im trying very hard to quit smoking weed... i know it's not the same as nicotine addiction but it's still a struggle. I smoked weed almost every day for like 6 years or something.
its annoying cus like i will be reminded of it constantly, weed culture is everywhere, memes and shows and movies and books. I get reminded and i want it, I get the urge and its hard not to smoke a little. i will go days or weeks without any but then I will fuck up and smoke again and suddenly i will be smoking every day again for a few weeks.
edit: i wasn't asking for advice, i have a therapist I am working with please stop trying to give me advice its not what I want or need and I don't like it, it makes me super incredibly uncomfortable. Its not helping. Thank you
Hey I've been there, and after reflecting on it, the truth is, (at least from my perspective), you don't really, truely want it yet. Don't take that as judgement, I'm certainly not in a place to judge, but I've kicked severeral multi-year addictions, and weed was one I had the pleasure of just "deciding to quit". For me quitting weed came with breaking a friendship of the longtime smoking buddy I had, though after getting off of it and reflecting, I realize he was just using me as a convenient spot to store his weed. YMMV, but I think you got this, and hopefully my experience lends some light onto your difficulties with quitting.
WTF is wrong with you. A stranger pours out their heart for you and you just stomp on it? Have the decency to just shut up and ignore it instead of going out of your way to be an asshole.
You are the one who presumed to know what I do or don't actually want. Thank you for your attempt at kindness but it really didn't come off like that to me. I think its best to end this interaction here as its not going to be productive for either of us. Sorry.
Edit: oh i thought you were the person who I was responding too but you are not.. in that case please leave me alone, thankyou..
My fella found this talk useful. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gnSEbLX94Tk
He used to smoke the mild stuff (low THC), but it's the cigarettes he's been struggling with. He's on his third attempt, but after using the technique (TL;DW: your brain doesn't understand negative commands, replace it with a positive command. Instead of "I need a joint", try "I need air" or "I need clarity" or whatever feeling you're aiming for) he's feeling a lot more positive that he'll stick with it this time.
I tried to get him to read the Allen Carr stuff, but he's not much of a reader. Other people swear by it though. It's available on a certain library beginning with z if you want to give it a taster.
Also learning a new skill can give you the same dopamine hit that your addiction does, so take up a hobby, learn a language, etc.
Stopping smoking is easy, i used to do it every time my cigarette went out, quitting on the other hand is a lifelong task, but it is worth the struggle. I still crave cigarettes to this day, but dont miss being a slave to that addiction. I would literally collect cigarette butts off the ground and reroll them. If i can quit so can you.
I turned 26 when I heard myself coughing like a 66 year old chainsmoker with cancerous lungs, found I was unable to run up stairs and out of breath after carrying groceries inside. I had to have a cig every morning so I would be able to have a shit at all, but if I did... that first drag sent me rushing to the bathroom, it got so bad, I had to light the first one while sitting on the loo, or i'd shit my pants.
That's when I found myself disgusted with myself. I stopped, I simply stopped. From 38 cigarettes per day to 0. I am so happy it worked, because I am a very easily tempted personality and tend towards addiction in anything that gives my brain pleasure.
It took a year before I completely stopped coughing and two years before I could run up those stairs again, but one day I simply realized "Oh my! I'm not out of breath. What... what happened? Oh, yeah I quit smoking! Damn this feels nice!"
Anecdotally, I found that ease of quitting was inversely related to the amount of pressure I put on myself to quit. I smoked for 15 years and always vowed I would never be a self-loathing smoker. I think so little of my attempt to quitting successfully that every time someone brings up quitting cold-turkey I need to remind myself that I attempted to quit on multiple occasions. - I simply didn't feel bad when a strategy didn't work out.
Ultimately I weened myself off of nicotine by vaping and stepping down the concentration of nicotine over a long period of time. I quit vaping in early 2020.
What I don't understand is how people get addicted to smoking in the first place. It hasn't been "cool" to smoke in my lifetime. Going near a cigarette as a non-smoker is gross as fuck. Who decides "I don't care about my health or the gross smell, imma do this thing with no upsides" before being addicted?
Because it's a drug that gives you a feeling. Some people enjoy the feeling that smoking gives them, the addiction slowly follows after.
The same works for just about any drug. I can assure you that heroin and crack addicts didn't suddenly decide they wanted to be addicted to those drugs. Curiosity gets the best of people sometimes.
All it takes is one low point, friend. I'm glad you've never been there around the wrong person at the wrong time but understand that its not just a "hmm I want to smell terrible today ❤️" situation.
First time I quit I’d get the occasional craving, the second time I have maybe had a craving once. I think what helped me the second time was a minor health scare, (why is my tongue sloughing?), first kid on the way, and I reallly got into cardio
Edit: I smoked from 2007 to 2014? And then 2017? To 2020
Amount varied widely, but I probably went through a pack in 3 days average. Only hit a pack a day during finals week heh.
