3+ year quitter picked up a cannabis addiction

[notch9]

Hi Everyone,

I am new here and can hardly navigate this site, so I hope I will be able to find this thread again later on to see if there are replies and engage with other people.

I feel like I have gone from one very bad addiction, nicotine, to another much less bad one, but still an addiction. I smoked cigarettes for decades and finally became nicotine free in 2015 and haven't touched a cig since then. Hooray. 

But I did pick up a cannabis addiction. Although it is not very much, less than one joint a day, I am continuously taking in small amounts to run an almost constant buzz.

Quitting nicotine was one of the hardest things I ever did and I'm proud of that accomplishment. I feel ashamed that now I have this other addiction to deal with.

[notch9]

On thing I have noticed since joining this site is that I've started to have strange nicotine obsessions. I wouldn't exactly call them cravings. After all it has been almost 4 years since I quit. But I have started to have thoughts of smoking a cigarette whereas nowadays I can go months without such a thought crossing my mind.

There are so many steps between having such a thought and actually smoking a cigarette so I don't feel like I'm in any kind of desperate situation, but I am wondering if for my own health I should take a break from this site.

On the other hand it could be that since I am confronting my marijuana addiction, and how that is entangled for me with my nicotine addiction, maybe just trying to move the needle on cannabis is causing this.

Also some people write that after 3 days it is only psychological because nicotine has left the body, that ignores the slow changes that happen to receptors in the brain after withdrawal of nicotine. One puff just fires all these receptors back up and restarts the engine of addiction. It is many months for these receptors in the brain to normalize into a new pattern.

We also have all these learned associations like coffee in the morning with a cigarette and any of these associations can retrigger thoughts and anticipation of nicotine hitting the brain again. Being an addict means that your brain is not like a normal person who was never exposed to nicotine til it became an addiction.

Once I understood the effects on the brain it helped me appreciate that all the suffering I was going through was the only way to get out of the addiction. So I tried to look at every crave in the rear view mirror as one less challenge I'd have to get through.

[Giulia]

I went through a period where I felt I needed to dis-engage from the site because being here means you're in cigarette-thinking mode all the time.  Not necessarily constant craving mode, but you can't exactly read and offer support on a quit smoking site without THINKING about cigarettes.  And it did tend up the amount of cravings I had for a while.  A little time away helped cure that.  Now I can talk about cigarettes all day and not crave one.  That's called Freedom.

[notch9]

Yes I want to add that my participation with this site is being affected by it triggering cravings so if I withdraw, it isn't because of anything that happened or didn't happen here. It is because of my nicotine addiction. I have cut back on cannabis since starting here so that is a net positive.

Yesterday I was able to get out and do a lot of things and not be so lethargic.

[Giulia]

Thanks for letting us know, Notch.  But it sure is great to have you participating when you can!

[Barbscloud]

You're not the first person to say that.  We're here for you if you need us.

Barb

[Andstillirise]

Funny you say that . I read on here everyday but some days when I read I feel

like smoking ! Weird . Thought I was going crazy but glad to know it’s not totally unheard of 

I don’t have a marijuana addiction but I have in the past smoked medical marijuana for Crohn’s . Since I’ve quit smoking cigarettes I’m afraid to smoke weed so I have patches that are THC/ CBD that I stick on my wrist or top of foot that works ALMOST as well as smoking it . 

Not sure when I will feel safe enough to actually smoke pot again but for me wherever I would smoke , I would smoke a cigarette after. 

[YoungAtHeart]

Good idea to stay away from an association of smoking a cigarette as strong as that.  You are wise to use a patch instead!

[notch9]

I had been free of any kind of regular cravings until I started participating here. Now it is a regular, daily occcurrence although I am not going to smoke a cigarette in any case. It's a lovely community but i don't know if it is the right one for me.

[Giulia]

So - when you find the one that IS right for you - let us know. I, for one would be really curious as to what that site would be.  That you can communicate in as fully emotionally a way as you do here without experiencing cravings.  I suspect it's easy to connect with a site that doesn't offer the same kind of visceral emotional connectivity as BecomeAnEX does.  My question would be - does it ultimate keep you quit-free in the long run?  Guess you'll find that out for yourself.  

And, just another question - why did you come back here to offer your beautiful support?  Something prompted that.  Was it to pay it forward or just an acknowledgment of a congrats on a particular quit milestone or ... what was it?  Something got you back here.

Whatever it was, I'm so glad you are here to contribute the wisdom of your quit years for as long as you can be here to offer it.  

[notch9]

You are jumping to a number of assumptions that are invalid. For instance "why did you come back here to offer". I didn't 'come back here' as I was never on this site before. I could go on but I won't try to explain any further than to say I find it triggering my smoking cravings to read about other people's experiences with this addiction. 

I find you very confrontational as well.