this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Nah fam. I’m addicted, trust me. Trouble eating, sleeping, keeping food down. Have to titration down super slowly or get intense cravings. It sucks.
After about 8 years of daily smoking (and slowly smoking more and more because of tolerance building up) I decided to quit for various reasons.
I'm at about 10 days off cold turkey and I'm still struggling a lot. At the beginning was a big loss of appetite, trouble going to sleep and obviously the psychological desire to smoke. The worst part for me though is the intense anxiety, irritability and the lack of motivation to do anything. It feels like falling back into depression and slowly try crawling out of it.
Really disappointing to see so many people in here denying what I'm going through. Yes there's always been propaganda against using, but there's still some truth to it. I'm still glad that it's legal here in Canada because it did help me at one point, but like every drug, you have to be careful.
All of these things you describe are very real but they're not physical withdrawal symptoms, but indeed psychological. The mind is a very powerful thing, so these effects can be very powerful, I'm not trying to dismiss your experience. However they are not the same as for example withdrawal from heroin or heavy alcoholism, both of which create actual physical pain and potentially death.
Every individual is different too, so people sharing how they can be heavy smokers and stop while on vacation for a few weeks without issues aren't trying to dismiss your experience, just like how you shouldn't dismiss theirs.
I've known physical withdrawal in the past and am a daily smoker now, I'm also one of those that can just stop on vacation no big deal, but I seldom skip a day at home.
They're downplaying them possibly because you can't die from marijuana withdrawal. It's physically impossible, you can experience nasty side effects but you will live. Compare that to a heroin addict, pain pill, or alcoholic who has a high chance of literally dying if they stop cold turkey.
Talk to those with withdrawal symptoms from "real" problem drugs and it won't even sound like the same experience. The other side is too, you're approaching this pretty unscientifically. It's possible you actually ARE depressed and aren't use to feeling it full force because you were self medicating for years.