"Addicted" because you vape every day?

analytika

Well-Known Member
You'd have to take a deep look at why you feel all of those negative things ... If you have a disorder/chemical imbalance that causes those feelings... If you feel that way because you don't have your life in order and haven't learned how to use non-drug coping mechanisms ... If you feel that way because constant Cannabis use has caused normal life to feel boring, that's also probably unhealthy.
Struck me as personal and even judgmental, the disclaimer notwithstanding.

For many, stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia are the baseline. It may be congenital, or the result of traumatic stress that's done permanent damage. Ordinary life is not "boring". It approaches agony.

In quite a number of cases, cannabis can move the dial.

Without medication, it's like trying to alter the orbit of a planet with the power of positive thinking.

Some thoughtfully advocate talk therapy and CBT over any medication. (easily $10K out of pocket these days just to get started).

But what I see here is unadulterated "just say no" worthy of Nancy Reagan.
 
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uncanni

Well-Known Member
You are making an assumption that he's speaking about you personally, when it was clearly stated in the first line that he's speaking in generalities and not about you. Please read it again.
:peace:

I have to disagree with you, Stu. This person directly quotes my post talking about my personal experiences and then goes off into hypotheses ("Imagine if...") which have nothing to do with real life--certainly not mine.

And then that person goes on to use the pronoun "You" referring, I assume, to my quoted post. And all this, without asking me any questions, but rather, just making assumptions. And in a patronizing way.

Take a look at how other readers are responding; I'm not the only one who finds it somewhat insulting, irrelevant to what I posted and patronizing. Life is not a series of hypotheses: "If this, then that." It is a way to avoid dealing with the realities of life.

I ask you to please read again.
 
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Madri-Gal

Child Of The Revolution
I have to disagree with you, Stu. This person directly quotes my post talking about my personal experiences and then goes off into hypotheses ("Imagine if...") which have nothing to do with real life--certainly not mine.

And then that person goes on to use the pronoun "You" referring, I assume, to my quoted post. And all this, without asking me any questions, but rather, just making assumptions. And in a patronizing way.

Take a look at how other readers are responding; I'm not the only one who finds it somewhat insulting, irrelevant to what I posted and patronizing. Life is not a series of hypotheses: "If this, then that." It is a way to avoid dealing with the realities of life.

I ask you to please read again.
I saw the "you" as meaning "one". English is tricky, and there was a clear disclaimer that it wasn't about you in specific. I found @EverythingsHazy to be quite interesting, informative and well written. We, unfortunately , tend to say "you would" rather than "one would" in English.
@EverythingsHazy , I quite agree that there are issues that one must consider when one thinks about addiction. I'm not saying anyone person is addicted, to be clear. It is the topic of the thread, so it was interesting to hear your views, as it so often is.
 

Stu

Maconheiro
Staff member
I have to disagree with you, Stu.
Reasonable people can disagree. However before you rush to take offense, I'm suggesting that you consider the possibility that what @Madri-Gal said above is accurate.

I'm not going to get into a debate about what @EverythingsHazy's intentions were when he made that post. If you would like clarity, perhaps you could PM him directly to discuss so as to not further derail this thread.

:peace:
 

analytika

Well-Known Member
I saw the "you" as meaning "one". English is tricky, and there was a clear disclaimer that it wasn't about you in specific. I found @EverythingsHazy to be quite interesting, informative and well written. We, unfortunately , tend to say "you would" rather than "one would" in English.
@EverythingsHazy , I quite agree that there are issues that one must consider when one thinks about addiction. I'm not saying anyone person is addicted, to be clear. It is the topic of the thread, so it was interesting to hear your views, as it so often is.
Yes English is tricky. But one's usage should be consistent if you're writing just a few paragraphs.

Abrupt transition from "one" to "you" is typically for a reason, like pivoting back to discussing the person in question, in common English.

Edit: see what I did there?
 
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uncanni

Well-Known Member
Reasonable people can disagree. However before you rush to take offense, I'm suggesting that you consider the possibility that what @Madri-Gal said above is accurate.

I'm not going to get into a debate about what @EverythingsHazy's intentions were when he made that post. If you would like clarity, perhaps you could PM him directly to discuss so as to not further derail this thread.
:peace:

I will leave, Stu. I feel that the original intent of my message was completely misunderstood. I don't ever want to derail a discussion.

