Hi all - being an avid reader of this forum for the past few weeks (and part of last year) I decided it was time that I share my own story in the hopes that it may help someone else. I have certainly drawn a great deal of strength by reading the stories of others - the most inspirational being the long-time smokers and long-term quitters. In times of desperation during withdrawals, I am hyper-curious of what/how I should be feeling in addition to whether my mental and physical ailments were a result of quitting or some grave illness. I can say honestly that quitting for a month has already given me clarity on this matter, realizing some were real and others imagined. I am now about 99% sure that all of my physical/emotional pains were a result of smoking marijuana. It must be mentioned that I tapered off for several weeks and I refused to ever let myself smoke before my full-time day job, EVER. I think this mental stalwart has benefitted me greatly. That being said, I may not be as bad as you, but I think it is important to realize that despite my moderate yet daily amount of smoking weed, I have experienced crazy withdrawals nonetheless.
I am 27 years old and have been a pothead for about 10 years. I still remember the first time I smoked a bowl - I hastily bought it from a younger classmate at a beach event in high school and convinced my two friends to try it out. It was absolutely amazing - I still remember the look on my best friend's face as he lay on the ground saying "I don't remember how I got from point A to point B". We still laugh about that to this day.
Long story short, I was raised in an upper/middleclass town where it wasn't hard to find weed (Just look for the kid with the tie-dye shirt and he'll be your best bud if you buy, regardless of whether you have squat in common). I smoked through my junior and senior year of high school and continued on through college for four years. In college, I surrounded myself with other stoners and my dealer became my best friend. While all of this was going on, I was still focused on doing well and pushed myself to do the best I could do. However, hindsight is 20/20 and I certainly missed a lot of opportunity and my existing anxiety made me a full on recluse at times. I noticed a lot of smokers didn't have this issue - they could still go out and be social and had no problems. But not myself. I still had friends, still went through a lot of the normal motions of being a college student but certainly was walking around in a haze, not performing at 100%. I continued smoking for six years after college! I dated a recovering opiate addict who didn't care about excessive pot smoking. That was a mistake and I wasted three years of my life helping someone else (who did quit successfully) recover when I ignored my own addiction. I saw mine as benign compared to hers. But that is a different story altogether.
So last year I got a good job after working some unfulfilling jobs where I got paid decently, but knew it was dead-ended. I worked that job for 3 years! I was completely content showing up, doing very little and going home and smoking my face off. This new job was quite challenging and fast-paced and I could feel myself lagging heavily from smoking every night. I'd feel dizzy in the afternoons, my short term memory was god-awful (couldn't remember names, dates, etc I literally just typed out a moment prior) and my anxiety would be through the roof at times. I'd constantly be called out by a coworker for forgetting to do the most obvious tasks (like dragging files to a master folder). HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLE? WAS I DYING? DID I HAVE SOME KIND OF DISEASE. No - I just had a job where my mental acuity was very important and I was totally and utterly burned out. I had tried quitting altogether when I started this job - stopped for about 2 months and began again after smoking once which immediately became smoking every day again. During that two months, I was an absolute emotional wreck. I barely said a word to coworkers and just stared at my PC screen from 9-5. The truth of the matter was I had also recently broken up with my live-in girlfriend and depression was weighing on me already, compounded by the quitting cannabis and tobacco. It must be mentioned that your existing state of mind can drastically affect your quitting process.
So recently, I decided that this was enough. My best friend moved across the country and my other good buddy decided to do the same. I felt it was time, as the aforementioned effects were back in full force (mental slowness, depression, no short-term memory, couldn't eat during the day at work, social recluse). I needed to make some changes and meet new people!
OK! Down to the important stuff you are looking for - the withdrawals.
You will read many different things online about how long and what withdrawals you will experience. These were mine:
Days 1-7 - Even less of an appetite than before (only smoking at night, couldn't eat during the day) - eating a handful of food felt forced, and I felt even more nauseous and queasy then when I was literally starving. The crazy-ass dreams in which you are running, fighting or being injured and you wake up in the middle of the night in a drenched shirt and sheets were happening every night. It was weird to dream again and quite troubling. My hands and feet would be either freezing cold or blazing hot regardless of room temperature. My mind would race and I would read online about withdrawing (this forum, too). I would google every ailment and think I was dying of cancer or AIDS. At work, I noticed I couldn't focus and my work (which is creative) was completely devoid of any quality. My hands would shake at times uncontrollably. DO NOT DRINK CAFFEINE. This will send your anxiety into overdrive. It was incredibly difficult to get to sleep without smoking weed - I found that turning off the TV and listening to hypnosis podcasts would really help a lot. Check out Jason Newland's podcast and listen to his ASMR whisper hypnosis tracks which go for over an hour. My sex drive was flatlined entirely - getting a strong erection was difficult, this was probably a result of the temporary depression. A very annoying symptom was excessive armpit sweating - I'd soak clean through two shirts so I'd have to keep my arms down at work. Even prescription strength anti-persperants didn't do anything and in fact made me sweat more. Generally, I just felt depressed and my mind was constantly racing on good and bad thoughts, but mostly bad. I did not have any humor at all (and I'm pretty funny, at least I think so) and I tended to snap at people in my head. I was good at not lashing out verbally but I surely wanted to. A coworker was taping up shipments behind me and I wanted to kill him with every pull of the packaging tape. This was not me, I’m super coolheaded with that stuff. Diarrhea every single day. EVERY DAY.
