[someone903209]

Weed (because it has no real downsides to me personally) and once-a-year DXM (for depersonalisation) were mildly effective, but the clincher has been learning about buddhism / the tao. I'm not talking about any kind of spiritual practice, but moreso a change in perspective that simply isn't expressed by anyone around me. Doing the unambiguously right thing in the best way in any circumstance with no effort or conscious thought is powerful. I started with the question "How do I talk to people correctly?" and found "right speech" and went from there. Nearly two years later I can say it's been transformational at lowering the anxiety that I once had. Automatic negative thoughts happen infrequently instead of constantly. Though, this is not setting me up to be rich and with lots of worldly possessions or friends, but I'm alright with that.

edit: disappointing that all of the replies are about the first word in this post, but I kind of asked for it. Talk about whatever you want to talk about.

[DanBC]

> Weed (because it has no real downsides)

Cannabis can for some users have severe downsides. We don't necessarily know in advance which those users are. People who have a diagnosed severe mental illness are probably in that group. Thus, is someone with strong anxiety a person who should avoid cannabis because it would exacerbate their anxiety; or trigger an underlying psychosis? Or are they a person who would benefit from canabis?

I am strongly in favour of legalising cannabis but I find it frustrating when people claim it has no downsides.

[someone903209]

I'm speaking from personal anecdotes only. The only downside to me is that it suppresses REM sleep, leading to dreamless sleep. This is kind of boring. It's also more difficult to learn something for the first time while high. Don't go to a poker game high and try to learn the game, for example. Psychosis? Not a factor for me, so I'm not attempting to say one thing about it. Extrinsically, there's all of the legal/job related annoyances in additional to dealing with losers who won't do anything without it.

[throwaway1]

Don't worry, after a while (assuming you smoke heavily) you'll have crazy-ass dreams all the time, whether you want them or not. Smoke will buy you 90 minutes of peaceful sleep tops. It's not a long-term insomnia medication.

[killface]

And once it stops working for insomnia, get ready for some restless limbs. That was my experience, at least. I've found melatonin and a tea with valerian root, chamomile, and a few other extracts (called sleepytime tea) works much better.

[proksoup]

It doesn't cause schizophrenia, it causes willingness to be vocal about schizophrenia.

It's actually a useful tool for that, assuming the person isn't an insanely negative environment where they lock them up after they become vocal.

[throwaway1]

> (because it has no real downsides)

Ohhh boy. On this throwaway to say otherwise. I'm sorry if this post is a bit incoherent because I'm horribly tired, still getting past the nuts insomnia phase of quitting.

I've smoked a lot of weed. Started smoking in high school, heavily when I was 19 until a couple weeks ago (I'm 26 now). About an ounce a month over that time, sometimes two ounces. First it was for insomnia, then it was supposedly for my digestive health (actually, quitting gives you gas and loose stool), then for anxiety, sometimes for aches and pains (which were made worse because of poor posture -- it is a muscle relaxant, after all). At the end it was for my paranoia, so to speak -- I was convinced I had cancer setting into my guts and that it was the weed that was keeping it in remission. They did some experiment where this worked with rats, right?

Right now it seems like there are no side effects. Trust me, there will be. Your memory will turn to shit and you won't be able to follow a conversation. You will try to remember a number and forget it moments later. You'll be slow to recall your own zip code. This doesn't just happen when you're high, it'll happen the day after smoking also. Basically, if you're feeling "all right," you'll have these effects too.

You'll become dull. You'll sit around with peers and have nothing to talk about, just a stupid smile. Now, you'll feel totally at peace, but you're a basically a human blob, incapable of really interesting thought.

Your thoughts themselves will become lazy, less rigorous. You'll think you're being "chill" when you quit a debate, but really, your mind is just working much slower.

You'll edit code pointlessly, shuffling stuff around.

It's not all bad -- the ability to come up with really funny insights doesn't go away, so you can make people laugh. But there's no depth to anything you do.

Heavy smoking makes you shiftless too, and easy to abuse. It let me stay in an abusive marriage for a few years, fun (I sort of knew this but was too embarrassed to leave this woman I'd just married, so I smoked more to keep my sanity). Only when I tried to slow down smoking for a little while did I realize how bad things had gotten. Whether or not you believe it's happening, people will try to take advantage of you, if you're worth taking advantage of.

