[jeNeTeConnaisPas]

For the past few months, I have been using marijuana. Before these past few months, I despised it with every fiber of my being. I do have DID, so I'm adept at breaking off my feelings about something that I have apprehensions about, and I tried it with a close friend.

For a while, I only did it with my close friend, we would joke about how only "potheads" smoke every day, especially they only smoke by themselves, unless they have guests.

I held that notion true until I started getting my own pot.

I couldn't stop myself, I remembered how much of my mental illness just melted away when I was using pot. I know self medicating isn't a good thing to do, from seeing many people in my family and in psychiatric inpatient stays, having things feel okay for themselves, (they like to trick themselves into thinking they feel okay), and things around them in their life gets worse.

I realise all of these things. Now I can't go a day without using. I feel terrible about this. I wish I could stop, but I don't care enough yet.

I think this early declaration is a sign that I want help with it. I need to stop, I need to quit completely, before things take a turn for the worse. (If things, which they could, get worse)

Now my attitude towards people doing drugs isnt as vehemently against it, and I think thats another weakness in my battle to regain mental power over the emotional addiction I have to pot.

Also I want to quit smoking cigarettes, but I've been smoking for over a year now, and I'm now addicted. And its also hard because its worked its habitual ways into all corners of my life. Also I live in a house and family full of smokers.

I feel tired and exhausted. I know I should stop. I just haven't ever dealt with substance issues before the past year, so I don't know where to begin.

Any ideas or comments or support would be deeply appriciated.
I have a hard time keeping my mind set, but I always hold on to the things people say, thats one thing to know about me.

[Edahn]

I got addicted to pot in college. It was a brief but intense time for me. Then I tried mushrooms in my senior year, got into buddhism, and started smoking on and off again because the same sensations and experience would come back. It started becoming a little bit of a problem because I started withdrawing from everything. I became careless with my friends and family, confused and disorganized in my sober moments, and I realized that it wasn't sustainable. So I've resolved on looking for that same experience without all the side effects, using tools like meditation, psychotherapy, and creative experimentation (with my thinking, rather than with drugs).

The way I see it is this: the experiences you have on drugs -- the peace of mind, the insight, the awakening -- is very real. The problem is that using drugs is not sustainable because it will mess with other parts of your life. (See hippies.) If you're like me, you'll end up depressed or anxious or both. So the solution is to find another way back to those experiences with less collateral damage. Your reason for giving up pot should be a practical one, not one based on stigma or stereotypes about pot or insight or spirituality. In my experience, it's a very worthy journey that takes patience but is very possible.

[jeNeTeConnaisPas]

I really get what you are saying. And thats the biggest reason I want to quit pot.

All the sensations I have when Im high are just intensified versions of how I really think and expirience things. I can't really explain it, I'm always dissociated, so life has always felt like a dream to me. Just, I feel the same while high, only numb, and not kicking myself in the pants for being dissociated.

I guess I only like it because I feel that way because of a drug, and not because of mental illness. If that makes sense.

I'll tell my T the reason I like it, and my own situation around it, and maybe she can help me figure out a way like you said, to stop using pot as a tool to not have to accept a mental state I am always in.

This really helped me get a perspective on things. You kind of hit the nail on the head with the expirences thing. Thank you very much. I will put this perspective to good use.

[altonwoodsdrphil]

Marijuana changed my ideas as well...Pot is a very insidious drug, in that, It's the one drug that's perceived as harmless enough to not scare us and yet it seems to be such a general purpose "antidote" to people with various issues. All of the cliche things that people said about pot to me turned out to be true in my life. It screwed up my education and It (being an addict) did lead to harder drugs. even my young adult life and my first marriage were affected because of another lesser known side effect of pot, I think that I was emotionally stunted by it, you just become used to it as a crutch and it happens one carefree day at a time! One day, if you're as slow as I am,(or was) you'll look up and begin to understand what has been stolen from you by drugs. which in my case led to a major depression that took years to come out of. so it got worse before it got better...don't go down this road, at all, get free of anything that does not bless you and your life!

[splitimage]

Kicking any drug habit is hard, but it's really worth doing, as eventually the downsides of addiction seriously outweigh whatever benefit we get from using. And this is just my opinion, I'm not a Dr. or anything, but I really believe that using any kind of drug or alchohol to self medicate just makes our mental illness work. I know alcohol really messed me up.

You might want to consider getting some IRL support either a T or joining a self help group like NA. I go to AA and get a lot of support from it.

---splitimage

[Edahn]

Originally Posted by jeNeTeConnaisPas

I really get what you are saying. And thats the biggest reason I want to quit pot.

All the sensations I have when Im high are just intensified versions of how I really think and expirience things. I can't really explain it, I'm always dissociated, so life has always felt like a dream to me. Just, I feel the same while high, only numb, and not kicking myself in the pants for being dissociated.

