Marijuana was my gateway drug
 

My alcoholism and marijuana use go hand in hand. If I were to smoke without drinking I have panic attacks. If l were to drink without smoking I get angry. The two definitely feed into each other for me.

I routinely found myself looking for just the right alcohol buzz to start with the weed.

I hear people say marijuana isn't a gateway drug. It was mine, even before alcohol. I went from pot to LSD to alcohol to cocaine.

Today I'm still struggling with my alcohol/marijuana mix. 3 days sober.

The social stigma that marijuana is harmless baffles me.

Most of my friends think that weed addiction is not very serious. I didn't share my quitting experience with most of them but got a ton of support here. For me quitting was the hardest thing I've ever done and yet it was about the best thing I ever did (so far, hopefully have long life of doing great things). The freedom and excitement I feel now is a high in itself and there is no guilt or shame or side effects that come with this high.

I definitely had a ritualistic thing going on Sero - if I was drunk I wanted weed.,..if I was high I wanted booze...and drunk or high I wanted tobacco.

All my self control and caution went out the window.

I'm lucky that most of my worst years of drinking was done alone...I had to think what I could have talked myself into if I'd had ready access to other drugs....

D

Do you smoke Cigarettes? If you do, then there may be your real gateway drug. If not, then I am just off base. Folks often seem to over look this. Not saying at all that MJ is harmless. All of them just may be part of the mix.

I think it's different for everyone.

I always smoked with 'spin' (tobacco)...but I could do without it.

D

Not to take away from other drugs or, heaven forbid, argue with the "gateway" theory, but I have always thought that cigs were my gateway. I'm of an age where teens were allowed, wink wink, to smoke. Such an awful thing to do to a young person.

Never was a tobacco user.

Drug dealers are the biggest and most widespread gateway drugs, "why not try a bit of this now Jonny?"

I find that for most people even if they don't think of it that way, alcohol is probably their gateway drug.

Very few people who don't drink that I know use drugs, apart from some hardcore MJ only people.

I hear what you say, I can only smoke weed when either alone or with benzos or booze, else I get all paranoid. Not cripplingly so I just go quiet and withdrawn.

I'm not a big fan of the gateway drug idea.

Anytime I got drunk or high I wanted more.
Anything and everything was my gateway drug.

D

Since I've been older than 21, I'm 241/4 I have very very rarely drank without pot, and for the better part of that time, I was cross faded as ****. weed and booze is a high that is comparable to the best, in my opinion, and I've had almost all of them... also, i had a similar experience with psilosibin, after I shroomed, I craved alchohol. By then, I was already a full blown alchoholic for about 4 months, but it worsened after shrooms, because being cross faded reminded me of the sensations i felt on my first trip.

now, I just smoke weed, sober from morphine and booze for about a week. I find alchohol to be the worst gateway drug for me, because it makes me stop caring about my health, since it's literally toxic poison... after trying to quit alchohol for the first time, I was introduced to mixing benzos and opiates, and since then i've either been on a hardcore opiate, meth, or booze. I've always smoked weed with everything else... I'm finding it's going to be the most difficult thing to quit, because it's the least harmful crutch for me, anyway... and it's the drug i always had on hand in case i had a bad experience with another drug... it always has comforted me for some reason, although i have gotten anxious on it a few times, but nothing major. idk, I think some people are extremely functional on pot, and some are extremely not. just like for me, mixing benzos and opiates almost always makes me have extremely unpleasant, violent, and repetitive thoughts, wheras this combo for someone else makes them completely peaceful. individual neurocircuitry is an important factor.

If you go to the 'Pot &Me' thread there's some good resources there for quitting Alex.

D

I drank and smoked pot for years. When I quit drinking I kept on smoking pot for a while. What really surprised me was how much stronger it felt without the drinking. I did not expect that. I actually had to cut back on it before I finally just quit.

Don't know about the cigarette theory........smoked for 30 years, never touched marijuana.

Quitting smoking cigarettes gave me many insights into going "cold turkey" and learning to break deadly habits. Quitting gave me the courage to do other healthy things for myself; I have enjoyed being "free" from the smoking addiction.

I do not think there is anything like a getaway drug. You are just quitting one addiction to get into another one. I think taking marijuana regularly will make you addicted to it. Please have some self-control and start living a life free from addiction.

Do you really think it's that simple Gladys? :)

D

I agree, Dee.

My gateway drug was alcohol, but only because it was the first drug I used. It was the first substance that taught me "You can become instantly happy without working for it". If it had been anything else the result would have been exactly the same.