I gave up weed for 100 days. Here’s what I learned.
I’m not a stoner. I tried it on for size and it didn’t really fit. For one thing, I find that when I have too much pot, I don’t enjoy it after a certain point. My first time being really baked made me quite paranoid, and trying to keep up with stoner friends in my early twenties always led me there. I learned my rule of thumb, that I needed one puff for every bowl a hardcore stoner would have and I could enjoy myself. Throughout my twenties, I was a very occasional user, when it was there I’d enjoy it, but never really tried to buy it or score it. And when I did have it on my own, what I had would last me a long time.
That changed a couple years ago in my early thirties. Spending time with people who did party, having a lot of free time, and being overwhelmed by compounding stresses, I discovered how great it could be to get stoned every day. Sometimes more than once a day. And sometimes with alcohol in the picture too. I discovered my like of indicas over sativas. I discovered when edibles were good for me, when I preferred to smoke. I even started to discover the joy of a flower vape. The problem I ran into? Combined with alcohol, I could go way too far, sometimes ending in epic binges of food that made me feel in pain.
When I stopped drinking in August, I knew that I had to for a long time. I had tried for the past decade to change my relationship with alcohol. But I don’t have a relationship with alcohol where moderation interests me, let alone is enjoyable. I didn’t feel the need to give up the weed at the same time because they’re different substances. But in September, I decided to do an experiment with myself. What would it look like for me to give up weed for 100 days and see how I felt on the other side? I’d see what the difference was in my mood, my relationship with food, my relationships with others, my mood.
Today is 100 days. So here are the things that I’ve learned.
I don’t have a cannabis problem, but I could have developed one. My day job is stressful and when I tried to increase usage at the same rate as work stress increased in the hopes it would help. It didn’t help. Lesson learned. One of the reasons I was suspecting I was developing a problem was that my desire to use was conflicting with my work hours. The thing is, there are two partners in that dance. It wasn’t so much that I was craving a toke at 10 AM, but if at 8:30 I was still working when I’m used to winding down, I’d want that. I interpreted that as my cravings diving into my work hours.
My libido took a nosedive and then skyrocketed. I’m one of those people for whom our lady Mary Jane is an aphrodisiac. The stoner boner is a very real thing for me. So when I stopped, I went from having a sex organ to having an appendage. I wasn’t interested in sex for like a month or two — admittedly, 2020 isn’t a very sexy year to me. As my brain chemistry reset, I felt more in sync and eventually, the rivers flowed southerly and the once again, the flagpole was at full mast. Anchors away.
My ability to focus really rebounded. I know people talk about having a flow state when they’re stoned; I didn’t have that experience. I could experience deep states of relaxation and euphoria that it’s hard to tap into, but I can’t say it helped me be productive. My ability to focus at work, in life, and be present became a lot stronger.
Cannabis definitely makes it harder for me to have consistent fitness nutrition. When I started, my running average weight was 251.6 lbs; today it’s 247.5 lbs. More importantly, it’s been easier to stick with my meals, and to have a good sense of being full. It’s hard to stay up and get stoned and not give into the munchies when you’re in a calorie deficit. So for someone like me, that makes it a challenge. There are people who talk about different ways of making it work, things like eating the protein cookies, waiting to toke before you’re hungry and plan around it. For me, that stuff never really worked. The things that worked the best for me were not getting super stoned, not combining it with alcohol, and just not doing it often.
My anxiety decreased, but it didn’t go away. Let me keep it 100. That first couple weeks were horrible. If you get stoned every day, the anxiety, irritability, night sweats, anhedonia (loss of pleasure) are all horrible. They’re common symptoms of withdrawal. But on the other side of it — my anxiety got better; I became able to tolerate more stress, and I honestly think it helped me get through this past few (very stressful) months easier. This being about mental health and brain chemistry, it’s important to be clear that it’s different for everyone, I do take medication for anxiety (and did before), and have a great therapist. Please get medical advice from something besides quit lit on Medium.
It’s really hard to get my muscles to relax. One of the biggest benefits I’ve gotten is that cannabis helps me melt; muscles under muscles relax. My jaw, my neck, my shoulders, my back, all of them. I haven’t found anything that remotely comes close to it, so that muscle tension has been very noticeable. On some days, it gets so bad it gives blinding headaches and I become sensitive to light, when muscle tension and stress combine. Sometimes breathwork helps, but that aspect of life has gotten worse.
A lot of stuff about recovery from cannabis is really unscientific. One of the reasons I wanted to write this piece is that there aren’t a lot of secular, science-based pieces about quitting cannabis. This is a personal essay, so I’m not diving into the science, but I felt really isolated reading stuff and watching YouTubers. It’s great that Jesus works for some people; it’s great that 12-step programs work for some people; it’s awesome that some people gave up coffee and masturbation and sugar and everything and now they got rich and met their dream girl. Bruh, I’d settle for a daddy bear carrying coffee, kettlebells, and a desire to get rough with me for a few weeks. As I learned more about how cannabinoids change brain chemistry, I was able to take my emotions less personally. When I was able to step away from the idea that it has to be all-or-nothing, or the way a lot of people present it and just focus on my own journey one day at a time, it helped a lot.
Cannabis use disorders are very real. Some people dismiss cannabis as non-addictive because people don’t die from the withdrawal. People do experience withdrawal, though, and I think that’s a very incomplete understanding of addiction. Some of the people I’ve connected with and heard from have had very real addictions. When people market cannabis as a cure-all panacea (it’s not), that undermines the fact that you can get addicted to the stuff and it does change your brain. If you leave with nothing else after reading this, know that all of these things can be true: some people can become addicted to cannabis, for some people, cannabis can be really fun recreationally, for some people, cannabis can be medicine. We don’t understand as much about it because addiction research is often poorly funded and because cannabis is (in the US) currently illegal to study for scientific research. I hope that with recreational legalization one day, the tide will turn.
Stopping using a substance doesn’t fix you, but it can create the conditions where you can fix yourself. Giving up a substance doesn’t solve problems; but for me, there were a lot of emotions and issues I needed to deal with that I was using weed and alcohol to escape from. I’ve spent a lot of time digging deep about those things. I know there have been days that I absolutely couldn’t use weed because I was so down. I know there are days I’ve craved it so intensely, I could barely stand it. It’s been incredibly helpful to do this, as I think it’s made me a better person.
So where does this leave me? Much more aware of myself, stronger, better able to discern when things are out of hand, and knowing I don’t need substances to help cope with life. I don’t plan to abstain for the rest of my life, but I don’t plan to go back where I started. I’ve come to enjoy life sober, but imagine I would enjoy a mostly sober life more. I want to give a shout out to the /r/leaves community for being so supportive. And I want to give hope to anyone who’s struggling right now. It is possible to walk away. It is possible to re-evaluate your choices. You don’t need God, to give up masturbating, to feel powerless, or anything; there are many options out there.