Day 8-20 - Most of the physical withdrawals mentioned above eased dramatically. I was now able to eat three meals a day (not super easily) but I'd find myself hungry upon waking up which was a NEW experience after years of smoking ONLY AT NIGHT! If I did skip breakfast, it made eating lunch harder and would throw my whole eating out of whack... so eat something easy in the morning... bananas, oatmeal, cereal. I also noticed I was able to fall asleep easier. When I was smoking, even if I was dead tired, a bowl would immediately re-energize me and I could play video games and watch YouTube videos for several hours. Also, while smoking, I could drink five cups of coffee a day and didn’t really feel any effects. The scary dreams subsided and now they consisted of just really odd things and people from my past. I'd wake up and type out the interesting ones later in the day (hey, these are better stories than I could come up with!). I definitely noticed my short-term memory improving - I could remember details I was just reading at work which I was really struggling with. Plus, I was more focused and actually was able to slow down and get things right the first time. My armpits were still sweating profusely at work but were fine when I'm home just kicking it. My mind wasn't racing nearly as much as the first week. I found myself laughing out loud at jokes and smiling which was a really nice thing to experience. I was cracking my own jokes again. I know that sounds stupid but it was something I thought was pretty profound. Less diarrhea, more regular crapping.
Day 20 - 31 - I already feel 1000x better than the first week. My dreams are still vivid but are more interesting than scary. I'm still waking up a couple hours before my alarm clock mid-dream but am able to fall back asleep. Some days are better than others but my sleeping routine is better each day. My appetite has almost returned entirely and I find myself craving more food and finishing meals. I’m able to debate and converse with people and my thoughts are flowing much more freely. When I watch films, I actually remember the entire thing and specific dialogue. I could never do that well when smoking. My creative work at my day job was incredible this week – probably the best stuff I’d done in several months or even all year. I’ve gotten comments from people about this - they obviously don’t know the truth ;) . Another interesting thing is I’m much more willing to talk to family. I never didn’t get along with them but I’m now actually actively talking with them on my own volition.
Things that helped me during the rough times:
- Drinking Valerian Root Tea before bed
- Cutting out all caffeine
- Eating foods I LOVE (they say eat lettuce… I chose bacon, eggs, hotdogs, hamburgers..)
- 5-HTP, Multivitamins, Vitamin D
- Burning Incense (this really relaxed me for some reason)
- Watching Comedy Films
- Jason Newland’s Hypnosis Podcasts, free on iTunes/Podcast Store
- Chugging water throughout the day
Anyway – hope this story helps you guys and it feels great to contribute after lurking for so long.
hi im cumming off cannabis and im finding it so hard gone off my apatite and don't want to do any think if im honest i just feel all out of sorts and i have allot of the symptoms as ive been a heavy smoker of the drug for a long time pritty much all my life i only though it was 7 days didnt know it was 14 days and i just wanted thanku for this page as it may help me out
I was a heavy smoker years ago and stopped with no side effects,now I am in my late 50's and started smoking alot daily for 1 year solid and I had to stop cause of a doctors appointment and blood test he is giving that I need for my disability I am tring to get!Well now I am constantly nausea always feel like I want to throw up and I have been accurately using the best blood cleanser and natural detoxifier in the world to my personal investigations that I have used for years with great results for everything from the flu to colds and all sorts of things and it worked great alway,"that is 1 teaspoon of golden seal and 1/4 teaspoon of myhrr made into a tea in a pint of water and drink it daily 2 weeks on 2 weeks off cause it is so good and powerful that your immune system will not have to work if you do not do it 2 weeks on 2 weeks off the rest of your life if you so wish! It never failed me but this time it only temporarily soothes the discomfort and constant nausea of feeling hungry but not wanting to eat anything this never happened to me before years ago when I stopped heavy THC use but now it is bothering me alot no matter what I do to try to relieve it!All I can hope for is to continue on my healing agenda as is and as time passes by my body will heal cause I am alot older now and did alot of damage to my lungs from over smoking the stuff!
I have smoked weed on a daily bases for 25 yrs now, I'm 57 yrs old and work at safety sensitive position so have to take a drug test every 3 or 4 months...Of course weed stays in your system for a month or more and passing a 15ng/ml test requires abstinence for at least a month, so I have quit many times over the yrs ..but found more so lately that I cannot sleep....its been 5 weeks now, pass my drug test but still can't go to sleep..im down to the clinic for the third time this week to try another kind of sleeping pill..but they don't knock me out for more than a couple of hrs...not sure how long I can expect this to go on...usually I just start smoking again after my test, but this time I want to put my foot down and quit altogether, I don't drink alcohol or take any other drugs ...has anyone any ideas
Ok..thanks ...now that makes more sense I've smoked for 25 yrs quitting periodically to pass a piss test but always went back smoking..I would pass a piss test in a month but if I drank copious amounts of water before the test, but this time I'm swearing off it altogether, but after 5 weeks still can't sleep and wondering why, at 57 yrs old my metabolism is slower so the 70 day thing makes sense, thank you
I'm trying to give thiis ish up because this is the second time ive been arrested for possession. I'm ready to change my life
I too, was a relentless pot smoker and now the irritability after stopping and the fear and paranoia of not getting to sleep is staring to creep on me. I have found mercy so many times. But what the heck hope all goes well, many prayers :)
And now today is 4/20 and I am verging on depression. But that is the name of the game, I guess. I am looking forward to health and life again. kinda.
u seem like an as****e..