Peace out.
 
uncanni,

EverythingsHazy

Well-Known Member
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To add something new to the thread, instead of spending this entire post addressing a bunch of comments...

What criteria would have to be met for you guys consider a someone's Cannabis use an addiction?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, for some clarification...

I consider this all part of the topic of Cannabis use/addiction. If the mods deem otherwise, they can delete this. A conversation about addiction, among a bunch of Cannabis users, is bound to be a bit touchy/controversial, though, and there's nothing wrong with that, so long as nobody is flaming or otherwise abusing anyone else. We are all adults, here.

My original post, that is the topic of the following discussion:
"Not to speak for/at you, specifically, but that's tricky territory... Imagine if someone said, "I don't have to drink/do coke/take Xanax every day. I can feel stress, anxiety and depression, I can be less patient, kind and tolerant with others, I can not sleep as well, I can be hyper-self-critical, I can have a more vulnerable immune system, etc. I can be depressed all the time about the state of the world." People wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility of the person being addicted.

"Having to do something" doesn't necessarily mean that the consequence of not doing that thing is death. It can be mood issues (anger, depression, anxiety, apathy, etc.), physical issues (inability to sleep, inability to eat, etc.).

You'd have to take a deep look at why you feel all of those negative things when you don't use Cannabis, to see if your Cannabis use is a healthy coping strategy.

If you have a disorder/chemical imbalance that causes those feelings, and Cannabis fixes that, then it's fine.

If you feel that way because you don't have your life in order and haven't learned how to use non-drug coping mechanisms to deal with stress, and Cannabis masks the stress, that might be considered unhealthy usage, since it would be keeping you from addressing important issues in your life.

If you feel that way because constant Cannabis use has caused normal life to feel boring, that's also probably unhealthy."


In order to keep this clear and concise, and to avoid missing anything, I will be breaking the quotes down into parts, and providing a response for each of them.

I'm amazed at how many assumptions you made and also by the spin you gave to what I wrote.
What assumptions did I make? How did I put a negative spin on anything? If you want to make those claims, quote the exact examples in the text.
You know nothing about me, yet found it quite easy to pontificate so negatively as to why I use Cannabis. Seriously: you sound silly to me with all your negativity. You could have asked.
I didn't claim to know anything about you, nor did I put you into any category of usage patterns.

You are making an assumption that he's speaking about you personally, when it was clearly stated in the first line that he's speaking in generalities and not about you. Please read it again.

:peace:
This is correct. Thank you for reading my post and not implying things that I specifically stated I was not saying.

Struck me as personal and even judgmental, the disclaimer notwithstanding.
How you take something is up to you, but it doesn't change what was actually said or meant.

For many, stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia are the baseline. It may be congenital, or the result of traumatic stress that's done permanent damage. Ordinary life is not "boring". It approaches agony.

In quite a number of cases, cannabis can move the dial.

Without medication, it's like trying to alter the orbit of a planet with the power of positive thinking.

Some thoughtfully advocate talk therapy and CBT over any medication. (easily $10K out of pocket these days just to get started).
In some cases, that is true. I even stated that in my post.
"If you have a disorder/chemical imbalance that causes those feelings, and Cannabis fixes that, then it's fine."
-Everythingshazy

But what I see here is unadulterated "just say no" worthy of Nancy Reagan.
Again... It's up to you how you take something, but that doesn't change what was said or meant.

I have to disagree with you, Stu. This person directly quotes my post talking about my personal experiences and then goes off into hypotheses ("Imagine if...") which have nothing to do with real life--certainly not mine.

And then that person goes on to use the pronoun "You" referring, I assume, to my quoted post. And all this, without asking me any questions, but rather, just making assumptions. And in a patronizing way.

Take a look at how other readers are responding; I'm not the only one who finds it somewhat insulting, irrelevant to what I posted and patronizing. Life is not a series of hypotheses: "If this, then that." It is a way to avoid dealing with the realities of life.

I ask you to please read again.
As I clearly stated in the first sentence of my post, I was not speaking for/at you specifically. The parts that I used "you" in, refer to everyone. What matters is what was said, not how people on the internet misinterpreted text. I have been very careful not to accuse anyone of being addicted to anything. I'm in this thread to discuss and debate the topic of addiction as it pertains to Cannabis, not to debate with individuals about their personal Cannabis use.

