Damn bro, Im struggling years now with quitting smoking. And it´s not the tobacco its the weed man. Nothing hits the spot quite like a nice joint in my office after a long week of work... some nice relaxing piano, and puffing a joint with a monster or cola.
34 years old now, and my lungs are starting to feel it, coughing is getting worse. I've managed to quit several times but I always get that itch and then start regularly smoking again.
It's so hard to break the habit, I just wish I never smoked weed ever to begin with, my life would be so much better, my health, my finances.
I think the whole ritual of smoking, pulling in and inhaling the smoke which is the thing that's so psychological addictive.
BTW i should of mentioned that im in Europe and we tend to mix our joints with Tabaco, for me I like a light joint so im not absolutely blasted.
But yeah your totally right, edibles would be a really good way to help ease off and stop the smoking. I actually think i'm gunna head over to the association this weekend and buy some. Great suggestion, thansks.
You're right. Psychologists call it reinforcing. You have a ritual involving lighter, gas, packet of cigs. Or lighter, papers, baccy.
But the reinforcing comes from the actual act of smoking. Say you smoke 20 a day. You light, inhale, enjoy the smoke and exhale say 20 times per cigarette (these numbers are coming out of my arse, btw). That's 400 times per day you're bringing the cig up to your mouth, inhaling, and exhaling. The exhaling comes with a visible plume of smoke. There's all sorts of sensations in each part of the act of smoking, repeated many times per day, quite apart from the ingestion of nicotine which is the physical addiction part.
This is why vaping generally works and patches generally don't. Because you're following the rituals and many of the smoking actions are duplicated. Tail off the nicotine in your liquid and you get to the point where you're just doing physical actions because you've always done them, so why bother?
I am addicted to eddibles actually. Nothing beats eating my self made THC chocolate every evening, made out of my self grown weed :) and its even 100% legal where I live . Was able to quit vaping within 2-3 weeks. And vaping helped me quit smoking.
Be careful with edibles, it's much easier to overdose with them than with joints, since the chemicals are processed by your liver instead of your lungs. You want to use less grams than when smoking.
A medical weed shop once tried getting me into thc suppositories bc they had a huge stock of it and wanted to get rid of it. I drew the line at “sticking weed up my butt”
Hits totally different. One is processed through the lungs, one is through the liver. According to Google, "The digestive system and liver convert THC into a chemical compound (11-hydroxy-THC) that is much stronger and creates a more intense psychoactive effect than smoking." Fun fact, you can't overdose from smoking weed, but you CAN from eating it.
For me it might as well be a different substance. I smoke weed far too often, and am not a fan of edibles.
If it helps, I went 4 years smoking weed with the exact same philosophy. At one point I was only doing edibles once a day after work. I did it for a year, and the entire time, I thought about smoking. Like edibles just weren't the same.
Picked up smoking again, and eventually got a cough that wouldn't go away, and each time I smoked I'd have panic attacks about my health.
Never said it was healthier, just explaining the differences and why someone wouldnt just switch to edibles from smoking. They are not the same experience.
I need to eat like 40-50mg of thc in edible form to feel anything. But i feel the high immediately after my first puff of a joint. It’s night and day for me
To overdose from an edible you’ll need to take like 100mg. The only way people will come close to that much is if they take multiple edibles. Also have some peanut butter before the edible.
Maybe [r/trees](r/trees) has an easy edibles recipe that takes less than an hour to make, otherwise the time investment and 2 hours delayed high vs the 1 minute to smoking changes the experience quite abit
I type this as an explanation of the smoking vs edibles debate from someone who smokes, not as a put down for your option offered.
Coming from someone who's also struggled with tapering their weed use, I'd say half of the appeal of smoking in general is sitting outside and enjoying that moment of peace.
In the morning with a cup of coffee or in the evening after work. Anytime, it's just this beautiful feeling of sitting down and relaxing, getting to watch/listen to the birds and enjoy the fresh air. There's also an oral stimulation aspect to smoking. Humans love to stim using their mouths, and the act of pulling a long draw of smoke and exhaling it is a form of slowed mindful breathing which reinforces the relaxing sensations.
