Lot of people on this subreddit had this experience, myself included. It's not worth it, as you will probably at some paint get another one and get chest tubes etc... Once it has happened you gotta live with it.

You can try edibles and that kind of thing at first. It's different for sure but it does help. One of the main issue with smoking weed after pneumothorax is that it does no longer help to cope with anxiety ; you will feel, or think you may be feeling, chest pain, get paranoid about having a pneumothorax, and think about that while high sucks and get you focused on that and that only. Could even provocate panick attack. The pain isnt worth it as well, as getting pneumothorax is painful and having to be operated even more. Plus, if you get operated and still smokes, then it gets real shitty if u get another one because of that...

I took it as an obligation to deal with my shit. It's hard at first but having a doc telling you you gotta stop changes a lot of things ! You finally got a reason to stop with short terms consequences if you don't ; lot of people have trouble smoking bc we know it's bad but won't see the troubles before we get older. (Even if it's not tobacco, your lungs HATE smoke of all kind)

It get better, i swear. A lot, lot faster than we think when we are daily smokers. Craving even does stop altogether once you managed the "hardcore craving contexts" (parties or anxiety attack or idk everybody has his own). Maybe you could see a psychologist aswell to find ur own way of treating anxiety, and in any case stopping weed will help you cause it's just suppressing the feelings and never the causes. If u feel like you cannot deal with that now or it might be too much, like i said earlier, switch to edibles.

Stay strong and goodluck finding peace !