I quit both at the same time too and now, after 17 days, I am soo much better. Sleeping fine. Dreams have returned [didn't dream when using pot regularly], energy is up, productivity is up, optimism abounds. I can't think of all the benefits since quitting both.

A recent study written up in AARP shows that quitting everything at once is actually easier as most addictions are cross-supporting.

Hang in there and your life WILL improve.

Ive been smoking probably about every day for the past 6 months, with about 1 to 2 blunts a week, I noticed increased dosing in the past 3 months, I've decided to quit smoking weed and its my 3rd day of sobriety, Im having loss of appetite and irritability, and every now and then the occasional mood swing, ive also heard that if you smoked alot, you could start seeing stuff even when your sober (I haven't had it happen to me), i feel depressed sometimes and really happy at other times, ive had thoughts of suicide, but ive also had extreme times of happiness, especially when I'm with my girl, after the 2nd day being sober, I trained myself to focus on the positives of quitting weed, and for the most part its working, im so much happier now that I CAN feel happy, and I realized I have been neglecting my girlfriend when the answer was right in my face the whole time, it feels like I have just awakened into the real world, sometimes very beautiful and sometimes depressing, does anyone know if it will last for more than a month??? BTW it makes me feel a whole lot better to read all your posts and to see im not the only one going through this thing.

This post is being reviewed and is temporarily unavailable.

Wow, I can't believe you guys are letting a substance like marijuana get to you like this.

Ive been without weed, alcohol, and any drugs for a week and I don't feel any different. I was using weed daily numerous times and drinking everyday for a while. I decided I need a break so that is exactly what i'm doing.

If you aren't in a good state of mind, don't continue using weed, its as easy as that.

There is no physical addiction with weed, its strictly mental. You may not FEEL hungry because you've been getting high and pigging out with the munchies, but your appetite is still the same afterwards. Its all mental, believe me.

If you are a happy positive person in a good position, weed can really improve the quality of your life and make you feel much happier. If you are very anxious, depressed, or emotionally stressed often, weed can cause problems.

BullZye,

Obviously you are one of the lucky few who have no problem quitting. However, there are hundreds who do for every one who does not.

Wow, I can't believe you are insensitive to this in the face of all the posts that contradict your personal experience. If you can't be supportive, what are you doing here?

Supportive of what? You know what marijuana withdrawal is? Its purely mental.

- Slight depression (with heavy use)
- Decrease in appetite
- Boredom

If this were crack cocaine, sure i'd be of help. But c'mon, its WEED. If you don't have the mindpower to stop something soft like weed, you shouldn't be doing drugs in the first place.

Im a very supportive and helpful person, but if you can't help yourself with something like weed, then i'm sorry. Weed is taken as a joke in rehab.

The truth is harsh.

There a thousands upon thousands of people that go into rehab every year for marijuana use, your not right if you dont think anyone goes through withdrawals after quitting something your body is used to having in its system every day,let me give you a little lesson, marijuana increases dopeamine to the brain, your brain makes it naturally every night while your sleeping, when you start smoking weed, you get that dopeamine from the smoke, sooner or later your brain stops making as much dopeamine because it starts relying on the marijuana to make it for your brain, so when you quit smoking, your shorted out on that naturally made chemical, maybe you should be a little more thoughtful to what these people are here for, HELP! and SUPPORT! not criticism for how they feel.

For the muscle twitches, you can try adding a magnesium supplement to your diet. It also sounds like you're going over the top with all the changes at once. Remember, easy does it. Are you interested in joining a live support 12-step group?

The truth is that any chemical you put into your body long term, when withdrawn, will cause temporary imbalances while the body readjusts. This is well documented, simple chemistry. And you're right - the truth is harsh. And that truth is that people's lives can be and are destroyed by chronic use of marijuana. Like it or not...

Get a grip - get supportive or get thee gone.

This is my 3rd year of smoking and im turning 16 this yr. my addiction to pot is probably stronger than yours seeing's i can smoke pot in my own house when i want and my mum had been addicted to pot since she was 15, and my dad since 16, my mum smoked while she was pregnant with me so you could say i was already addicted to it when i was born. I woke up with paranoia after i had a bong one day and it scared me so much. so i got the next bus to byron bay where i stayed with my aunty. i went throught hell for 5 days. i thought i was dying and my heart rate was going fast and slow, i could feel the blood rushing through my body, it felt like i could feel my body working. It scared me so much and because i was in a place i didnt know well and stopping smoking was such a shock to my body i ended up with anxiety. i had changed my eating habbits and everything at once it just shocked my body so much. i couldnt sleep. and had weird dreams and started talking a lot of things. i feel so off my head the whole time, more bad then when i was actualy stoned. i got sick i coulndt eat sleep, i didnt want to talk to anyone. after the 5 days i felt realy energetic and started feeling happy abut myself and realised there was a point of us being here, and it wasnt to abuse our bodies. when you stop abusing your body your body is happy which makes your mental state happy. i went through some stuff getting off pot i had anxiety attacks where my body would lock up and i couldnt move my muscles because they were so tight and i couldnt breath and thought it was dying. thats because all my habbits were changing in one big bang. i used to drink every weekend and pop pills and stuff sometimes its all so bad. but the pot was so hard to get off. i missed it i misses smoking the bongs for some reason. so when i came back home i stayed clean for 2 months. but it is true that you cant hang around with the same bunch of people because you end up relapsing and its really hard. thats why giving up an addiction is so hard. your not just giving up the drugs your giving up your life, your way of life your friends, everything. its a really big thing to be able to do. i wish i didnt go back to it, because at one point i did see the light, and thats a big thing for a 15 yr old to be able to do, so now im sitting here stoned, typing this its pretty sad. but yer everything your going through is normal. and its 5 days of hell.

