Comments

1
I figure if you can go a few days without, then you are not addicted. Hell, isn't someone who has two glasses of wine a day considered a light drinker? (I think that's pretty heavy drinking, by the way.)
2
I would recommend a longer length of abstinence - at least a week - to see how that makes you feel. I have a beer/glass of wine/spirits regularly, but decided to give up alcohol for Lent (40 days) a few years back just to make sure I don't have a "problem" and it was comforting to make it that long without significant issues. (But, when I gave up coffee once, I added tea to make it through....)
3

Cannabis is not physically addictive. Psychotherapists and school educators and parents and twelve step groups like to claim it is but it is not. Research has been shown to prove that cannabis is not physically addictive.

4
Interesting read Lester. Thanks.

This was a refreshing bit of honest insight coupled with a pragmatic approach to digging deeper into the issue. WTF are you doing at the stranger?
5
you should try quitting for, like, the rest of your life. if you can't, you're an addict. only way to be sure.
6
@3,

I don't think the jury's in on that yet...

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/r…
7
Interesting new study from the NIH;

Science Spotlight
September 26, 2017

"New research reveals that marijuana users are two and a half times more likely than nonusers to misuse prescription opioids and develop prescription opioid use disorder. The study was conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Columbia University.
The current study focuses on individual marijuana users vs. nonusers and their trajectories with regard to opioid misuse and disorders. These findings are in-line with previous research demonstrating that people who use marijuana are more likely than non-users to use other drugs and develop problems with drug use."
8
That bit about pot making life and yourself better really hits close to home. Sober-me is a BASTARD. Hateful, angry, and selfish. With a bit of regular smoking, however, I'm substantially more thoughtful, social, and empathetic. I feel responsible for the things I do and say when I'm sober, but the only thing that's ever addressed it is weed. Two decades of attempting to better myself before weed didn't work. A decade of messing with therapists and prescriptions never exceeded a half-measure, often with horrifying side effects (I gained 45 pounds in two weeks! I weighed 125 when I started Zyprexa, and my metabolism never fully recovered from TWO WEEKS of that drug).

Or, I can smoke. If I'm an addict, so be it. I'm a more positive presence in the lives of the people I care about, whatever effects it has on my wallet and time.
9
@7: So people who are willing to experiment with drugs, are willing to experiment with other drugs? Stop the presses.
10
'experiment with'≠"misuse prescription opioids and develop prescription opioid use disorder"
11
If i stop taking my Prozac, which I take multiple times a day, I feel like shit. Guess I better get some help for my Prozac prescription.
12
There are people who do experience hangovers from weed; I'm one of them. I find that if I smoke, I tend to get struck by a bout of anxiety the next day, especially when trying to fall asleep. It's unpleasant enough that I mostly avoid indulging at all.

I have to say that my feelings about weed evolved after living with someone who smoked routinely. As someone who had had only social experience with potheads, I was disposed to believe that it was an entirely harmless habit. Having lived with one, and especially having seen how he is different during an enforced period of abstinence, I have to say that there definitely are real differences in his motivation, capacity for work, and ability to work towards a goal.

I still believe in legalization. After all, this isn't heroin or meth. I find the equivalence with alcohol to be a fair one. But I think it's a habit that we ought to discourage, like overeating or smoking cigarettes. I don't regard it as completely harmless.
13
I would suggest that instead of being an addict you are likely a stoner. You enjoy getting high otherwise why would you smoke it. As for myself I was a stoner, in other words a daily user. With me it was more of a social thing; I would get together with friends and we would smoke. But I also would smoke alone, hence I enjoyed being high. I haven't smoked, though, for about 20 years now mainly because friends who I smoked with moved on and I gradually lost interest.

You mention in the the article that you have not smoked for 2 days due to being out. I have been there before but that was when it was illegal and not so easy to come by. So how does your day go when you are without? Do you feel different, maybe sad or a little unhappy because you don't have weed? I guess this is the time to determine weather or not you are an addict? Do you need it or do you just use and enjoy it?
14
@5:
Would you say the same thing to a person who has one cocktail before dinner or one glass of beer or wine with dinner every night?

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