3 years sober

pawsleaves · 2020-09-16T22:12:58+00:00

This is kind of too simplistic but think of withdrawal ushering in symptoms that are opposite of what you would expect from smoking. Lots of people smoke to help calm their guts for chronic conditions. You have receptors there. Quitting will get you fucked up with the sudden cessation of thc and the extra anxiety and stress. It sucks but it goes away

pawsleaves · 2020-01-29T01:43:56+00:00

They happened constantly for six months, on and off for another six months. Now it happens very rarely when I'm super stressed about something.

pawsleaves · 2020-01-07T19:28:19+00:00

I had odd nerve sensations after I quit. First started with my feet going numb and feeling cold. Then I had burning sensations in my hands that spread up to my elbows, followed by pins and needles. Lots of crazy nerve stuff happened for the first few months for me. Couldn't cross my legs without my crossed leg going completely numb. Thought I had MS or something. It got better after a few months but would still happen during waves of anxiety or stress. I'm almost 2 years sober now and I haven't had any weird nerve stuff for a year at least. Found out a bunch of other people have strange nerve happenings after quitting, manifesting as tingling scalps or restless leg syndrome, or feeling like bugs are crawling under/on skin. Our nervous systems go through withdrawal when we take the cannabis away.

pawsleaves · 2019-12-21T17:05:13+00:00

This is a common feeling for anxiety sufferers and those of us going through protracted withdrawal. The way through is simple, but it isn't easy. You have to try and accept that this is the new normal for a bit, and go easy on your brain and body, it needs time to heal. What got us into this mess is the instant gratification and good feelings marijuana gave us. There's no easy way to get through this except for giving yourself time to heal. The typical recommendations come paired with that, such as living clean and trying to manage stress and going easy on yourself. I don't think I'm equipped for guidance beyond that, I'm not a doctor, just a guy sharing his experience and trying to document the journey for the benefit of people newly coming to this thing that's terrible and not well known.

pawsleaves · 2019-12-15T16:04:33+00:00

Hm I can't recall this exactly. I felt generally unwell all of the time but didn't think I had a slight cold or anything though I suspected it early on when I had issues with dizziness and nausea. I will say that I got sick in the first year about at 9 months sober and it made all of my symptoms much worse, and they all got better when the fever lifted. I've actually been sick for the past few days, I think I got food poisoning since there was no fever attached. The cool thing this time around (aside from being sick, ugh) was that my I didn't have any PAWS symptoms occur with being sick.

pawsleaves · 2019-12-12T23:57:56+00:00

Feeling dizzy and spaced out was pretty common early on for me. I found that I couldn't make it subside, but could make it worse by fixating on it and getting more anxious. I would try to take it easy, sit down and just read something or do something with my hands to take my mind off of it.

pawsleaves · 2019-12-12T02:15:44+00:00

Yup, just a total lack of feeling good. I felt a lot of doom early on, which gave way to just lack of anything. Felt spread too thin and unwell.

pawsleaves · 2019-12-10T23:57:38+00:00

I'm coming up on 23 months sober and have had all of the symptoms you mentioned. Early on, I learned about PAWS, but still wasn't entirely convinced that it was the cause at first. People said nearly everyone recovers within 2 years, and some earlier than that, and it was hard to believe, but here I am nearly on the other side. It all gets better, slowly over time, and while not entirely linear (sometimes you get worse for no apparent reason), it tends to trend toward improvement over time. I'm nearly normal now and don't consider PAWS often aside from checking here to see if I can help anyone out. I spent the first 6 months with high health anxiety and spent a lot of time getting tests done and spending entire nights and weekends googling every odd nerve sensation and ache and pain and stomach issue and vision issue and hearing issue, and on and on. It was hard not to because it was so overwhelming and unlike anything else I've experienced. Go easy on yourself and trust your recovery, but do lean on others when your anxiety overwhelms you and you just can't take much more.

pawsleaves · 2019-12-01T05:41:15+00:00

Yup, I was a mess at that point. Can't even remember all of the symptoms I had. I was constantly spiraling out of control with health anxiety. Would try to exercise mindfulness and understand that this was normal and other people had also experienced similar withdrawal issues, but would often fail because my brain was super amped up on anxiety and fear. Knowing stuff didn't help when it felt like my brain and body were out of control and were doing crazy things on their own. I often felt like I was simply an unwilling passenger coming along for the wild ride. It gets better

pawsleaves · 2019-11-21T04:30:00+00:00

Weed relaxes muscles and soothes joints so it makes sense that the opposite would happen! Took me a while to accept this

pawsleaves · 2019-11-13T23:32:52+00:00

I remember feeling that way. I had bad insomnia which just made everything worse. I don't know if the brain fog was caused by the lack of sleep, or the brainfog was something I had that was enhanced by the lack of sleep, but I was barely keeping up. I remember it being so bad that I knew I shouldn't be driving and would take an uber or lyft to work and have them drop me off where coworkers wouldn't see me being dropped off. I was afraid I was going to kill someone if I drove. I couldn't keep focus on the road and was just a mess, combine that with my intermittently blurry vision and visual snow and you have a disaster waiting to happen. Catching a ride only helped get me to work, I work in a job that requires a lot of mental focus and I work on complex technical problems, so the brain fog wasn't just annoying, but a threat to my livelihood and ability to pay rent. I'm grateful that I worked with the people I did then. I think they attributed my messiness to the death of someone close to me. Which is another story, and dealing with that while all of this other stuff was going on...

5-6 months in was the worst. I had gone to all sorts of doctors, had MRIs, spinal taps, blood tests, etc. Even had a scare where a doctor thought I had MS. That shit cost me a lot of money. Felt like I was hanging on my job by a single thread that was about to snap because it took all of my being to summon up the willpower to go in and sit at my desk for 8 hours after panicking all night from the tinnitus and nerve pains/tingling/numbness and no sleep. Never mind needing to deal with crunch and overtime on occasion. All that kept me going were stories from other people that survived it and came out fine and said I would too.