Keep in mind I'm not talking about "smoking every now and then when I feel bad," I'm talking about daily use: A smoke in the bathroom before you shower for work and constant smoking every night. Lunch break smoke if you're a real go-getter. Maybe smoking on your commute. Always making sure you have a good bit of bud or hash oil before you go on a trip anywhere (I remember smoking in a company's garage in SF after a tech meetup, and also regularly taking smoke breaks in my employer's garage in a less tolerant state).

In this industry, people will let you get away with it if you're any good, because the fact is that a half-baked person who can still write decent, reliable code is 10x as valuable as an regular guy with no skill/aptitude/motivation. And as you might have noticed, most people don't take to this stuff all that well, which is why (compared to other working schlubs) we get paid pretty well.

Also, YMMV, but it completely robbed me of my sex life when sober because I'd orgasm so fast.

It took several years of heavy, daily smoking for these serious symptoms to fully manifest into what seemed an indomitable form, probably when I was 24-25. I know for sure that heavy daily smoking of high-grade buds in California took it to the next level.

I had to stop smoking. I realized how stupid I'd become, even if I was raking in the dollars (not doing consultant BS either, senior developer stuff at a good tech company and respected by my peers).

Holy crap, I'd forgotten how smart I was. Suddenly I could remember everything. Issue numbers. My train number. Dates, times, places. I could remember things (addresses and stuff) I learned when stoned, knowledge I didn't know was in my head. Weird!

Now I can't imagine smoking again, except rarely with friends. Having my brain back is so wonderful. Feel free to ask my questions, though I probably covered the uninteresting life of a stoner programmer pretty well here.

[catchaway1]

I have a question for you actually. I have noticed things very similar to what you talk about after a few years of regular smoking. I started at 19 and I'm 21 now (edit, 22, forgot my own age). I used to evangelize marijuana since it has no overt medical side effects, but I think I'm coming to realize what you are talking about -- it kinda does make you stupid, like my Mom warned me about years ago. And not just when you're high, either.

I try to mitigate the negative effects by alternating -- a month of daily smoking, then a month off. If I have any in the house, I can't help myself, so I moderate the quantities I buy.

But, I have started to have episodes around things like locked doors. Did I lock the door -- or even close it? It's like I can't trust my previous decision and I have to go check again. Sometimes I will check a door five times in an hour. It's basically neurotic. If I don't check, I feel very nervous. I think this might be related to marijuana since it seems to fall into the category of absentminded behavior. It's like I am not present in reality enough to have faith in my past decisions.

I definitely don't feel stupid, but I do feel unfocused -- you could say my thoughts are accurate but not very precise. Or put in other terms, I feel like my of my intellectual powers are locked up because it feels to difficult to think about hard things.

Anyway, I was wondering how long you feel like it took you to "get smart again", as it were. Should a month be long enough to return to a baseline state of mind? Or should I try a multiple month T break to see if it has a big impact? (If it did, I would quit).

[throwaway1]

Haha, that hits home hard. Locking my deadbolt and worrying that I didn't as I walked through the apartment lobby. Locking my car and worrying that I didn't while I'm still looking at my car.

The good news is that when I stopped, my brain came back almost immediately, and in force. Basically as soon as I could tell that I hadn't recently smoked. A few days, tops.

What helped me to quit the most actually was buying some horrid weed from my guy that I still insisted on smoking. The stuff was low-grade enough that I was going through slow withdrawal even during the weeks when I was smoking it. And smoking it was no fun. I know for sure that my symptoms this time around pale in comparison to the times in the past when I briefly quit (for a drug test or whatever) after smoking that bubonic chronic (SFV OG, GSC and such).

[catchaway1]

Wow, that sounds exactly like what I do. I can stare at something without really seeing it, the information goes in one eye and out the other. It's like I have to "try to see it" a couple times.

Just hearing about someone else having the same symptoms from marijuana actually helps clarify things for me. I also have some other anxiety related issues so it can be difficult for me to disentangle what is my problem vs. a substance causing some effect, but it sounds like in this case it might actually be the ol' cannabanoids doing work on my body chemistry.

[someone903209]

The common thing to point out on these kinds of anecdotes are the "started at 1# and I'm 2# now" part of it. I started at 23! Didn't even bother drinking until 21! This is what all the studies are about and usually are conclusive about - the brain is still forming in these years, and you really should wait. (Although, in my opinion, the legal age for both should be 18). My advice for the "did I lock the door" / "did I leave the coffee maker on" issues is this: create habits and follow them. Unplug the coffee maker. Either the door is wide open, or it is locked. Either your keys are in the spot where the keys always are, or they are in your pocket. You have to be able to trust yourself.

[catchaway1]

Habits actually make it worse for me because I go through on autopilot and then I have no way to confirm mentally if I skipped a step or not.

