Living in Hell 4 months - no weed

[Izzy]

Hi all,

I am 23 years old and have hit the 4 month mark for not smoking weed. I was smoking on average an ounce a week for just under a year.

I have been riddled with deep depression, I have no motivation or ambition. Life seems to be pointless. I am ruining my final year at University and my relationship is hanging on by a thread. I am worried this is going to last forever. I don't know if I can do this forever. I enjoy nothing. I don't even have a sex drive. When people talk to me I have nothing to say back. I am a zombie.

I don't know where to turn. I have read stories of people that never recover from this and that terrifies me. I can't live like this forever. Suicide is more alluring everyday.

Is there any hope?

[helenadoc]

Hi Izzie. Your story is very similar with mine, except for the fact that i smoked 2 to 3 years. When i was at the 4th month mark i felt exactly the same. I was depressed all the time, crying all the time, no sex drive, no nothing. I was drowning.
You just have to go on. I was starting 5th year on college when i hit the 4th month and i thought i couldn't do it. But i did. Read what you have to read for school, slowly, steady. 1 page at a time..after a while you will see it will get easier, day by day. I must say that starting school kinda saved me..i was having to much free time on summer break and studying and going to classes helped me to get out of my mind a little bit.
You have to keep going, and right now it doesn't seem to get better, but it will. When i hit the 6th month i could finally breathe. 6th month it is indeed a milestone when you will feel better and all this torment will be bearable.
I finaly understood that this is the fight, these are the moments of crossroad when we have to be strong. It is a slow evolution, it's agony, but it will get better. Your brain is healing that's the reason you feel this way. We are young and i believe we are going to get to the other side, but it will take time.

[mikeabbot]

Look Izzy!

Been there, it does get better! You are in a state of depression now. It goes away with time. Depressed = deep rest.
Your mind was overloaded for some time, but now it needs to heal. This can take some time. For some up to 2 years.
Some call it PAWS, but they feel much more like CLAWS that hold you and won't let go...unless you fight them.


I'm now at 7,5 months for about a month now I feel OK, not normal, but OK.
What you need to do right now is keep yourself occupied. Sports, hobbies, healthy nutrition.
Magnesium and Omega3 + b vitamins helped me in the worst times.
Start meditating. This also helpes a lot.

You can do it! You just have to fight it. Set some goals and try to achieve them.

Just remember that changes won't happen over night, but they come back slowly little by little until one day you feel perfectly normal, just as you remember it.
I'm sure in a year or so, you won't even remember what was happening to you.

All the best,
Mike

[Izzy]

Hi Izzie. Your story is very similar with mine, except for the fact that i smoked 2 to 3 years. When i was at the 4th month mark i felt exactly the same. I was depressed all the time, crying all the time, no sex drive, no nothing. I was drowning.
You just have to go on. I was starting 5th year on college when i hit the 4th month and i thought i couldn't do it. But i did. Read what you have to read for school, slowly, steady. 1 page at a time..after a while you will see it will get easier, day by day. I must say that starting school kinda saved me..i was having to much free time on summer break and studying and going to classes helped me to get out of my mind a little bit.
You have to keep going, and right now it doesn't seem to get better, but it will. When i hit the 6th month i could finally breathe. 6th month it is indeed a milestone when you will feel better and all this torment will be bearable.
I finaly understood that this is the fight, these are the moments of crossroad when we have to be strong. It is a slow evolution, it's agony, but it will get better. Your brain is healing that's the reason you feel this way. We are young and i believe we are going to get to the other side, but it will take time.

Thank you, Helenadoc for sharing your journey. It is good to know that you seem to be getting better, and calming to me to hear that my position could possibly get easier. I hope your studies were a success and your situation didn't put too much strain on your capability to perform. If you don't mind me asking how long has it been for you now and are you okay?

[Izzy]

Look Izzy!

Been there, it does get better! You are in a state of depression now. It goes away with time. Depressed = deep rest.
Your mind was overloaded for some time, but now it needs to heal. This can take some time. For some up to 2 years.
Some call it PAWS, but they feel much more like CLAWS that hold you and won't let go...unless you fight them.


I'm now at 7,5 months for about a month now I feel OK, not normal, but OK.
What you need to do right now is keep yourself occupied. Sports, hobbies, healthy nutrition.
Magnesium and Omega3 + b vitamins helped me in the worst times.
Start meditating. This also helpes a lot.

