How-To quit using weed?
 

i am interested in any ideas. to help a friend.


maybe more healthier alternatives would help , i dunno.:confused: :rolleyes:

Don't buy it in the first place.

Find other ways to occupy your time and spend your money.

See a therapist if quitting on your own seems to fail.

either that or take up drinking :)

seriously its hard to stop doing something unless u have something else to fill that time with. start doing a new hobby or interest (like rollerblading or someting) and once u get into that you can ween yourself off of the ghanga.

LOL! You don't use 'Weed' You use 'Hemp' :D


http://www.aurorasilk.com/shop/hemp_yarn.shtml

I found the most important thing was to avoid those who still smoke. Being around the stuff, it can be hard to resist when someone passes you a fatty and asks if you want to hit it. Other than that, weed being the non physically addicting drug that it is, I didnt find it at all difficult to quit, once I decided that I wanted to.

now if cigarettes were only that easy.

definately get them to not associate with the people he smokes with when they smoke, otherwise your pushin shit uphill, the temptation is there.

when i quit heavy use (several times daily) toward the end of Year 9, i had a hellova lot of problems sleeping. i dunno if anyone else experienced that, but thats what i went through, so if your like their mentor to get off weed and they approach you that they cant sleep - tell them that it doesnt last forever, it does pass.

with the money that he'd usually spend on weed, get them to purchase material items that they enjoy (dvds, cds.. something they they enjoy). that way after a few weeks, they can look at what extra stuff they have by not smoking the green.

just some thoughts that got me to stop smoking the green (well.. so much. still enjoy an occasion toke, maybe once a month)

toss out all your paraph.. pipes, bongs, ashtrays, all of it. or at least give it to your friends...

and most importantly stop buying it.

as for me, i just kinda grew out of wanting to be baked at all hours of the day and after your sober for a while you feel much more motivated and can focus alot better. i don't think getting high is all that bad of a thing but it affects everyone differently and some people just turn into fiends. those are the ones that would need some help letting it go though, i just hope your friend isn't one of those people.

First thing, Its not easy.
Many times when I was trying to quit I gave in & had a doobie.
When & if that happens dont worry, tell yourself its not the end of the world (coz it aint). Dont be hard on yourself but remember your mind contains stronger will than your body & you can overcome. Just observe yourself when you are high, ask yourself if this is really what you want, It will strengthen your desire to quit.
Its true that you have to make changes in your life other than simply not smoking, Im sorry to say I lost all of my friends when I quit. I couldnt spend hours sitting around in a room full of stoners while trying to quit. Maybe spend some cash on a treat (something you really want that will take up your free time) I found other things to do, reading, games, Tfp might be a good one too :) .
Also, & this might not be for everyone, I started reading about drugs - what they do & why. I found that educating myself was fulfiling & gave me an idea of what exactly happend when I was waterbagged & what made me want to smoke and not smoke at the same time :confused:

This is all I can think of right now,
I wish you the very best of luck & If I can do it you can too.

Does the friend want to quit weed? I don't want to quit weed but it seems to be slowly happening. I used to wake n bake regularly and smoked pretty much every day but now I smoke about once a month. Probably due to the fact that I have moved and hang out with different people. I don't think smoking dope if a bad thing at all I am just doing it less. I have known many people who as they got older just drifted away from pot. I wouldn't worry about it.

The only way is just to stop doing it plain and simple, and dont talk to people who do.

thanks you people. there were alot of good ideas in your replies, i especially like the idea of buying cds or dvd with the herb money and not associating with those who smoke alot..

thanks again

Your friend should experience a seizure like I did from smoking hashish. Suddenly feel very ill, have unsteady pulse, throw up, lie on the floor shaking untill you feel better, go home, sleep, forget about it and think that it must have been just some bad shit (even though your friends who shared it were just fine), buy new and better stuff, smoke again 3 weeks later, experience the same thing only 10 times worse, lie on a flor for 2 hours with very weak and unsteady pulse convinced that you are about to die, feel better and go home, still feel that your pulse is not compleatly normal again, experiencing flashbacks for a week until they slowly fade away.

That should get him off it rather quickly.

Ain't that the truth.

I used to be a pretty heavy smoker in my late teens.

Since "hemp" is physically non-addictive it's easy to quit in theory, unlike cigarettes which are physically addictive, and a bugger of a problem to get off of.

If he's still having problems it means it's mentally addictive,which means the addiction is in his head, probably from being bored and having no other alternative.

The others are certainly right. If it's addictive mentally, then you need to get this guy involved with some other stuff and keep him away from the dope.

weed I had no problem quitting once I wasn't around it 24 hours a day. Cigarettes, on the other hand, were a bitch to quit.