I saw the "you" as meaning "one". English is tricky, and there was a clear disclaimer that it wasn't about you in specific. I found @EverythingsHazy to be quite interesting, informative and well written. We, unfortunately , tend to say "you would" rather than "one would" in English.
@EverythingsHazy , I quite agree that there are issues that one must consider when one thinks about addiction. I'm not saying anyone person is addicted, to be clear. It is the topic of the thread, so it was interesting to hear your views, as it so often is.
Thank you @Madri-Gal! I appreciate the kind words.

You are correct. I was using the general "you", since there was no need to keep saying "one" after stating that I was not talking to anyone in particular.

There are also "if"s at the start of the three parts that contain the word "you", so even if someone assumed it was directed at them in particular, they still wouldn't have been accused of anything. I left it up to the reader to decide if they fit into any of those categories.

If you want to use the word addicted to describe me as a habitual cannabis user, then go ahead. I could care less.
I'm not sure if this was directed at me, but if it was, I wasn't describing you as anything, or even discussing something that you said.
 

Stu

Maconheiro
Staff member
You're rehashing all the same points, repeating your tired, inflammatory rhetoric, while saying literally nothing. It's empty and shallow. All I see is prejudice, even hate. In one reader's opinion, you're addicted to something, even if it's not cannabis. Just stop it.
Before another flame war starts, I ask you to please let the staff moderate the thread. If you feel that someone should "stop it", use the report feature and let us make the call. If you feel someone is spreading prejudice and/or hate, again, please report it and don't make your case in the thread as it rarely ends well.

Thanks.

:peace:
 

howie105

Well-Known Member
What criteria would have to be met for you guys consider a someone's Cannabis use an addiction?

If one could be objective about their addiction you could probably get good answers but its hard for addicts to be objective. As to judging others, I am not trained for it, moral enough or walking in their boots so I leave their use to them. For myself if my use was regularly getting in my way of getting things done then I would be over using. If I couldn't control that then I would be looking at addiction as a possibility.

Before another flame war starts, I ask you to please let the staff moderate the thread......Aww, come on Stu I just refueled my flamethrower.
 
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hibeam

alpha +
"I used to think hitting a cart in the middle of the night was a sure sign of addiction. But if I had not tried it I would not have learned that a big gulp of water, a bite or two even of some food or not depending, and a dozen mg THC/CBD from a vaporizer, will last until late afternoon next day in medicating value, eliminate the AM rescue session, and be at the optimal time to dose. And the optimal combination of nutrition and ECS rescue. For me. And only on the nights I awaken to baseline. It's nice to feel good enough to appreciate getting up with the sun and the birds after a night that was not so long and dark after all.

Now I think cannabis in the forms of other addicting habits, like sucking on candy or pen pacifiers or bottles of laced hard drinks, would present their own problems. The producers of these items are not meeting my true medical needs, real/fresh/unadulterated nutrition and wholesome herbs. My war on drugs is all about the pills, foods, drinks, snorts, boofs, etc., designed to distract my body from any real therapy, throw it a bone, and replace satisfaction with addiction, just smoke up my ass."

more of the testimonial here: http://www.rotalot.com/giftshop/mmjblog.html#continued
 

just_the_flu

they say im crazy but i have a good time
In one reader's opinion, you're addicted to something, even if it's not cannabis. Just stop it.


...this. everyones "addicted" to something...



...when i think of someone being 'addicted' to something i tend to equate that to the behaviour, such as a 'fiendish' behaviour towards whatever...


...by definition almost anything repeated can be considered as an addiction...
 

uncanni

Well-Known Member

EverythingsHazy, I totally owe you an apology. I was out of line and insulting, and I'm deeply ashamed of myself. I should have simply responded by trying to clarify what I meant.

For me personally, Cannabis has helped so much more than the SSRIs that I've taken since the 90s. When I began growing my own, I developed a completely different relationship with Cannabis that kind of made her holy to me. I made and took strong Cannabis tincture for the first time last year (I'm a THC person myself, but I made sure to grow strains with good portions of CBD as well), and it opened up an entirely different space inside my being: it really was like walking out of a concrete jungle into an open meadow in the mountains of Montana. I became far less self-critical and as my self-tolerance increased, so did my tolerance and patience with others. I'm a professor at a small HBCU, my students are low skills, impoverished, and high-need, and it's a lot of pressure sometimes. Ah, so is life: a lot of pressure.

