Thanks for the good words. They’re what make this effort worthwhile.

So sorry to hear about your troubles. Life is hard for a lot of folks these days. I’m thankful every day that my wife and I have the skills to continue to make a living at our ages, since our retirement fund went down the drain during our addictions. At that, having to make do on Social Security would beat being in your situation.

Have you talked about these things at meetings? You never know what might crop up. AA people are pretty good at stepping up with ideas, and sometimes with help. Also, you might look for a sober house that would be willing to help out.

I’m extremely concerned about the “Sometimes feel like checking out.” Depression, in addition to its obviously fatal possibilities, can also hinder you in solving your current problems. There are a variety of effective anti-anxiety/antidepressant drugs available that are not addictive. Tetracyclic antidepressants such as Remeron (mirtazapine) are also effective against anxiety, as are most of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The herb St. John’s Wort is also effective in some cases of depression.

All antidepressant agents, regardless of their structure, have a slow onset of action, typically three to five weeks. Significant therapeutic improvement is always delayed, so don’t just stop taking them if they don’t seem to work immediately. Also, be aware that sudden withdrawal from antidepressants can lead to severe depressive episodes that can be life-threatening.

No one in recovery should be taking any benzodiazepine. Lorazepam is one of the worst choices, because it is highly addictive, the detox syndrome is potentially dangerous, and it can trigger a relapse onto alcohol. Also, while it is an effective anti-anxiety drug, Ativan is not an antidepressant and actually has depressive side effects in many cases. DO NOT, however, stop taking it without supervision by a physician. I wasn’t kidding about the withdrawal, which can lead to seizures and blood pressure spikes.

This is not medical advice. I am not a medical doctor. If you will do some research on your own, however, you will discover that this is good information. And ALWAYS talk over your medications with a pharmacist. They are far more aware of the effects of drugs than most doctors — most assuredly including yours.

Get to some meetings. You need all the support you can get, and you need to get out and about, even if you don’t feel like it. Trust me on this. I’ve been there.

Please stay in touch and let me know how you’re doing. Feel free to ask any further questions, and

Keep on keepin’ on!

Bill

P.S. So sorry about your kitty. I’m a cat lover too, and I still grieve for my best buddy Mr. Slim, who’s been gone for nearly six years. I do know.

I am Cheryl who first wrote you on January 25, 2010. Been meaning to write you again to say “thank you” for the longest. I credit you with saving my Life and tell everyone about you. Fell off the wagon on April 9th of that year. But have now been sober since April 10th, 2010, after you made the comment about a hangover being withdrawal just like withdrawing from cocaine or heroin. I use that quote to try to get other people, who are getting drunk every night to see the Light and it always jars them. No one sees alcohol as the drug it is.

Unfortunately, the only good thing about my Life right now IS my sobriety. My Mom, who was my best friend and only real ally died of a heart attack after being misdiagnosed at the hospital. And with no work available, I started my own business but it has yet to turn a profit. Thus, I have been evicted from my apartment and am waiting for the marshalls to come any day now. Will be living on the streets, since all my friends were people I met in bars, who abandoned me once I quit drinking. On top of that, after I quit drinking and because of the grief that my Mom’s death brought, I gained weight and was diagnosed pre-diabetic. Then my only real support, a beautiful little cat that has been with me for 15 years just developed a lump. So I hit rock AFTER becoming sober. I was recently put on Lorazepam for a month just to deal with all this. Not happy about that, but it was really all too much. Sometimes feel like checking out. Hope that this is not going to be something else to kick but I made sure they gave me the lowest dose.

Sorry for all the bad news mixed with the one good. But then, had I still been drinking with all this strife and grief, I would have drank myself to death.

This in addition to the email that I sent you earlier about finding meetings in Sweden.

Imagine that you had a bad burn on your arm. You went through a period of healing, and then when it was nearly healed you burned it again. Obviously the second burn would be worse, all else being equal, since the previous damage is not yet repaired. Furthermore, even after it healed, that spot would be more sensitive to heat and far more likely to be injured again than the skin around it.

In an extremely oversimplified way, that’s the situation with our brains. Once we are addicted, and quit, our brains begin to repair the abnormal changes that took place to accommodate the drug(s). Eventually, we begin to feel better as our reward system recovers from the rebound effect of quitting, and so we think, “Hey, a couple with my mates won’t hurt!”

Wrong. The situation, while far more complicated, is analogous to the burn example. We not only revert back to our previous addiction almost immediately, but we also discover that things go downhill rapidly, and the healing is interrupted. We have to do it all again. There are all sorts of complicated reasons why researchers think that happens, but we really don’t know for sure, yet. Hopefully, when we do, we’ll be able to devise some way to make the discomfort of PAWS last for shorter periods. However, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to reduce it completely.

Acute withdrawal (the first few days) occurs when the body is like, “Oh s–t! I don’t have my drugs!” After that subsides, we get into post-acute withdrawal (PAWS), the period where the body is actually getting back to normal. That can take months. It is, for some people, the proverbial “two steps forward and one step back.” Sometimes it’s several steps back, but the trend is always toward recovery as long as we remain abstinent. (See burn simile, above.)

We need to concentrate on healthy living: good food, rest, moderate exercise, vitamins, avoiding stimulants (helps us sleep) and watching our blood sugar. See the article on PAWS for that info. We also need to have some fun, and we need the company of people amongst whom we can relax because we know they understand. Get thee to a meeting!

Feel free to contact me if you need a little leg up. You’re in an unusual position, and until you get established in the AA community, you may feel as though you need to keep in touch. Of course you’re welcome to contact me any time, anyway, as are all the folks who come to this site.