Stacie,

Sounds like you have a double dose of difficulty. If my wife hadn't quit with me it would never have worked. Now, 31 days out, we're both happier and more productive and healthier, etc. Too bad you can't get your parents to stop with you. That may be your only path to non-smoking, unless and until you move into your own home. Can you talk to them about it?

Having just finished off the last of my stash its time to hit the road to recovery. I must admit im scared to death after having read all of the side effects of those who stopped smokin weed. I fear if i dont attempt to quit cigarettes now as well ill have to go through all this twice. I'm 20 yrs old and have been smoking nearly everyday for 2 and a half years, and for a year of that smoked 1/4 ounce a day. Because of that heavy use, i fear my symptoms will be quite severe.

However, I'm more than encouraged to see many others have pulled through gruelling withdrawals. I pray that I can be as strong. Anyways good luck to all those currently trying to quit and keep me in your prayers. Its gonna be a long month.

When it gets hard do your best to distract yourself. The actual urge to smoke only lasts for minutes. The frequency of urges gets less and less with time. Once you're past the first 3-5 days you should be over the worst of the withdrawl symptoms [irritability, depression, lack of sleep, etc.]. Then its a matter of getting thru those urges.

Good luck and post back here if you need support. I get notices of all posts in this thread and I'm now over a month without mj so I know the path. Feeling a WHOLE lot better now. Able to breathe, shovel snow, not coughing all the time, getting twice the amount of stuff accomplished than I did before... Life is good again!

Just thought I would post an update. I again appreciate the support on here. Haven't had any green or cigs since about 5pm saturday and going strong. I thought the hard part would be the weed but its actually the nicotine thats gettin to me. I think since I was convinced quitting marijuana would be a positive change in every aspect of my life i've generally been happier since i quit. I've had a few moments of anger and irritability in the past few days but its not weed i want, its a cigarette. Hopefully these nicotine cravings will subside soon bcuz im pretty close to sayin screw it and grabbin a can of skoal. Anyway, thanks again for the support and hopefully ill be able to keep things up. Good luck everyone else on the path and my prayers are with you. God bless.

Great to hear you're moving forward. Have you considered a nicotine patch? Might help. I dunno. I quit cigs 25 years ago. I did it by using the knowledge that the urge lasts 3-5 minutes and the only cig I had to quit was my next one. If I could quit for 5 minutes I could get past it. Worked like a charm.

Hang in there.

Gary

true. I have smoked weed off and on for many years, I quit for a month or two, smoke a little, quit for 5 months, smoke for a year. I have NEVER had any side affects or "withdrawal"and when I googled what a lot of you were saying about it, most all web sites say marijuana addiction is a myth and its all in your head. It just isn't addictive. If you call craving it, wanting it and missing it an addiction then, yeah,OK, you may want it and miss it but if you are having withdrawal symptoms then its all in your head. People on diets crave and want and "need" to have fries and burgers and candy and cake but does that make it an addiction? I don't think so. Just cuz you want it and cant stop thinking about it , like a Twinky freak craves her Twinkies, doesn't make it addictive. You just want it. think about something else and the craving will go away with the thought, therefore, it is NOT an addiction.

Apparently you've never heard of food addiction.

Sure I have, but its all in your head. Rare, very very VERY rare is the person addicted to food. A lot of overweight people may claim to be addicted to food but they aren't, just like a lot of people who claim they are addicted to pot. Have a little willpower and put it down if you don't want it...that goes for pot or donuts...

Thanks for being so helpful to people here who ARE suffering. Cavalier approaches to people's problems, real or imagined, can only end in negative results. If people here listened to you and took it to heart most would never end their addiction. They'd figure, "Oh well, it's not really an addiction so I can keep right on".

I know addiction very well. I've had my problems with hard substances in the past and I've found mj just as hard to quit. Sure, its a matter of willpower... but its also a matter of getting past REAL physical withdrawl symptoms.

