Christmas that year, made her day.

In my own, humble, opinion...your wife is rationalizing. I'm an alcoholic, and I thought that 15 beers a day helped my "anxiety".

She'll probably do what she wants to do. Don't let it jeopardize YOUR sobriety.

Good Luck,
Zube

FJCruisin

Thanks. I think she is rationalizing too. When we first strted dating she was drinking to much to deal with her anxiety and taking paxil. I introduced her to marijuana and she became a daily smoker then. I got sober 13 months ago and she hasn't been very supportive of my recovery by saying I'm not an addict or alcoholic and wishing i still smoked. She says I abdoned her went I chose to go off to treatment for 4 months. I came back home and have tried to deazl with her continued pot use. Thinking I'm being supportive of her, since she says I'm not. I just feel like I'm enabeling her continued use and want her to see how it effects my recovery and relationship. However, I want her to have less anxiety too. I can relate to having more anxiety when I drank and drugged. I really do feel like she is rationalizing it.

CheekyAngel

Hey i suffer from really bad anxiety disorders. From my personal experience...

I used to be a chronic smoker. I wouldnt even have time for cigerettes, it would only be joints. From the first joint i smoked (14, im 21 now), i liked it. Within in the next 6months, that was it, there was no stopping me.

Becoz i smoked at ALL the time, i never realised the efffect it had on my anxiety becoz i was never without it. But last summer when i gave up all drugs for 63 days and then smoked a joint (not going into details how i started drugs again) my anxiety was awful and the paronoia was unbearable; so bad i had to go home coz i was freeked out!

From that day i realised the effect joints had on my anxiety. Now i cannot smoke it around anyone, even myself, without increasing my anxiety levels and the symptoms that comes with that.

Now, on the other hand, there are people who claim it helps there anxiety and strongly agrue this point, but i dont see how this is true from my personal experience of when i stopped and then smoked again.

Basically i never knew what the effect on me was until i stopped. Now i know the effect on me and there is NO WAY it would help my anxiety...only make it worse.

Think about how much and how often she smokes it and see if her stopping for a bit may help her to realise its actully doing no good; the way i found out

Hope my story helps

FJCruisin

She stopped for two days and was miserable. One the 3rd day she drank some gin, maybe smoked and was happy.

texas729

I was also a chronic pot smoker for many years. I used t tell people the same BS.

That it helped my anxiety
That I couldn't eat without smoking
That I couldn't sleep without smoking

and the list goes on and on. If she went to a therapist they'd want her to sober up and then if the anxiety continued they'd prescribe something. When coming off pot after years and years of smoking I was a raging b*tch for days and days. Now that i've been off it for a while I'm glad I escaped from that stoned hell I was trapped in. Pot withdrawal sucks for short term but is so worth it long term.

Good Luck

underoath

for me personally, marijuana actually WORSENED my underlying anxiety. I loved weed at first, then got to the point where every time I smoked it I had a horrible panic attack (with no history of panic attacks before I started smoking, I did have anxiety though). That didn't keep me from smoking it daily though. Now I'm sober and I have nightmares about some of the times I got "too stoned" and had some of the worst "trips" of my life. Cocaine was involved with the worst of those though(talk about some traumatic ****).

But to sum it all up, IMO weed is one of the WORST things for me personally as far as anxiety goes, cocaine being after that- for the longest time I could use cocaine without bad anxiety but weed would scare the hell out of me, but the combination of the two was just HELL... what I still don't understand is why after all those ****** experiences I went through I continued to snort lines and smoke pot like it was going out of style...

checkmate1

If I smoke marijuarna I get paranoid, anxious and have panic attacks. It does not relieve anxiety it makes it 10 times worse.

AcceptingChange

Yeah, but for how long? If i drink some gin, i'll be happy for a bit. But the next morning, i'll be much, much worse. This stuff affects me by creating much more anxiety after a couple hours, and taking many days to recover from.
It was different when i was 20. But now, ugh, those old solutions don't work anymore.

MikaToker

pot may be good for anxiety at first but in the long run it worsen it anxiety well for me anyway it makes me think too much

FaiLin22

To someone with an anxiety disorder, marijuana is their best friend and worst enemy at the same time. I have been addicted to smoking for nearly 3 years. I find my anxiety is bad during the first 4 days of detoxing. Buwhen i am high i do not function like a normal human being.
Ne1 who is saying they use marijuana to deal with thier anxiety is kidding themselves and possibly manipulating the people around them.

mikefreak

It the beginning, it DID calm me down & mellow me out. Fast forward 30+ years: it quit working, for some reason. The pleasant high, over time, transformed into a horribly morbid introspection, & I finally hung it up about three years ago

chicagoJ

I smoked heavily in high school and college. I gave it up for almost 10 years, bought some last year and smoked it, but haven't gone back. In my experience it sometimes caused anxiety. I don't recall it helping. And when I smoked it last year it made problems seem too serious. It's like I would dwell on them when I was smoking.

But, if your wife is smoking to serve a purpose that she thinks she needs, there is potential for pretty strong dependency there. That doesn't seem like a good thing.