throwaway_weed

The chocolate bars I sometimes get are very consistent in dosage, easy to slice into even fractions, don't bother my digestion the way gummies often do, and seem to be less affected by whatever else is in my stomach at the time. However tapering has not been a good tactic for me in the past, I'm constantly tempted to bump my levels back up, so I'm just using melatonin and a little grit to get through the first few days. Luckily I don't get nausea, just a somewhat decreased appetite for a while.

Thank you

OK – well first of all congratulations on your recent success, but a word of warning. I have fully quit from cannabis before, though in my case this would be the first time it has not been prompted by some external circumstance. I have also gotten over the initial hump and felt a distinct improvement in clarity, memory etc. In my experience this can almost a high in itself – when you're swimming up to your ears in THC every day, as we have, the upsides of going without are very apparent once you get past the distress of the first week or so. I once saw a comedian very amusingly compare it to acquiring ESP: "hey, I know exactly where my car keys are!" However, after you get over the novelty of ordinary sobriety, you may find (as I have, repeatedly) that as that novel sense fades, you may get hit with a unexpected and possibly profound sense of craving, almost a deep nostalgia for weed. This I have no real insight on, it's a life challenge I suppose and one I have never seriously taken on yet though perhaps I'm starting to now. But I'll advise you to stay alert and look out for that second wave of longing.

Thank you and good luck!

Interesting. I take a protein supplement with a lot of L-glutamine which I need to fast for, as I believe is traditional for amino acid supplements, so I'd have to carve out another time of day to make sure I'd take it on an empty stomach. Is that right, is that what you do? Worth considering anyway, though, thank you

I've made a couple of other comments about exercise in here but suffice to say, I have long since deeply integrated my exercise with my cannabis consumption, it's very much part of my reward system so my challenge is not so much substituting in new exercise routines but rather keeping up what I already do without cannabis. Honestly I have known quite a lot of hardcore athletes who are also enthusiastic cannabis users, I'm almost surprised to see so many comments opposing the two, but then I have known some odd ones so who knows what's normal now. Certainly I also endorse exercise for mental health as much as physical and feel it has great benefits that way regardless of one's other habits.

Thank you

TIL about xantohumol. Very interesting, I will look into it. Thank you

Edibles are... well there's a lot more options out there than there used to be, that's for sure, and I can't claim to have tried them all, but I can't see working them into a sane consumption schedule. I don't get the feeling that I want, meaning a perceptible but minimal level of cannabis euphoria, unless I go over a certain amount at which point I'm committed to a deep if not intense high lasting some hours. I could see it as a weaning strategy if I could keep it to small amounts but when I've done this before I can never stick with trusting the half or quarter doses to do the trick and always nudge myself over the line. For all-day hikes, bike rides, etc it's my preferred method but otherwise it lacks a a sense of precise control over my levels. Perhaps that sense is something I'm hooked on in its own right...

Thank you

I mentioned somewhere else in the thread, but I'm exercising a fair amount already, and in my case the traditional reward for a solid workout is a vape session so while I do intend to keep it up I'm sort of maxed out in terms of using it to compensate. Regarding sleep – in my commuter days the insomnia would wreck me but my schedule is a lot more flexible now so I think I'm going to try to ride it out with just some melatonin. Re caffeine – somewhat maxed out there too, I drink about a pint of high-grade Colombian iced coffee a day which is at this point a well-established personal upper threshold for well-being.

Thank you

I am going to explore this possibility

Thank you

Your comment is very kind and insightful, yes there's a lot to all of this but I do appreciate you sharing your experience, it doesn't have to provide answers and you know, I think sometimes it's better not to. One conversational tactic I've found hugely helpful in developing relationships is to preface some comments, especially when the subject is loaded with emotion/anxiety, simply by saying "well here's some random thoughts and feelings from me, please understand this is not a judgement or decision but rather a brain dump" – this opens people up tremendously and rather than examining your every word in anticipatory defense, if you have a good rapport and good trust then they will listen to you in an entirely different and more receptive way, and are more likely to venture something that they might not have otherwise.

Thank you!

In my situation, being very much settled into mid-life and a whole house I only have to share with my very tolerant partner, I don't have the same aspirations that discourage heavy use. However I do think that during this time of increased isolation I've benefited somewhat from what I call the Groundhog Day effect – i.e. every day is so much the same that I can't help but notice the iterative effects of all these little choices I'm making. Even if I don't do anything about them I'm far more aware of them then I was when I was constantly mixing with other people and their other issues. I supposed that's kind of what brought me here today...

Thank you!

All the sedentary screen time (I am a SWE, surprise) is an ongoing prompt to indulge in little side rewards, and it makes good sense to substitute relatively innocuous ones. I used soda and cigarettes heavily early in my career which would scale up along with whatever project I had going on, so when it was crunch time I would consume horrific levels of these. My main challenge now is that I've cut out so much, I don't even eat candy anymore, so my options are limited, but perhaps it's worth a temporary trade-off just to get away from the substance I find most irresistible.

Thank you

Haha "the same level of mundane as before" but healthier and less expensive seems like a very worthy goal. Thank you!

I will look into these, thanks! I have found that I feel my best when I'm taking some vitamin supplements. Very likely a placebo effect but hey, if it works it works... Also I am taking some melatonin to hopefully help with the insomnia I tend to get when going off cannabis.

I knew about that subreddit but for whatever reason hadn't thought of it recently. Maybe I'll spend some time in conversation over there soon.

Thank you!