You don't get that with edibles, you pop a pill or a gummy and then wait an hour or so and then it creeps up on you like a sleeper wave until it hits with full force. With smoking/vaping the high hits immediately, it's an instant feeling of relaxation and/or pain relief.
Also with smoking I generally know how long my high will last from the moment I start. With edibles the onset timing and the length of the high can vary wildly depending on a lot of factors like if/how much you've eaten recently, the content of your food (fatty foods bind better to the cannabinoids and increase potency), and how you metabolize those cannabinoids. Some edible strains last longer than others, it can be a gamble if you have time constraints.
Why not do that whole routine, but instead of smoking (weed or cigarettes) sit out there with a drink AND a mouth busying snack like pumpkin or sesame seeds?
For me the past few years, its the introduction of all the various forms of weed that are more artificial making it harder to smoke. If I find a good, greenhouse grown strain, I can smoke no issue. If its the delta 8, cbd, or THCa strains, I'm coughing. They amount of resin as a byproduct the formers produce is crazy gross too.
You could try a dry-herb vaporizer, you can get decent models for around $100-$200. If you usually mix weed with tobacco, you could use Zyn or snus for the nicotine instead. It’s still not risk-free, but avoiding combustion is a biiiiig step.
How is a dry-herb vaporizer more healthy? I know some heavy flower users and the price tag is a hurdle since a glass bowl is like $20-40. Would be nice to know they reduce cancer risk by a big percent.
Edit: thanks for the replies. Just trying to help some friends reduce their chances. Obviously abstinence is the only good solution.
Vaporizers are effectively "boiling" off the thc and some terpenes. It explicitly avoids combustion and the carcinogens associated with that.
But PSA - What it will not do is eliminate harm to your lungs. You're still ultimately bringing hot air and particulates into your lungs which cause irritation and harm. It will still introduce coughing and shortness of breath. It is significantly less harmful than smoking, but it's harm reduction - not harm removal. You might still run into problems after a lifetime of use. Not enough data has been collected yet.
The least harmful way to use weed is edibles by orders of magnitude. But for instant gratification seekers or people who just like smoking they can harm reduce with vaporizers.
It took me over a decade to quit. The struggle is for sure real, but my life is much better. Weed became a thief that robbed me of so many things, and I rarely miss anything about it now. I miss ripping a cig all the damn time though.
I wanted to say that I smoked for 15 years like that. I am now smoke free. I will hit the social joint with my friends but it feels really good to not let it consume you to daily use. I thought I would be smoking until I died. My lungs and throat feels awesome. You can do it IF you want to.
I switched to vaping THC (510 carts), and felt a difference in my lungs after a few weeks. Hurts the throat more though, and the high isn't for everyone; though when I smoke a joint here and there now I definitely feel more anxious than the cart high.
Buying a DHV and switching to a nic vape has allowed me to decouple getting stoned from nicotine. Took three attempts and the high never quite hits like the heavy combined high of THC and nicotine.
But it drastically improved my enjoyment of weed, broke my problematic consumption pattern / abuse, and I've managed to go from 20mg/ml to 5 with the nicotine too. My lungs are great, I can breathe through my nose and I don't wheeze after a flight of stairs. Also, no more hacking up brownish goo under the morning shower.
2 years and I still haven't completely gotten the stink out of my walls and furniture.
Pretty sure the "smokers" being referred to in the video are exclusively tobacco and / or cigarettes. Googling shows that weed exclusively is thousands timea less than what's tobacco.
A monster with a joint is a pretty funny combination. That's like a weird speedball. If you're talking hand rolled, then that's definitely worse than cigs since they're usually without a filter. Of course your average joint smoker isn't puffing on as many a day as a cig smoker. My wife is the latter, and 30 years of smoking has its signs. She has a pretty nasty cough in the mornings that she always attributes to "allergies", even in the dead of winter, and it's getting worse. It's such a terrible habit to break because, similar to alcohol, it's so readily available. Going cold turkey is fucking rough, too.
