Concerns Surrounding Regular Marijuana Use?

[Kintsugi]

I am confused by how many posts I see from concerned parents/caregivers/supporters about marijuana abuse.

When I started smoking pot, it was to curb my insomnia on the nights before I had to be at work at 6 AM. After I started regularly smoking, I stopped binge drinking on weekends. Before that time my alcohol abuse was getting worse, and it was leading me into dangerous situations that were potentially traumatic (blacking out and waking up with a guy on top of me, trying to kiss me).

After regularly smoking for almost two years now, I can say that if anything, marijuana has been an expensive way to self-medicate. I agree that this isn't ideal, but I have a lot of trouble remembering pills, refilling prescriptions, and seeing a psychiatrist (this semester the only time there is a psychiatrist available I have class), and when I don't remember or something comes up (forgot my meds and went on a trip, forgot an appointment but the psychiatrist is booked for three weeks straight) I get a feeling of failure and anxiety, and it is hard for me to get back on the wagon. Meanwhile my irregularity is harmful to my stability.

While meds are the best option, I am happy that I have something that makes me feel calm and functional that is available without the process involved in getting my prescription. I should add that I can't pay for my prescriptions myself, so I have to call my parents, who are not supportive of me taking a mood stabilizer, even though the recommendation to medicate came from three separate psychologists and a psychiatrist. Needless to say, I don't have to have my parents support to buy some pot.

Additionally, medical marijuana is now legal in my home state, and I am hopeful that I can qualify for a license to help with my anxiety, insomnia, and loss of appetite. So I'm wondering, why is there so much concern surrounding this substance? I ask in particular because I know if my parents knew I smoked cigarettes, they would be mortified, but cigarettes got me off of self-mutilation. Pot got me out of alcohol. I just hope that supporters are getting hung up on the 'right' wrong behaviors or asking questions about other behaviors. Not socializing, for instance, may be worse than your sufferer's nighttime smoke.

 

[MurphyJB]

I'm glad that marijuana works for you.
It made my fiancé a zombie.
He was constantly high, and not dealing with any emotions. He literally shut down his feelings...easy way out IMO.
I get what pot does. I'm not against smoking. I used to smoke a lot.
But when it gets to the point where you're constable high, and know no other way to deal with feeling...then it's a problem.
Since my fiancé quit smoking his personality came back, he shows affection, his meds work better...and his overall mood is way better.

 

[tangerinetrees12]

My boyfriend smokes a synthetic form of marijuana called "spice", I don't know if you've ever heard of it. I don't like that he does it, but your post gave me a lot of insight as to why he does it. He has PTSD from being the in military, and just an overall crappy childhood. I used to try to get him to stop, because the way I see it is that he's not really doing anything to deal with his issues, he just gets high so he can avoid the issues. He'll never get better that way. Currently he is away at school trying to get a degree and a great job, which is a terrifying experience for him and incredibly stressful. (He's terrified of failing out and becoming homeless again after he got out of the military.) I've recently realized that that is not the environment in which I want him to stop getting high and start dealing with his serious issues. I would rather he do it when he is closer to home and there can be someone there to support him.

So, if marijuana is working for you, and you can do it legally...then that's what you should do. But I hope that you don't plan on spending the rest of your life getting high, I hope that one day you can start to seek help and work through your issues and become a stronger you. Take care.

 

[Kintsugi]

My boyfriend smokes a synthetic form of marijuana called "spice", I don't know if you've ever heard of it.

I haven't heard of that particularly, but I definitely warn against synthetic anything. There have been a lot of issues in my area with synthetic pot and synthetic cocaine. I was exposed to the first one without being told it was not marijuana and quickly realized that there was something very wrong. I have seen the second have horrible emotional responses that are lasting (my fiance became manic for a week or two, a girl I know became severely depressed for a couple of weeks). I don't know about Spice, but these substances are not scheduled and there is not enough research to show how harmful they can be, so please be careful.

These responses have really hit me and showed me the other side I guess. I have problems maintaining a personality (other than melancholy or irritable) when I'm not high because I withdraw in fear and anxiety and self-deprecating introspection that makes *me* a zombie. I never considered it the other way around. I can understand why that would be a harmful situation for someone and those surrounding them.

 

[AngelaMarie]

Every person is different. In my life my hubby became addicted to running away from life by getting high. It is legal in Holland, he could get it any time he wanted. He got to the point that he chose that running away from his life was more important than me, his children, his job, everything in the real world. He would go 3 or 4 nights a week to this friend (not) that had no family, no job, didn't clean his apt. and got high and ignored everything around him. The last night it happened he was so out of it that he was slurring his words and acting out of his mind. His choice was NA or no family. He is starting now to deal with his emotions and is starting to be a husband and a father for the first time. He wasn't dealing with his abuse from the past, he wasn't dealing with life.

I am open minded and believe everyone has the right to decide what they want for their lives. If you truly honestly believe it adds to your life, makes you a better person then do what is right for you. I just know from my hubby's experiences and also mine that the decision to numb didn't help. We just stood still and didn't grow.