For all of the people that are coming to this topic and saying that it isn't addictive, keep it to yourself. You're just trying to find a way to feel better about your own addiction to a substance. Anything that you put in your body that it doesn't need (other than food & air) can be an addiction.

All I can offer is my own recent experience of trying to get off of pot. I am 30 years old and have smoked regularly (4-5 times a day) since I was 16. I had only quit successfully once when I was 20 for about 9 months to get a job. I did a lot of drinking and cig smoking then as a substitute to help me get off of it. During the whole 9 months I still wanted to get high (probably due to all of my friends constant use). I didn't really experience any withdrawal symptoms for one reason or another (cigs, regular alcohol use, or being in better physical shape).

About 5 years ago, during college, I decided to quit smoking cigs (first time trying). Everything worked out for me. I had multiple friends trying at the same time, a large bet for the winner-take-all, and an understanding with myself that I would quit after smoking for 10 years. (Call me crazy but I just got lucky I guess) One large problem for a lot of cig smokers is any drinking that they might do. It just seems natural to have a smoke in your other hand while you have that drink. This is one area that college binge-drinking actually helped me. From day one that I quit, that urge was there, a constant struggle. I think that people that go a week without a smoke make concessions for themselves when they drink next (they get used to failing). The first 5-7 days were the toughest, but I got through it by not letting myself down. Whenever I would think about having a smoke, I would think about all of the pain that I went through for the previous week (2 weeks, 3 weeks), and I wasn't going to let that be for nothing. That worked fro me, and after about 3 months I was pretty much done with any pain. I still have an occasional craving 5 years later after a whiff every so often. Oh and I almost forgot the biggest reason why I think that I was able to pull it off, my trusty hitter box. Every time I wanted a cig, I would have a hitter instead. To me, it was a way to justify my quitting cigarettes. "At least I'm getting something from the hitters, while the cigs are pretty much worthless"

I've always known that pot had been a hindrance in my life, in one way or another. I knew it was a problem. I've always made half-assed attempts to quit at new-years which never lasted more than a few days. I am what you would call a major POTHEAD. When I say pothead, I don't mean the amount that I smoked (1/8 to a quarter a week), I mean the frequency. During the past 10 years of my smoking, I probably went 5 days of not smoking per year, and not by choice. I either couldn't find it, or was too physically ill to ingest the smoke for a day. I would take a cold that should last 3-7 days and stretch it out for weeks because of my inability to stop smoking. “I know what will make me feel better….”

For whatever reason (probably because I turned 30) I was going to make this new-years the year that I did it. If anything, I was going to do it to prove to myself that it was possible. I had done many other drugs throughout the years, but I never saw a real need to quit pot (have a home, a successful job, a loving girlfriend). I was still as weak as usual during the first few days of the year, “when this bag is gone, I’ll quit”. And then that day finally came, I was out of pot; it was either put up or shut up. 10 years of constant smoking, pounds and pounds, and thousands of dollars all came down to this one serious attempt at quitting. The first few days actually weren’t that tough. I didn’t even really have any problems falling asleep (probably due to the massive amounts of THC still in my system) for the first few days. Then it did become hard to fall asleep for about the next week, but I was expecting that part.

After about day 10 I started having dreams again (or at least remembering them) which was a sign to me that it was starting to leave my system. Right around then was the first time that I noticed a slight headache during my daily routine. It was worse in the mornings than it was throughout the rest of the day. I work out of my home, so I spend a large portion of my days indoors. I did notice that my headaches got better when I would run any errands or went to any appointments, which got me thinking. After about day 20 of quitting, and about 14 days of headaches, I started to question the cause of my headaches. Marijuana withdrawal never even entered my mindset for the possible reason for my constant headaches (it’s not addictive, or really bad for you, so if anything, quitting should help with headaches right?). The first culprit that made sense to me might be a carbon monoxide leak in the house, so I went out and bought the best detector that I could find. That wasn’t it. The next thing that I could think of was that it was a virus. I still had about a week and a half of some antibiotics left over from a few months earlier, so I decided to self-medicate myself. After going through about 10 days worth of that and no change in my condition, I started to get scared. It was time to see a doctor. I went to see a doctor, and after everything that I told him and a battery of tests (I left out quitting pot part), he decided that I would need a catscan to check for any abnormalities such as tumors. All turned out to be alright. It was then and only then that I decided to analyze my pot addiction to be the culprit. I didn’t want to confide in any of my co-workers or family, so I would have to ask my one friend that had been a pothead with me throughout the years. He had quit a few times throughout the years for his job, smoked as much if not more than I did, so I valued his opinion on this subject. HE SAID IT WAS POT WITHDRAWAL, and he had experienced the same symptoms almost every time that he quit (every few years). He said that those headaches would last up to 6 and sometimes 8 weeks depending on the length of use. You have no idea how good this made me feel. It is about week 5 for me now, and only now are my headaches starting to subside. Since I know people sometimes don’t like to read long posts, I’ll put the rest (and most important) on a new post.