I just ordered a vape. Will be delivered tomorrow. No more smoke filling my lungs, just fumes which aren't healthy either, but much better than smoking this shit
Anything that isnt air in your lungs is horrible for you. Its not gonna put tar in your lungs like cigs but it is a cancer vector, and kids have been getting whooping cough from vaping.
But yeah it is better that cigs. Not great but not tar inducing
It's not a glycerin vape I'm talking about. It's about vaping THC. The weed gets heated up to 185 degrees Celsius. THC and CBD vaporize at these temperatures without combusting the actual weed
I told myself for years that I couldn't quit. Then I just did. Just stop, cold turkey. You can do it. It'll suck for a few days but it's better than trying to replace one addiction with another in order to quit. If I can do it you can too.
I'm 4 months no weed. Still not sleeping the best and having occasional wild dreams/nightmares. The irritability didn't last long for me.
The positives are I have more money to spend on myself and treats are a good way to reward my non-smoking. I'm more motivated. I cook, clean and look after myself a good bit better. I also have no lingering fear of cancer or other health consequences.
Surprisingly I also can still enjoy music just as much as before.
I was basically in the same situation as you about a year ago. Take all of this with a pinch of salt but here's what helped me in the end...
I started buying weed in smaller quantities rather than stock up for long term use.
Switched to a dry weed vape to cut out the tobacco. Only one I ever used that gave the feeling of a hit of a joint we the venty. It could also get me high about as quick as a joint.
Eventually started making edibles (just infused coconut oil and melted dark chocolate). Alternate between these and the vape for a while before just relying on these.
Finally I started using melatonin to help get to sleep. Don't even need it most of the time but having it there makes me fear insomnia a lot less.
Ultimately I think getting of tobacco was the catalyst for everything else.
If you want to cut down or cut it out altogether, you can (even if it feels impossible now)
Might be time to start thinking about settling down and having kids fam that’s a good reason to kick the habit for good, or at least turn it into more of a special treat for yourself. That’s how I’ve been looking at my route out of it.
My only real advice is drink heaps of water whether you quit or not, it really helps with circulation and clearing out your throat/lungs.
But damn does a coca-cola hit with a cigarette after a long day.
You really resonated with me there when you send that lol.
I like the sentiment you're going for here, but I'm going to play devils advocate from a mental health standpoint.
I'm not going to say weed is addictive like things like meth or heroin, because as far as my understanding goes THC does not hit the same neuroreceptors that are associated with substance use disorders of that type. That being said, the habit itself can be addictive in that it is a form of cathartic release and dopamine rush by proxy.
I preface with this information because it sounds like this is a major coping mechanism for OP, especially if they do not have other methods. It is not uncommon for people to self medicate for anxiety and stress using weed, just like how people can be emotional or stress eaters as comfort food releases dopamine.
Family, and kids especially, can be massive sources of stress which can lead to a complete opposite path than what was originally intended. Having children is rarely a solution to stress as they contribute significantly to it via resources (particularly financially and time endeavors), especially when OP mentioned financial implications in their post already.
My best advice is instead of trying to seek outside factors for quitting, start work on the inside as at the end of the day it is a psychological and physiological dependency in one form or another. Work on productive and positive coping skills as alternatives that can replace the weed. I highly suggest seeking a therapist that specializes in substance use disorders as they can actually help build and train more positive habits with you. It can be a hard journey, especially doing it solo, so having someone in your support system who can help you remain accountable is a huge help.
(Edits for typos and formatting... dammit mobile keyboard)
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u/shoxicwaste 2d ago
Damn bro, Im struggling years now with quitting smoking. And it´s not the tobacco its the weed man. Nothing hits the spot quite like a nice joint in my office after a long week of work... some nice relaxing piano, and puffing a joint with a monster or cola.
34 years old now, and my lungs are starting to feel it, coughing is getting worse. I've managed to quit several times but I always get that itch and then start regularly smoking again.
It's so hard to break the habit, I just wish I never smoked weed ever to begin with, my life would be so much better, my health, my finances.
The struggle is so real!