So since the fall of 2017, this decrease in anx./depressn has taken place for me. I would take the tincture early in the morning (like around 4) so as to get through the exquisite high long before I had to go to work. And then I'd be chill for the rest of the work day.

So my personal experience: I'm intending to experiment with tapering off the SSRI, which wouldn't it be wonderful if it didn't make any difference. But I need my daily Cannabis as a spiritual sacrament and as medicine for my "nerves"; I guess I'm a proud addict...

Again: please pardon my rudeness: I fked up there.
 

looney2nz

Research Geek, Mad Scientist
EverythingsHazy, I totally owe you an apology. I was out of line and insulting, and I'm deeply ashamed of myself. I should have simply responded by trying to clarify what I meant.

For me personally, Cannabis has helped so much more than the SSRIs that I've taken since the 90s. When I began growing my own, I developed a completely different relationship with Cannabis that kind of made her holy to me. I made and took strong Cannabis tincture for the first time last year (I'm a THC person myself, but I made sure to grow strains with good portions of CBD as well), and it opened up an entirely different space inside my being: it really was like walking out of a concrete jungle into an open meadow in the mountains of Montana. I became far less self-critical and as my self-tolerance increased, so did my tolerance and patience with others. I'm a professor at a small HBCU, my students are low skills, impoverished, and high-need, and it's a lot of pressure sometimes. Ah, so is life: a lot of pressure.

So since the fall of 2017, this decrease in anx./depressn has taken place for me. I would take the tincture early in the morning (like around 4) so as to get through the exquisite high long before I had to go to work. And then I'd be chill for the rest of the work day.

So my personal experience: I'm intending to experiment with tapering off the SSRI, which wouldn't it be wonderful if it didn't make any difference. But I need my daily Cannabis as a spiritual sacrament and as medicine for my "nerves"; I guess I'm a proud addict...

Again: please pardon my rudeness: I fked up there.

Kudos.

On the SSRI note, go slowly as you titrate down...
MOST SSRI/SNRI's have significant side effects if withdrawn quickly.

You'll pardon my memory, what highCBD strain are you using now?
Definitely the most useful for anxiety/depression.

What strains do you use for your tincture?
 

uncanni

Well-Known Member
@looney2nz I have grown some Cannatonic and CBD Nordle in the past, but I didn't say high CBD strains. I grow strains that have some CBD in them, but I'm a high THC person myself--not high CBD. I harvested some lovely OG Kush in November which is still curing; it's got "medium" CBD content, and I'm currently growing some Amnesia Haze that's high THC/CBD. I also keep CBD slab on hand which I infuse into Everclear so that it doesn't expire, and add that to my high THC tinctures.

My current tincture is a goulash containing:
NORTHERN LIGHT RQS
TANGERNINE DREAM BF
AFGHAN KUSH WoS
O.G. KUSH RQS
CRITICAL RQS
BLUE OG G13 Labs
AURORA INDICA
Nirvana
NIGHT QUEEN DP

I found last year that the tincture made from the blend of all the strains I grew worked excellently; we could call it maximun synergy or entourage. I have written many times in many places that the high is a crucial part of the medicinal impact for me. I understand that it isn't for everyone.
 

fernand

Well-Known Member
I believe it's significant that in many other languages the word "addicted" doesn't exist. You might say "dependent on", or even "hooked on", followed by specifically what the person is dependent on, which might be clinically relevant or not. But the whole moralizing implication isn't there. And you can't make a noun out of it, as in "an addict". It's an American concept, and a fixation.
 

arb

Semi shaved ape
I believe it's significant that in many other languages the word "addicted" doesn't exist. You might say "dependent on", or even "hooked on", followed by specifically what the person is dependent on, which might be clinically relevant or not. But the whole moralizing implication isn't there. And you can't make a noun out of it, as in "an addict". It's an American concept, and a fixation.


