Looking For Advice.
I’ve gotten so much good information and advice from Reddit that I figured what better place to share my story and maybe get some insight!
I’ve been a marijuana smoker daily for the past 19 years. Started at 17 and continued till 36. From the ages of 17 to 32 I was a heavy blunt smoker. I was constantly chasing that “peak” high you would get right after smoking. I wouldn’t even allow myself to feel the come down before I would be right back to the blunt.
At 32 I started feeling like I was actually creating anxiety smoking as opposed to alleviating some of it like I had been for years past. Not to mention being a backwoods smoker I was coughing constantly and it just felt like I needed a change. April 22, 2022 I stopped blunts completely and started only using a pipe. Most of the coughing subsided but the anxiety would only get worse.
I began thinking that the anxiety coincided with gaining more responsibilities throughout life. I started thinking maybe I was never anxious smoking as a kid/young adult because I just didn’t have that much to worry about when it came to real life. In 2017 I had started my career, was living on my own, handling all financial and extracurricular strain that a normal 27/28 year old male would usually have. It was around that time that marijuana seemed to start doing more bad for me than good.
Fast forward to 2025- my wife and I are blessed with a positive pregnancy test in October! Blessing. So I start looking for a bigger place so we can begin getting a home ready for our new addition. Long story short we get into a beautiful loft that doesn’t allow smoking. I make the switch from pipe to vape pen but start noticing that not only does my anxiety begin to get worse but also my heart starts skipping beats on a daily basis.
Finally the big day arrives. June 1st, 2026. The hospital calls and tells my wife they have a room available for us to go have this baby! I had just finished smoking about 15 minutes prior to this call and little did I know it would be the last time I would smoke.
I remember sitting in the labor room with my wife thinking about how special this moment is. How special every moment coming up is about to be. How I need to be present. Clear headed. Precise and accurate with everything I do for my baby. How being high around him couldn’t do anything good for either of us. How I would blur moments and memories that I should be able to easily recall if I was high. I made the decision to quit.
The first two weeks were really rough. Restlessness, insomnia, lack of appetite, losing patience, boredom. You know- the usual. I was already losing sleep obviously with a new born but even when I would be up for 24-36 hours I just couldn’t sleep.
Now I’m about to hit a month and I’m noticing I’m not finding joy in things I do like when I was high. I’m a huge gamer and have always used that to decompress after stressful days at work. Now my attention span has shrunken to the point it feels like I have ADHD. I’ll get all excited to get a session in, play for an hour, and end up doom scrolling on my phone for 3 hours instead. I’ll put a movie on, watch for 20 minutes, then want to do something else. My focus seems shot.
I write all that to ask this- is what I’m going through normal and how long till I start to see who I truly am off marijuana? I’ve waited nearly 20 years to meet the real version of myself and I just want to know when does the fog start to clear?
I appreciate anyone who read this is full. I know in the big picture of life and problems that people have going on with real drugs or alcohol that this isn’t a big deal but I just wanted some advice.
Thank you!