What helps me the most is to actually make a mnemonic to remember that I did something when I did it, by closely paying attention to my specific actions. For example, if I lock the door, I will specifically check my watch and note the date and time and that yes, I did just lock my door right then. I find I can get relief by referencing that timestamped memory, whereas with truly habitual behavior I still need to double check. Using a mental checklist or something would probably be a good option too, but then I have to compose the checklists beforehand and it's a pain.

I do think there is something to be said for the age question, although starting at 19, I think I was passed the main formative period. Actually I think the most important thing is the # of years, since I would not be saying these things after 1 or even 2 years of smoking, but only now almost 3 years later am I starting to get concerned.

[UrMomReadsHN]

>at 19, I think I was passed the main formative period.

Not in the slightest. That doesn't happen until 25. :)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647...

[priorstoner]

Here's another anecdote, for what it's worth:

I started smoking at age 21, when I graduated college a year early, and smoked nonstop after graduation until age 23.

At that point, my life basically fell apart, and it was definitely related to being high 24/7.

So I quit cold turkey. By age 25, I had started my own web business that was very successful. SaaS business, recurring revenue, amazing growth, etc. I was driving a fancy car, living in Palo Alto, and was on track to being a millionaire by my late 20's, almost guaranteed, just based on the growth of the business. I was so financially secure that I even got married and had a kid very young.

Of course, running the business (plus starting a business at the same time) was stressful. There were customers, partners, employees, etc., to deal with. And a toddler, and new wife.

I had very little support or mentors. None of my family or friends were entrepreneurs and I had no connections.

Eventually, I started getting migraine headaches on a regular basis. Around age 27. I convinced myself that smoking marijuana again was a logical thing to do, despite the fact that it had literally destroyed my life after college, and I had to rebuild my life back up again already.

I was smoking large quantities of high grade stuff. I had a lot of money from my business, so I went all out. Oils, kiefs, fancy bongs, the whole deal.

Being high all day, I started making terrible decisions and being really reckless with my business.

Long story short: within 12 months I went from a highly profitable, debt-free, lifestyle business that allowed me to effortlessly live in the heart of Silicon Valley (out of choice -- I could have lived anywhere I wanted to), to having a nervous breakdown, bankrupting my business, and ending up $250,000 in debt.

Today, I am 34. I am still paying off the debt from that mistake. I have no business, and work a "shitty" (meaning, comfortable six figures, but no real ownership) job as a software engineer. I am regularly depressed when I think about what I lost, and how foolish I was to lose it.

This is an extreme case, and of course only an anecdote. But it's pretty black and white: smoking a lot of marijuana all the time made me dumb and caused me to make really bad decisions.

As for weaning off of marijuana and its resultant impact on the sharpness of mind:

I found that after 3 days, there is a very noticeable difference. You are probably about 70-90% recovered at that point. But it takes a good 6-12 months to get that back that really sharp "edge" that you once had, the remaining 10-30%.

But, as I hope I have related in this story, it's not just about getting back the intelligence and sharpness of mind. It's that even when you get that stuff back, you will still be left with the consequences of whatever dumb shit you did while living your life high all the time.

[catchaway1]

That sucks dude, but it's also hilarious. I can't believe you would try to make business decisions while being high. I can imagine going to work high as shit, for starters, I would forget everyone's names, and then I would probably forget everything else too. But I can definitely imagine how you could talk yourself into it especially if you are self employed.

I think hearing these stories is really interesting, since I can relate them to my own experience. Thanks for sharing! I guess I should start working on getting that "edge" back.

[Xcelerate]

Did your wife stay with you through all that craziness?

[priorstoner]

Yes, she is a saint.

[someone903209]

You're dropping real facts, no one should argue against these very real risks, and I do know people to whom this is absolutely accurate. I can see this playing out, which is why I don't follow through with it. Myself, I haven't smoked in over a month, because I can take it or leave it. I've worked with the "smoke before-work, at-lunch, after-work" types. I've been interviewed by people who later smoked with me, because everyone does it. It makes you delusional, it makes you lazy, true, true. I've git clone'd code and then edited code formatting pointlessly, just like you. And yet, still better than most of them, somehow. Just walk through the door and, if you can, leave the door behind.

[throwaway1]

Right, I'm presuming that somebody who really tries to self-medicate with cannabis for anxiety is doing so on a daily basis with high-grade bud.

[silentfish]

Funny. Your weed-smoking stage of life describes current me to a dot. Except I don't smoke. :(