Was a marketing ploy used when "rehabilitation" became the answer to incarceration in the war on drugs.......huge industry rehab and drug testing.
Mostly owned by people who made the laws requiring their use..........under bullshit.
 

looney2nz

Research Geek, Mad Scientist
Was a marketing ploy used when "rehabilitation" became the answer to incarceration in the war on drugs.......huge industry rehab and drug testing.
Mostly owned by people who made the laws requiring their use..........under bullshit.

yeah, have friends involved (many decades sober) and they are pulling their hair out regularly over the people involved in 'recovery' (lots of blood on their hands).
 

ClearBlueLou

unbearably light in the being....
I do not hold to a squishy definition of addiction, for the simple reason that all squishy definitions fundamentally mischaracterize *what* addiction is: a semi-reversable physiological adaptation to an exogenous agent, such that withdrawal of the agent does not restore normal homeostasis but instead disrupts the ‘new’ and the ‘old’ states of equilibrium. It is not mental, it is not moral, it is not ethical or philosophical, it is physical. The *body* adapts, specifically.

Trying to find a non-physical homologous to addiction has so far not helped; the main issue having to do with vast subsets of habituation to reactions, beliefs and behaviors that are in no way served by application of a disease model. Much of human behavior is driven by habit, and the habits we create and maintain deliberately tend to serve us well, but they also open us to judgment applied from the outside, whether it be an imposed moral tale or the simple weight of pressure applied by others. Don’t know about you, but I find that when I’m being told what or how or who I am by someone who doesn’t know me, hasn’t observed me, and isn’t inclined to trust me, I tend to stand the fuck off and wait for the shooting to die down.

The question is, is the shooter done, or just waiting? Makes socializing a bitch sometimes, when you don’t know if you’re up against Don Quixote or George Patton.... So, addiction. The only psychological *addiction* I can think of, other than religion, is to distraction. We as a culture, at least, are almost universally addicted to keeping our brains busy or amused or teased or turned off, our bodies awake and moving or sedated. This internet, here, is a planetwide monument to the drive to distract ourselves from...what? Thought? Music? Ideas? Guilt? Shame? Self-awareness? Distraction itself qualifies as an agent to which we adapt, and the removal of the agent does not restore homeostasis, it disrupts it: remove distraction, and one will eventually have to work through the inner conversation that being human requires.

So many years, so much money, so much fear, all to deny the truth of the one real pearl of wisdom we received from Socrates: “the unexamined life is not worth living”
 

Ricardo

Well-Known Member
For me personally, Cannabis has helped so much more than the SSRIs that I've taken since the 90s.
Ditto on that. I think SSRIs & SNRIs have their place - it's often a question of trial and error though, and they have little effect (IMHO) if not accompanied by some kind of talk therapy. Also, I can testify that benzodiazepines of all varieties are shockingly addictive and ineffective except for very short term use. I have tapered off valium and it is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life.

The tricker area is around how to get relief from anxiety/intrusive thoughts/rumination and I believe cannabis can equally fuel or calm this condition. For me, at first I was tense and anxious about using weed and would often become more anxious, even paranoic. However, now it is almost second nature to me and I am completely open (at least around family/friends).... But I had to become habituated to using cannabis in order to benefit mentally from it. I would contend that habituated is very different from addicted.
 

fernand

Well-Known Member
Ever watch people become dependent on 12 step voodoo?

Or EST. Or Scientology, or being so hooked on BS as to
go live in a jungle hell with a madman and drink Kool-aid
laced with benzos and cyanide on command? Or hang out
at indoctrination sessions where they teach that the world
was created 6000 years ago, so people must have lived
with dinosaurs like Fred Flintstone ? Ever watch these
people try to withdraw from their herd? Or give up that
constant confirmation by their social media "friends" who
think just like them ?
 
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C No Ego

Well-Known Member
Ever watch people become dependent on 12 step voodoo?

Or EST. Or Scientology, or being so hooked on BS as to
go live in a jungle hell with a madman and drink Kool-aid
laced with benzos and cyanide on command? Or hang out
at indoctrination sessions where they teach that the world
was created 6000 years ago, so people must have lived
with dinosaurs like Fred Flintstone ? Ever watch these
people try to withdraw from their herd? Or give up that
constant confirmation by their social media "friends" who
think just like them ?
man= We are so much more than we can possibly believe... our beliefs limit us and place a box on perceived reality... step out of that box and there sits imagination and creation and all the Desire to drive the organism into a greater plateau of awareness.
 
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