There are a lot of things you can do to help.
-Stay away from people who do it
-Drink
-Get caught and have your life ruined (generally a last resort =P)
-Figure out how much money you waste on weed
-Get more involved with your interests and stay busy

Its not just getting high, its a way of life. the people who said stay away from others who get high definately have the right idea. No matter how much you want to stop, if you still hang out with your buds who get high, its next to impossible to quit. Just saying no is hard when you are so conditioned to saying yes.

i started toking the weed in fourth grade. it wasn't until my senior year in undergrad when my heart started beating over 200 times a minute just after hitting a couple bongs. it was not pleasant, but it did not stop me until two years later when i did a couple one hits and the same thing. come to find out there are many others who have the same thing happen to them. it was quite east to stop and i havent toked since 1984.

If you want to stop smoking weed for good, then perhaps start using much more powerful and addictive drugs. Then weed won't be nearly as appealing.

(In case you're wondering why a straight-edger would condone using drugs, it's because I don't give a crap about you. FYI.)

A couple of things I did to quite weed have been mentioned here.

1. Moved outta town (had to for work), and made new friends who didn't toke. Sounds like you care about this person, if you hung out together more (I'm assuming your not a dope fiend), there wouldn't be that temptation.

2. Wanted to quit - Very important, if the person doesn't want to quit they won't.

3. Found it interefered with work the next day. I get Pot hangovers where I am so flaked the next morning.

4. I haven't cut it out completely, every 6 mo or so. I go back to my ol' haunts and meet up for a little bake, but to be fair most of them are now slowin' it down.

5. Took up drinking, seriously, when I toked I didn't like alcohol, cause they sometimes don't mix well. And socially its easier to goto a bar and meet up with friends.

6. As my friends and I have done, we grew outta it, got too much going on in life to be baked all the time.

Good Luck... Remember it could be worse, you could be trying to break them from heroin...

This worked for me, get a good job where you get random drug tested. Get busted and your fired!

You have to want to quit, just like with cigarettes. The gob/random drug test will help, but it won't stop you on those nights when your friends are doing it around you. Your friends play a part in this, if you let them know you want to quit they might not put you in spots where you will want to go smoke up.
Personally I turned down smoking with my friends just tonight because I have realized I enjoy things more when I've just had a couple of beers.

thanks boco. thats good words

well, since you are trying to help your friend quit, here's what you do:

Tell him to stop.

i don't see the problem here. i smoked daily for over a year and then just stopped for the hell of it. i still hung around my friends that smoked; when they offered i simply said no. yes it is hard to sleep for a few days, but afterwards it is fine. as long as you have a strong will and can stand up against peer pressure you should be fine

**having trouble deleting this accidental blank message...** sry

After 6 years of smoking pot, all it took was a few months of bad chest pains. I saw the doctor a few times and he chuckled when I brought up pot. I quit and havn't had a worry since. I've noticed myself drinking a little more though because many of my friends still smoke and maybe I drink as an alternative...?
And you might wonder what has kept me from going back. Well besides the fact that every day feels a little smarter and more intelligent, I've smoked a few times since and after a break, it's not *all* that desirable.

-Ever- Very insightful words, thanks. One question though, why did he chuckle?

Would anyone say, if I smoked pot once a week, i'm a regular smoker?

It would help if we knew what inspired this thread. Does the friend want to? Why? These will really help.

And also, I found that quitting cigarettes was easy as hell in less than a week with my medication. It got to the point where I wouldn't even notice I hadn't smoked for a few days. I'd see my pack lying around somewhere, take a cig out, forget about it, come back hours later and put it back in the pack without hesitation.

kava kava is a natural herbal supplement that has a calming effect on many people who take it. it may be worth giving a shot rather than switching to another intoxicant to keep you calm.

a bottle of pills costs about as much as a good 6 pack

oh, btw, you may also want to have some simply sleep around for your first night or three if you were a nightly smoker. your body will adjust quickly to not being sedated all the time, but it could take a few nights before you are on a normal sleeping sched.

c_b

No problem. And he kind of chuckled because I came to him asking "Doc, I'm having all these chest pains. Feels like I'm going to have a heart attack. They come and go at different times. Whats wrong with me? Oh yea, by the way, I smoke pot about 3-6 times a week....."
you figure out how the rest went.... :D

No way! But it seems like it would be harder to smoke once a week than it would to not smoke at all. Too much of a tease :p

You can't make your friend quit, he'll have to want to quit for himself. If he does want to quit, all he has to do is stop smoking the stuff...it's not that hard to stop.
If it's you that want's to stop, you obviously don't want to stop enough if you still smoke.

I didn't find it hard to quit at all when I took a break from the ganja. If your friends are really your friends, they'll respect your decision to stop smoking. If they don't, find new friends.

get caught, get in a whole world of shit, get the police and school involved, get suspended, go to a shrink, countless things happend when you get caught.

i used to be into the pot and shit, but not anymore. if it involves me losing my guitar and friends, i dont want to do it.

if you have friends worth keeping, tell them you're quitting, let them help you. if they laugh at you, they're not good friends worth keeping, they're smoking buddies.