Whatever decision you make I wish you the best and much strength. As I said everyone is different.:)

 

[tangerinetrees12]

I haven't heard of that particularly, but I definitely warn against synthetic anything. There have been a lot of issues in my area with synthetic pot and synthetic cocaine. I was exposed to the first one without being told it was not marijuana and quickly realized that there was something very wrong. I have seen the second have horrible emotional responses that are lasting (my fiance became manic for a week or two, a girl I know became severely depressed for a couple of weeks). I don't know about Spice, but these substances are not scheduled and there is not enough research to show how harmful they can be, so please be careful.

I've had a negative experience with spice, where I blacked out for an hour or so, and I haven't smoked it since. We had bought a brand new pack from the store and opened it ourselves, and he didn't have any problem with it. Guess it just affects everybody differently. ::shrug:: I do encourage him to smoke cigarettes more often, and I am encouraging him to look for a job so he'll have less time to do it. He absolutely hate that he does it, but he feels stuck, and I feel like a job would help out with those feelings.

 

[Linda Lee Bogard - King]

Hi there! Like anything else, what works for one person may not work at all for another. Pot isn't for everyone. As a matter of fact, I just smoked a few bowls so I could concentrate on this piece.

As you can tell ... I do not sound like a rambling fool. Too many pills are not good for my liver because I have Hemochromotosis (high iron in blood), and I could not see myself popping pills for 40 years... it has do some kind of damage, right?

So, pot is my medicine. I cook with it too. It never interfered with my work as a newsreporter, but PTSD did cause anger issues at work. Pissed at the bullshit - knowing when editors and publishers are slanting stories about the war and other political causes these news rags may champion .... E.g. medical marijuana story - the editor wasn't happy cause it showed pot in a positive light by helping an AIDS patient.

P.S. Here in Cali., we can grow our own with a medical card ... much, much cheaper.

 

[ronin47]

I used to be against using marijuana for medical purposes, then I realized many of the drugs already in the pharmacies are much more addictive and potentially toxic than marijuana. Heck, Oxycotin is basically heroin in pill form. I figure if we're going to give people narcotics for things like pain and insomnia it might as well be something like marijuana that is, from what I've seen, less destructive than Oxycotin and Xanax.

On the flip side, I learned in my Introduction to Psychology class that the negative health effects of marijuana smoking are not as benign as many people are inclined to think. For instance, when someone smokes their first pipe of marijuana, their risk of a heart attack quadruples.

Though, like I said, in my opinion it's a prefferable alternative to other pharmacuticals on the market.

 

[Kintsugi]

On the flip side, I learned in my Introduction to Psychology class that the negative health effects of marijuana smoking are not as benign as many people are inclined to think. For instance, when someone smokes their first pipe of marijuana, their risk of a heart attack quadruples.

*What?* I took a psychology class called Drugs and Behavior taught by a neurologist. That was definitely not in any of the material I learned.

I can't find any journals on this subject, but it sounds like the claim that you "lose seven minutes of your life every time you smoke a cigarette," which actually means that you lose time smoking the cigarette, not that your natural expiration date moves up seven minutes. I imagine that there is increased heart rate that would create a greater potential for heart attack, or some such factor, but I was taught that the effects of smoking marijuana on the heart and lungs is similar to smoking a cigarette. I'm sure the panic attacks are bad for my heart too! Honestly, I'm more worried about the health effects of the box of cookies I just ate... >.< Anyway, I wouldn't worry too hard, ronin.

Linda, you lucky dog! That's a nice deal you have in California.

 

[ronin47]

Hey, that's just what I read in my textbook, take it or leave it. Yes, I've also heard the effects of marijuana smoking are similar to cigarettes, and I don't smoke cigarettes or marijuana. I have no plans to. I also took a class called Psychoactive Drugs and Behavior, and the text said very similar things, that marijuana is not as harmless as most people think. My personal philosophy is, yes, many things are bad for your health, but why compound them with other unhealthy things just because they're "not as bad" if you have the choice?

That's just me.

 

[Kintsugi]

I agree with you. I wish I were addicted to whole grain crackers and running.

 

[anthony]

I will tell you this now... you are kidding yourself if you think marijuana is helping you more than hindering you. You may absolutely feel it is helping you right now, and that is fine, as you got it right in the first post, you have replaced one negative habit with another, being pot vs. drinking. That is all you have achieved.

Marijuana is a hallucinogenic, and no matter how much you try to say it helps, until you get off it, you won't understand just how much it actually hinders the process with PTSD.

This is not a smoke it, don't smoke it argument... far from it, but I am telling anyone who does smoke it, until you get off it, you cannot understand just how much damage it is actually doing to the healing process with your trauma. It is part of denial if you think it helps more than hinders.

It is like alcohol abuse when PTSD is uncontrolled, being you use it to suppress, to try and stay sane, etc... I get it all, no need to explain or argue the point.... however; when you have actively begun seeking help to get PTSD under control, that is the same moment it now hinders you, just like alcohol would... pick your poison, same result. Medication itself will hinder the healing process... you have to get off it at some point to discover what you really feel, as its an emotional suppressant. If you can't feel it, you can't review it and heal it. Simple as that.