Unususal and olympus92: I will cheerfully stay away from threads you start, how's that? The OP here appreciated something I wrote (see post 5). But naturally when I'm directly addressed, I will reply to others, as well.
Unususal wrote:Even if it is complete BS and we are just anxious for no reason and making up the connection between canabis and the state we are in, it still is a big help for me and the others to overcome the hard times.
If you wish to go on fooling yourself, great -- as long as you acknowledge (to yourself, not to me) that you were lonely or depressed or whatever
before you started using, and are now using so-called PAWS to give you membership of an online club here. No one's forcing you to get over it and "just get on with life as a non-smoker", to quote tokeless. Similarly, no one's forcing you to read my posts. You can easily skip over them if you want to. You can even go to the user control panel and list me as an enemy, then my posts won't show up for you.
olympus92 wrote:Candid this part of the forum is about addictions not generalised anxiety issues.
Point is, all the symptoms of so-called PAWS can be found in great numbers of the general population, people who've never smoked. The PAWS concept gives you a reason to talk yourself into using again. Is that what you want? Maybe I could write that my PAWS symptoms were so bad, I started using again and I'm much happier for it?
You even said last time you smoked was in the 70s where weed was more bush than hydro and a Lot has changed since then.
Yes, I've heard that argument before. Also before you were born, a prophet called Bob Dylan let the world know the times they were a-changin', and he was right. There was no internet. Whenever you made a phone call you were tied to one spot for the duration. When I quit weed I'd managed to insult or alienate all my straight friends, or they'd stayed away for fear of contamination, and I was no longer welcomed by my stoner friends. Yes, it was rough. Of course it was. But PAWS hadn't been invented, so I had no choice but "just get on with life as a non-smoker", to quote tokeless. Had the Uncommon Forum existed, and had I stumbled across all the PAWS posts here, I'm sure I would have been moaning with the best of you -- all the time avoiding the bother of making real-life friendships and worse, convincing myself there was a good reason to start using again.
PAWS is definitely a real thing
Actually it isn't, that's why there's no medical 'cure'. The only people researching it are off their faces. It's merely a convenient umbrella term for any and every misery people experience a couple of weeks after quitting any habit -- all of which, as pointed out several times, are equally common in people who've never used. When you're no longer heading out to score, what exactly
will you be doing? Sitting around with other users was fun, right? And nothing has replaced it. You liked the anticipation you experienced while skinning up. That's gone, too. You've now got too much time on your hands. So you start examining yourself, your mind and your body, for symptoms. Do that, and you'll find them.
PAWS is such a terrible, agonising experience, and you know only too well what will make it go away. As a prelude to using again, you can come here and maybe talk someone else out of it, but with people reporting PAWS symptoms years after their last smoke, you're going to get discouraged. There's no end to the symptoms because, as noted, they strike users and non-users alike. IOW you had something that lifted you out of humdrum, and now you've stopped using, you're back in humdrum.
we would all appreciate it if you didn't come onto this side and talk bout PAWS when you wouldn't have that much of an idea about why goes on with people like us.
Ah, "
we would all appreciate", where "
we" = "people like us". What "we" have, in a public forum accessible to anyone, is an exclusive club. You wish to exclude me, but you don't have that power. I've stumbled into this smoke-filled room saying "Step outside! It's a lovely day!" and naturally you don't want to hear it. In this room, it's compulsory to acknowledge PAWS is real, and terrible, and nothing can cure it but time, and nobody knows how
much time.
And in that nightmare, that torture chamber, is a man called tokeless. He's been through it. He had to tough it out, which of course is the only way through. He spent nearly two decades working with addicts. He knows his stuff.
tokeless wrote:My own belief is we can over analyse how we feel and this heightens us to feel things we may not be so aware of if we just get on with life as a non smoker.
and
PAWS on this forum has become obsessional and people are so focused on it must be PAWS they refuse to consider anything else