Set aside your weed money like normal, but then use it to buy nice things, or to take a girl out, or buy your mom something nice. It'll make you appreciate what other good things in life are being passed over because of the weed.

why would you want to stop :-p

but seriously if u want to stop, u have to seperate yourself from weed, things that have to do with weed, and people who smoke weed. thats really all it is and u have to WANT TO STOP! hope it helps

Hang out with people who are against it. Don't buy it, and stay away from parties. And take up a hobby, like building a computer. all the money you will save, you can build a nice pc.

I find it kind of ironic that this thread is (at least for the moment) right next to a "is weed really that bad" thread.

So I'm trying to quit because I think the negative effects of too much smoking are starting to become clear. It's easy to say quit buying it, but how long does that compulsion to buy it when you run out, because that's what you do, last? It's almost like a battle of inner dialogue. And the sleepless nights, about how many.......? They're not easy... Did anyone ever think that this would become such a problem, or to put it mildly, a dilema?

I did it a lot my this past fall semester, and it was always free, because I had a car so we drove, smoked, and came back to campus. I never did it at home and only started it at college (gotta experiment sometime), but the spring semester I only did it once and then they wanted me to start paying......so I stopped. I had no ill-effects from stopping, no withdrawal symptoms at all.

I guess just try to avoid any situations that involve weed at all.

I quit smoking weed a month or so back, just told myself no more and refused anything that came my way.

Yeh i was a grumpy bastard who never got any sleep, but that passes suprisingly quickly. It's limiting yourself next time you have pot around you thats the hard bit.

I've also been trying to quit smoking for a while, and I keep doing it lol.
I've found that not talking or hanging out with people that do smoke REALLY helps to quitting. My only problem is that I'm a very regular smoker. In the last 3 years I haven't went more than 1-3 days at a time without smoking and usually it's every day from the first 5 min I'm awake until I go to sleep.
The friends I hang out with on a regular basis smoke, and when I'm sitting at home trying to quit I get really bored. That's why I'm on the message board right now, because I'm so bored lol.

Has anyone ever gotten sick and thrown up after "smoking out". Last night after smoking out my car I got sick to my stomach after 30 min. afterwards and threw up. I'm a little confused because I've never gotten anywhere near getting sick because of bud. I couldn't see in the dark but when I went inside to wash my mouth out I spit and it had a lot of red in it. Was this blood perhaps?

Seems silly, but just stop. It's not addictive. Possibly a little on the psychological side but certainly not like cigs. More of a habit like blinking your eyes alot, coughing, that sort of thing. And not like drinking or other drugs, either. It's more a lifestyle - for example, like some people think they can't face a long drive without some smoke. They can but just don't want to!

Drink more..thats about it...plain and easy.

This is still a very important and relevant post because, let's face it, Gang, we ALL know someone who is still Very into smoking pot. I quit a long, long time ago because it made me paranoid and extremely nervous. But I have to admit that Yes, I did start drinking more. It's not a great feeling to know either. My S.O. still likes to smoke (ALOT) and I would much rather he kept on smoking instead of drinking more because he becomes intensely abusive as a drinker.

Any thoughts? I'm at wits end regarding this issue. It's such a major issue on all accounts. I don't think I can handle this much longer.:eek:

O_O

Walk away, hunnychile, walk away. Part of the effects of drinking is it makes you feel more impulsive and less confined by the restrictions that society places on you. It's an outlet for deeper, regressive emotions. If someone gets angry and abusive when they drink, those are feelings that are latient when they're sober... but how long are they going to stay latient?

Well first of all what are your reasons for wanting him to quit? Weed is a relatively safe and mind expanding drug that happens to be a lot of fun, but can be abused. If your friend is spending a lot of money on it and he does it to escape his reality on a regular basis, then yes you should probably help him out in which case everyone else has already said what I could think of. But if he only does it like once a week to chill out and relax then I think you should just leave him be. Hell it's a lot safer than alcohol anyway.

There are newer studies showing weed is physically addictive. It is most definitively psychologically so.

The belief "weed is safe" is bullshit. In groups I can spot those that smoked weed on a regular basis faster than I can 99% of other drug users (the only 1% would be those in true alcohol or opioid detoxification).

It slows reflexes and creates a split second delay in cognitive thinking. Both of which after time become permanent. (Hence the name "burnout"). It also kills motivation and destroys memory short term and long term.

For anyone to say weed is "a safe drug", they truly are either a smoker or are going by what friends have told them.

But then again, noone wants to hear a lecture on the truth, so people will believe what they wish to believe. There will be those that argue, but the there are simple tests to see if there is truth in which I speak.....

1) can they put it down for a length of time, without any cravings or change in personality?

2) look at how they act, their memory, reflexes, thought processes, motivation, etc and compare them to before the person smoked or just compare them to when first meeting the person and watch...... because those aspects once they start going they are gone with continued use and depending on the use and the damage, those functions may never come back. Those functions will always be less than what they were before the person smoked.

Whoever said there were no such things as dumb questions didn't know what he/she was talking about.

You want to stop smoking weed? Then stop smoking it. Bye bye.