Why Giving Up Cannabis After Years of Smoking Feels So Miserable?

 For very few people, weed plays out contra, causing nervousness, paranoia, or an array of other negative emotions, but for most smokers who’ve tried it, it becomes something like a good old pal you can always rely upon. It becomes the secret weapon towards the most mundane everyday activities, the perfect recipe to make a party everyone will remember until their dying day, and for some, even the key to many unforgettable nights with their partner. Unfortunately, there comes the point in life when some users are urged to stop smoking weed. It could be due to any reason. Perhaps they are applying for a new job where taking any substance, even marijuana, will be against the new employer's policies. Or maybe they have a health issue that they must resolve before being able to smoke weed again.  For whatever reason there might be, quitting smoking marijuana after years of grinding and rolling can be a real psychological disaster. It may evoke feelings like your character has been broken, as if you have lost part of your identity. Feeling miserable is an expected reaction when someone withdraws from marijuana use. In fact, users may experience several other symptoms associated with cannabis withdrawal. Here are some of the main manifestations of marijuana withdrawal: 

• Depression: with weed, everything used to be better. Music sounded out of this world. Food tasted perfect. The stupidest jokes were fun. Even Tom Cruise movies were fantastic. The outlooks on life are now gloomy without weed, so quitters end up questioning: will I ever find enjoyment again in my day in and day out? In those moments, it’s good to remember that yes, this depression, because you’re not smoking, is just temporary. 

• Anxiety: weed made you feel calm. Whether you were frustrated at big things or small things, weed made it all the easier. Suddenly, without it, things feel a little bit unsettling. There are these weird, unusual thoughts in your mind. You just wish you had a nug to tear away this exhausting cloud that chained your brain. 

• Irritability: without weed, you begin to feel annoyed at everything around you. You feel irritated by your roommate who left their dirty socks in the middle of the room. You feel irritated as the kitchen is a mess. You feel annoyed at your partner because they’re happy. Today, on the eighth day of having stopped smoking weed, you hate the whole world.

• Insomnia: weed was like a sleeping pill, helping you fall asleep like a baby. Now it’s miserable without it because you turn in the bed like a weed in a grinder. For a moment, you think of yourself as one big fatty blunt. When you finally fall asleep, you dream of smoking weed. You even dream of your friend from Spain, whom you haven’t seen in five years, how they fly to your place to bring you a new type of haze you haven’t tried before. 

• Physical pain: on top of everything, as if the turmoil you experience with your thoughts and emotions is not enough, there could also be physical pain. You get headaches or stomachaches. Some quitters may even develop full flu-like symptoms.

Fortunately, regardless of how bad or miserable you might feel, withdrawal symptoms improve one to several weeks after discontinuing weed use. During this time or even after that, users may still crave a smoke, but this feeling too is transient. 

When should you be worried?

There are some instances, although fairly rare, when the person who's quit smoking might need to seek medical attention. If you experience paranoia, and especially if you experience delusion and hallucinations after quitting smoking, seek the help of a medical expert.  But once again, this is very rare the case. In most cases, weed withdrawal symptoms will go away on their own after a couple of weeks, and usually without the need for any medical attention. 

The scientific explanation... Why the misery?

Weed influences how the brain works. The more you smoke and the longer you smoke, the more you rewire your brain.  After a while, and thanks to our endocannabinoid system, our brains and bodies adjust to the quantities as well as the stimuli we get from consuming weed. Where there's chronic exposure to weed, the brain may begin to downregulate the cannabinoid system, in the sense that, without weed, nothing in the world will ever look exciting. So when you discontinue weed, this sensation, which is miserable, may linger on for a little while. One key purpose of the endocannabinoid system is to help us sort out experiences by meaning. As neuroscientist Judith Grisel writes on this topic for Men's Health, "The system activates naturally to distinguish input that might contribute to our flourishing—for instance, a good source of food, a potential mate, or other meaningful connections, information, or stimuli. Natural cannabinoids and their receptors are all over the brain because such input might be carried in any number of pathways, depending on the exact nature of the stimulus.”  As Grisel further explains, weed helps to turn up the volume of cannabinoids and how the brain processes information. There comes a point where, due to the amplified neural spotlighting, the brain begins to highlight everything as meaningful, and as Grisel remarks, there's a “dark side” to it.  “If everything is highlighted as meaningful, then nothing can really stand out,” the neuroscientist writes, continuing: “What use is a watering can, after all, if the fields are flooded? After one comes down, the lack of sorting makes it hard to recall what was so wonderfully urgent about those experiences.”

The importance of taking T breaks

While medical use of marijuana may require accurate doses prescribed by a physician to treat the underlying condition of a patient, with recreational use of marijuana, it comes down to self-control. As ill-judged as it may sound to the most hardcore of smokers, trying to smoke less or even taking a break from smoking every once in a while is for the best. T breaks from smoking or tolerance breaks are highly recommended for everyone who recreationally uses weed on a regular basis. A break of between two or four weeks is enough to freshen up the endocannabinoid system and improve our body's response to weed. Weed is a gateway to a whole new dimension of wellbeing, taking care of self, and preserving energy. It’s there to take away our worries, help us relax, stimulate our creative thinking, make us happier, make us laugh, or improve our sleep. Weed will retain these qualities when combined with breaks and also with other healthy lifestyle choices. Staying physically active, going to the gym, taking yoga classes, or doing just any physical activity that fits your lifestyle helps. Staying mentally active through reading books, playing games, and communicating with friends and family also helps. Habitual users can focus on such activities when the time comes for them to take a small break. For those who really need to quit for a more extended period of time, remember it’s not the end of the world. You may eventually feel miserable for a week or two, but oh boy, the next time when you get to smoke again, it can be awesomely rewarding and unforgettable.