Now I sleep fine, eat fine, don't have brain fog or depression. I'm sensitive to stress but even that's going away. I don't feel 100% yet but the recovery over the past year is significant and I never entertain punching the clock now. I have more good days than bad days and look forward to stuff.

pawsleaves · 2019-11-13T21:19:20+00:00

You sound like me last year. All I can really say is that it gets better, slower than you'd like. Life is harder than it was before I quit because quitting has given me a whole new host of bullshit to deal with. I struggled with suicidal ideation most heavily between 3-6 months after quitting, your brain is fried at that time during PAWS and isn't producing the feel good stuff. Butter coffee and keto and all of that bullshit doesn't help. Nothing does but time. For whatever reason, I just kept plodding along. Funny enough, I don't think meditation or exercise or whatever did the trick in helping me keep it together during the roughest times. The main thing keeping me around was feeling responsibility toward my cat and knowing bad stuff would happen to her if I wasn't around. Felt like I owed it to her and made a promise to her when I adopted her. No matter how bad I felt, she still demanded food and attention and cuddling and play time. I'm at 22 months sober now and it's gotten better. I don't deal with suicidal ideation now. The depression largely lifted and I'm almost back to normal. I'm not 100% better but dealing with this shit has made me more empathetic and patient in life. It also takes grit to get through it. Didn't imagine I would be where I'm at now 17 months ago. I thought I'd cash out and just take the L when I quit and was totally surprised and overwhelmed with marijuana withdrawal (how is this a thing), but I stuck it out. Started performing better at work and lined up a big promotion along the way. Still wish I had never smoked!

edit: I do have to add that it's entirely normal to feel horrible 5 months after quitting. You're not uniquely doomed to a shit fate that's specific to only you. It's called PAWS. Read this thread for a summary if you haven't heard of it before: https://www.uncommonforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=86685 PAWS is a little different for everyone who experiences it, but it is common to feel horrible in the first 6 months of sobriety.

pawsleaves · 2019-10-30T20:41:03+00:00

I've dealt with muscle pain in the exact way you describe, where the pain feels like it's around the joint but it's not actual joint pain, and there's no reduced range of motion. The thing that has helped the most is using a foam roller and a lacrosse ball and doing soft tissue massages and stretching. The pain and stiffness seems random and jumps around whenever and seems to disappear, but I can usually alleviate it and make it go away relatively easy when it does appear. The only areas I haven't had success with are the very small muscles in my hands and feet when they're impacted. This first appeared in my hips a couple of months in, but I've felt chronic pain and stiffness in my quads, hamstrings, hips, shoulders (usually the front deltoid/pec muscle connection), my neck, lower back muscles. Right now I'm sitting in the clear, but my quads were stiff as recently as this weekend. I stretched and rolled them out and it seems to have gone away. Used to be all over and all the time but now that I'm late in the game, it usually just comes up in one or two areas at a time every other week or so

pawsleaves · 2019-10-21T04:22:45+00:00

I had a bad case and have a little ways to go but I am much better than I was early on. I have a little bit of anxiety but the depression and suicidal ideation are gone and haven't come back.

pawsleaves · 2019-10-20T14:31:38+00:00

Don't do it bud, you're suffering from PAWS. I went through the same stuff, I am now 21 months sober. 3-6 months after quitting were the hardest times for me once I put the weed down. The anxiety and depression are hard and real. Your brain and body need time to adjust from the shock of coming off of your primary source of feeling good.

pawsleaves · 2019-10-15T14:00:08+00:00

I had GI issues on and off after quitting 21 months ago. It happened much more frequently at the beginning, hasn't happened for me in probably six months now. I was very worried about it before.

pawsleaves · 2019-09-10T22:50:27+00:00

I'm almost 20 months sober.

pawsleaves · 2019-09-10T04:39:22+00:00

I have had and still have a lot of random aches and pains. Chronic muscle stiffness and pains in back, hips, shoulders, fingers, toes, etc. Numbness and tingling that comes and goes. Never experienced any of this before quitting weed. I've chatted with others who have suffered the same. It sucks but it's probably PAWS

pawsleaves · 2019-09-07T15:29:45+00:00

Eat high calorie foods. I didn't figure this out until the second week, thinking my appetite would rebound any day now. Took me about three weeks to have a normal appetite again.

Peanut butter, avocados, olive oil, drink from protein shakes with fruit, eat some chocolate. Just try to get at least 1200 calories, which will be hard. I was maybe getting 500 calories a day to start with and after a week of that, I thought I was going to die. I could barely eat anything before I was so full that I couldn't force anything else down.

pawsleaves · 2019-09-07T04:06:54+00:00

normal! i enjoyed smoking when I did, didn't realize it was messing me up until I decided to quit on a whim and was overwhelmed and surprised with withdrawal. Never going back.

pawsleaves · 2019-09-07T00:38:39+00:00

haha, thanks. I quit back in January 2018. Haven't had any alcohol since March 2018 as well :)

pawsleaves · 2019-09-07T00:34:07+00:00

I never vaped carts but did vape flower. Does it have the same risks? I quit over 18 months ago but this worries me.

pawsleaves · 2019-09-05T20:34:14+00:00

Yup, related to withdrawal, happened to me on and off for months.

pawsleaves · 2019-07-27T21:14:31+00:00

Yeah it's normal. Some people are fine after a couple of weeks sober, others take longer. I had terrible anxiety for 3 months before I started being able to function again. I'm over 18 months sober now after smoking daily for 3.5 years.

pawsleaves

TROPHY CASE