I guess I only like it because I feel that way because of a drug, and not because of mental illness. If that makes sense.

I'll tell my T the reason I like it, and my own situation around it, and maybe she can help me figure out a way like you said, to stop using pot as a tool to not have to accept a mental state I am always in.

This really helped me get a perspective on things. You kind of hit the nail on the head with the expirences thing. Thank you very much. I will put this perspective to good use.

You're very welcome. As I continue to investigate my own anxiety, I've come to the same lesson I believe you've already learned: that the worst part of being different or having a "disorder" is not the experience itself but the way you interface with it. If you fight it desperately and shame yourself for being in the state you are, you create much more distress. Meditation for me, as well as drug use, was a way to come to accept the mediocrity or even pain of my present experience without guilt.

Alan Watts, my personal hero, dabbled in drug use in the 60 and used it as a vehicle for mysticism and personal growth (same thing, to me). He later said "When you get the message, hang up the phone." I share that viewpoint.

[jeNeTeConnaisPas]

Originally Posted by Edahn

You're very welcome. As I continue to investigate my own anxiety, I've come to the same lesson I believe you've already learned: that the worst part of being different or having a "disorder" is not the experience itself but the way you interface with it. If you fight it desperately and shame yourself for being in the state you are, you create much more distress. Meditation for me, as well as drug use, was a way to come to accept the mediocrity or even pain of my present experience without guilt.

Alan Watts, my personal hero, dabbled in drug use in the 60 and used it as a vehicle for mysticism and personal growth (same thing, to me). He later said "When you get the message, hang up the phone." I share that viewpoint.

I have some psychosis, so sometimes its hard for me to work through my thoughts, they get disorganized. But when I smoke, it makes it so I can think in a more linear fashion, and come to conclusions about how i really feel and such. You'd think it would do the opposite, but for some reason it helps. But I'm reaching the end of "this is fun" and getting to "this is helping me figure stuff out", and hopefully very soon I'll get to "I don't need to use this anymore".

It's going to take some hard work though, when I get addicted to something, it takes me a while to let go of it. I'm not in physical danger, or putting anyone in danger though, if I was, I would do something drastic to stop. I feel badly about it sometimes, but other times, I just remember that it doesn't make me a bad person, I need as little shame upon myself as possible. I get more delusional sometimes, but for the most part it just slows down my thoughts. I should ask a doctor if there's a medication that will do that.

[Edahn]

Originally Posted by jeNeTeConnaisPas

I have some psychosis, so sometimes its hard for me to work through my thoughts, they get disorganized. But when I smoke, it makes it so I can think in a more linear fashion, and come to conclusions about how i really feel and such. You'd think it would do the opposite, but for some reason it helps. But I'm reaching the end of "this is fun" and getting to "this is helping me figure stuff out", and hopefully very soon I'll get to "I don't need to use this anymore".

It's going to take some hard work though, when I get addicted to something, it takes me a while to let go of it. I'm not in physical danger, or putting anyone in danger though, if I was, I would do something drastic to stop. I feel badly about it sometimes, but other times, I just remember that it doesn't make me a bad person, I need as little shame upon myself as possible. I get more delusional sometimes, but for the most part it just slows down my thoughts. I should ask a doctor if there's a medication that will do that.

That's a good idea. I felt guilty for smoking because I felt like I was weak for having to rely on something, not to mention the fact that's there's tons of stigma attached to smoking pot (which automatically summons images of losers and degenerates). It's a bunch of crap, really.

I get the linear thing too. I think it's a result of not resisting. In other words, all the crazy thinking that we do (for you with your DID, for me with my anxiety) is a result of resistance to something. Marijuana cools that resistance. Do you ever watch The Dog Whisperer talk about excited dogs? It's the same idea. (Can't find a video right now.)

Anyway, good luck with your progress.

[I_WMD]

I can hardley not stand interlopeing into this thread ... LOL

Seriously though >> I was on meds [ zoloft ] that damaged my liver more than alcohol .... but past abuses and health stuff was / is a factor >> HEP C ..

Any way >> I left the more toxic meds alone >> and although in my younger years I was a get high peep >> I do know that anx and the dep land can more easily be elieviated by a few tokes .. >> even if it has been ,, like >> errrrmm ?? some 6 months at least since I caught that 40 min buzz .[ just to say >> before the last time was probabley a year ] done it enough for a lifetime >. not that much needed as regular " wake & bake ".

But that is my point >> meds last so long and for me are more detrimental phsyologically than herb .

Overall health down the road counts for something as well as healthy diet ......
and My Hero was Timothy Leary ....

JeNeTe>>... mmmmmmmmmmm??? Don't get all on yourself for thinking you have let yourself down >>. Life does that and people too >> almost regularly >> Like fair weather friends >> Not there when the storms hit the fan >> and leave us without a sounding board .



WMD.