Keep on keepin’ on!

Bill

I wanted to thank you for your site you really are doing something awesome here. It has been a great shoulder for me to lean on during these times. I am 33yr old Australian who relocated to Sweden with my family last year and being in a new country is trying at times especially the last 5 months copping with withdrawal and so on. As I do not speak Swedish I haven’t been able to reach out for the support like I would have done by now had I been in Australia. This is why i am posting today. I just have come to the point where I need some advice on my personal situation. I will try and be as brief as I can.
I experimented with most recreational drugs in my teens and early twenties but my drugs of choice became alcohol and weed, with weed playing a more dominant role. I have probably been either stoned or drunk or both almost every day for close to ten years although I have stopped for periods lasting up to around a month on numerous occasions during that time, Without ever noticing withdrawal.
I stopped smoking weed when I moved to Sweden but my drinking significantly increased to compensate. The catalyst to me stopping drinking was a panic attack which I had after a big night out. I have no history of panic attacks or anxiety. Subsequently I went 78 days sober experiencing a whole range of symptoms which seemed to be slowly lifting. Even though I knew it wasn’t the best thing for me I had a pre scheduled 3 day holiday booked in with my mates from Australia and I drank and smoked weed again for two of those days. I came back feeling remorse and felt I had taken a step back with my symptoms but I soon bounced back and a few weeks later I drank again I have done this twice since then each of these times I averaged about 5-6 beers.
The last few weeks I have been poor with my diet and drinking a lot of coke and eating junk food i felt myself slipping into old bad habits, a week ago I had 5-6 beers on Friday night then on Sunday for the first time since seeing my mates I smoked weed. I really didn’t enjoy the high and just wanted it to end. The next day I woke up with a cold/flue and went the week feeling terrible as the cold/flue started to lift I became very anxious which has built up over the last 4 days, I have no appetite, my thoughts are negative and repetitive and I am in a very worried state. I feel like I am going crazy, I am concerned that the weed has permanently stuffed me up. The anxiety is the worst, it is basically constant, like my brain is pumping adrenalin through me all time for no apparent reason and it is causing me great concern and panic. It feels like acute withdrawal I had in the first week of stopping some months ago. Could I be going through withdrawal again even though I only drank and smoked a little bit of weed a week ago now? Is this PAWS? I didn’t experience anything as overwhelming as this in my 78 days of abstinence, why now? Will it go away?
I know now I have to stop for good I obviously can’t handle it anymore nor do i want it in my life. But if you could shed some light on why I might be experiencing these things I think it will help me get through this. I don’t really know where else to turn to right now. sorry for writing so much.
Thanks
Ben

Congratulations on your 80 days! Well, 81 now, I guess. I’m proud to have been a small part of it, but don’t fool yourself — you’ve done most of the work.

You’re living proof of the fact that cannabis is addictive, and that there is a prolonged withdrawal syndrome. It’s been my experience that most of the folks who claim it isn’t have never tried to quit completely, or did so with the aid of some other drug. And, of course, like most drugs it makes us a bit stupid, and kicks in our denial big time.

I wish I could tell you that things are going to get better right away, but the fact is that even though weed doesn’t have a really acute withdrawal phase (for most people), PAWS can and often does continue for months. Your symptoms are classic, and like all PAWS symptoms, they are a major reason for relapse. Do be careful. The SSRIs should help, but your determination to remain abstinent is your biggest weapon.

The good news is that your episodes will gradually lessen in intensity and duration. When it begins to seem as though it’s hopeless, remember that you submerged your brain in cannibinols for five years. It’s hardly unreasonable of your body to take a bit of time to repair the changes that took place. You overstimulated your brain’s pleasure center, and now you are experiencing the rebound effects. It will get better.

In the meantime, the best things you can do for your self are: 1) good self-care. Make yourself get some mild exercise every day, even if it’s just walking around the block for ten or fifteen minutes (30 is better, but anything helps). Make sure you watch your nutrition, and take a multivitamin morning and evening — with meals. Vitamins are food ingredients, and should be taken with food for the best absorption. 2) Hit some NA meetings. We need the support of people who know what we’ve been going through.

Please do keep in touch. Not only do I like to keep track of how “my” folks are doing, I’m especially interested in PAWS as it relates to pot. We’re learning more and more about what a nasty drug it really is, and the experience of folks like you is an important addition to the field.

Keep on keepin’ on,

Bill

P.S. It’s not really two steps back, it just seems like it. We addicts expect our quick fixes. You are progressing every day, whether it feels like it or not.

Another thought: DON’T go off the SSRI yourself. Discuss it with your doctor. If you think the rebound from MJ is bad, you don’t even want to think about what sudden withdrawal from an antidepressant is like!

I am an avid reader of you blogs and they have been helping me immensely through my detox and recovery. I’m 80 days clean as of today and I was a chronic MJ user for five years with medical grade MJ for the past four years. The last three months have been a full blown roller coaster to say the least.. I had a break-up with a veryyy unstable EX-girlfriend which is a big reason why I smoked as much as I did. Since I went cold turkey with the relationship and the pot, I’ve been experiencing crazy symptoms of anxiety/depression, intrusive thoughts, hopelessness, and overall I find myself to be emotionally numb. Honestly, I feel like I’m going crazy because one day I’ll wake up fine and the next day you would think my dog died. I’m taking an SSRI to help with the anxiety/depression and trying to eat healthy, I’m just wondering if you had any insight on how long these symptoms last for pot users. I feel like I should be better now, but just when I start to feel better, I end up taking two steps back. I really appreciate the help. Thank you.

It gets better, I promise!

Bill