You can do it! You just have to fight it. Set some goals and try to achieve them.

Just remember that changes won't happen over night, but they come back slowly little by little until one day you feel perfectly normal, just as you remember it.
I'm sure in a year or so, you won't even remember what was happening to you.

All the best,
Mike

Thank you Mike, for all the advice and the recovery information. I am glad you are feeling better now, and wish you all the best for the future. If its not too intrusive, how would you explain not feeling normal? Would you say you just don't feel like the same person you were before?

[helenadoc]

Today i'm at exactly 9 and a half months. My situation is similar to mike's: i'm fine, but not normal.
For me the first 6 months were dreadful and then it got easier.
Now i have my good days and bad ones. A bad day, like today, my anxiety rises like a monster and depression along with it, with the same thoughts: i'm not getting better, this is never going to end. Lots of irrational and obsesive thoughts. After a while it passes and i feel a bit better.
When i'm fine, i mean that i have a little anxiety that is manageable (it may go up and down through the day, but is bearable), i can focus, i can even make jokes, i can have conversations. But there is this slight depression that is hovering around: i feel only negative things, i can't feel emotions, i don't take pleasure in anything, i don't have a sex drive. I am flat like a wooden board emotionaly speaking.
Don't get me wrong, i am waay better than when i started, but i'm not right yet. I feel like i am close to what i want to be, it's like a glass wall that is in front of me and i can't break it to get to the real me.
This is not me. My connections with everything is severed since i've quit. I need to feel those things: that deep love for my bf, motivation and ambition towards my carrier, my connection with my mother, my friends.
I have moments when i feel those things and those moments are the ones that give me hope and strenght. Imagine i had almost a whole month in february (7th month) when i really felt i'm gettong better day by day: i felt positive energy flowing through me, my sex drive was coming up (and it was such a relief), my eyes were glowing, my mind was slowly setteling down. It was amazing.
I hate that weed stole this from me, but i am not gonna stop until i get them back. I am going forward no matter how i feel because i know the old me is there, somewhere, the same with my feelings and i'm stubborn like a mule . When i get desperate i come here to read peoples stories and this gets me down to earth

[helenadoc]

All this started when i stopped smoking. I never had a problem before and during smoking. No depression, no anxiety, i was a very emotional person. I felt everything, i wasn't numb like now. So all this is because of withdrawal and PAWS, i can't find another reason.
So, keep going even if you feel like you are losing your mind. On my 3rd month i felt i was litteraly going crazy. And here i am living forward, not crazy ))
Don't give up. I am here if you wanna talk, i know how important it can be to talk to someone who understands.

[mikeabbot]

Thank you Mike, for all the advice and the recovery information. I am glad you are feeling better now, and wish you all the best for the future. If its not too intrusive, how would you explain not feeling normal? Would you say you just don't feel like the same person you were before?

Yes. I don't totally feel like a person I was before. But the glimpses of my old self are coming back. Little by little. My emotions are still not 100%, but I feel happiness now and I feel OK in general (for about a month now), but this "PAWS" symptoms come in waves. I had a 14 day happy period and since yesterday evening I started feeling low again. To me that means feeling dizzy, my mind goes into a depressed state of mind (not that bad though), my calves and lower legs start to feel tense when I rest, my sexual desire goes down to 0. I have this thing when I wake up at 2 am and have cravings (same feeling as when you need a cigarette). Then after a few days everything goes away and I'm happy again.

The thing is -> This happy period is extending. At 4 months I still had waves coming and going on an hourly basis. At 5 months I started getting a full day or two of being fine (not OK, but fine). At 6 months is when I suddenly got a day or so of really feeling good and then after that I just went from 3 days good - 4 days bad, 4 days good - 3 days bad, 5 days good - 2 days bad and then suddenly a whole week of feeling great (At this point I started feeling pure joy again) and then 2 days of feeling bad until recently I got my 14 days of feeling really good until yesterday evening.

It is a process... it's hard. You think you're out and then out of nowhere paws comes and hit you...it sucks. really bad.
But according to other users that's how it is. I think 8 months to a year will be the time that real changes happen.

Let's wait and see and then share our experiences.

Just be strong, stay busy and time will do the rest

all the best,
Mike