7 months of weed PAWS

Have you had your testosterone levels checked? I was 32, your age, when I decided to have mine checked as I was noticing more body aches, less results in the gym, depression, etc. I found out my total testosterone was 470 (normal is 250 - 950). My free testosterone, which is the bioavailable testosterone and what actually counts was 11 (8-25). So I had very low bioavailable testosterone. It could have been due to the depression or it could have been causing the depression. There were probably other factors at play. Doctors wouldn't treat me since I was technically not low enough to be labelled as having "low-t," but with a Free T of 11, I decided to take things into my own hands. I did not want to have the testosterone level of someone in their 60s. I got on TRT and I immediately felt a lot better... my body started changing over the next couple of years. It caused some major improvements in my life, but of course, there were still ups and downs and I was still using weed to self medicate. I normally wouldn't recommend this to the average joe who isn't into fitness, but since you said you were (and how we look plays a big part in how we feel as well), I thought I'd mention this to you. It may not be an issue for you, but it's something to consider looking into. I'm not sure where you are, but here in the US, there are website where you can get an order for blood work for relatively cheap and take it to a clinic that takes some blood out, and you have your results in a few days by email. That's what I did.

Anyway, for me, the biggest motivator for quitting was that I wanted to see what I could do living my best life weed-less. I wanted to get a baseline on who I am without this drug. I don't think 6 months is enough time to get that picture after consuming for 15 years (or 20 years as was my case). I am at 6 months, but I plan to go without it for the rest of the year to see where it takes me. It can either stay the same or get better. I can live with that. If all else fails, there will always be weed, but I'll never get back the years I wasted getting high and avoiding things in my life because I was too stoned and paranoid. If, at the end of the year, I don't find I benefited much - then I will reconsider. I'm going to try not to assume that the past 6 months are indicative of what the next 10 years will be without weed. I have to have an open mind and try to rebalance my dopaminergic signaling. There are a lot of factors at play in how we live life today vs before we had smart phones, social media, internet, porn, etc. Anything that gives us easy dopamine, such as weed and porn, a bright shiny YouTube screen, etc., acts in very much the same way on our brains. It's cheap pleasure, and that's why it's so addictive.

This is from Wikipedia: "Studies of motivation suggest that laziness may be caused by a decreased level of motivation, which in turn can be caused by over-stimulation or excessive impulses or distractions. These increase the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for reward and pleasure. The more dopamine that is released, the greater intolerance one has for valuing and accepting productive and rewarding action.[6] This desensitization leads to dulling of the neural patterns and affects negatively the anterior insula of the brain responsible for risk perception.[7]

ADHD specialists say engaging in multiple activities can cause behavioral problems such as attention/focus failure or perfectionism and subsequently pessimism"

I don't know about you, but this rings true for me. I'm notorious for putting things off and getting distracted by everything except what I should be doing. I hoped that quitting weed would help, but it actually hasn't - yet. I now removed the drug that was blurring the lines and can now focus on the real issues at hand - my consumption of media, how I interact with the world, etc. The drug is just a blanket, it's what we do without that veil that will determine our fate.

i watch just for her tits
xxxxtube.pw/kitchen/ranch experiences for troubled teens

Jenny aus wuppertal torrent porn
Old hairy granny pussy pics
Great latina porn movies online
Latin america physical geography map

I'm actually in my late 40's and have had high test all of my life although with the horrible sleep quality i'm having and body composition/appetite issues it wouldn't surprise me if all of my hormones are out of whack now. This all started when I quit 5.5 months ago, and if you look at my posts from 2 years ago when I took a break for 3.5 months, same thing I gained 20lbs and upon resuming cannabis I dropped it all and became super lean and healthy again. There are many benefits to cannabis, and it does speed up the metabolism in addition to it having anti inflammatory properties.

Like you that's another reason for wanting to quit/take a break was just to see how life was without it, and you're right it's still fairly early in the game but with all my issues now with minimal to no improvement it's nearly impossible for me to see it getting any better in the next 6 months, especially based on all the anecdotes i've seen about 1-2 years, it doesn't leave me with much hope. It has to get better, if it stays the same then living without it is not an option. That's too bad that you feel like you have wasted years because of it, my experience is the complete opposite as i've accomplished so much even while being dependent on it, and never had any issues of depression, anxiety, etc until I quit.

I do agree with you on the dopamine, and sometimes I think i've permanently damaged my dopaminergic system and receptors, however the thing is that i'm lazy, unmotivated, unsocial, and have unhealthy habits WITHOUT cannabis. With it things are 1000% better. If life was 9/10 or 10/10 when I was consuming cannabis daily, I would say it's at 0/10 or 1/10 right now. The cons of quitting (at this point) vastly outweigh using, but again i'm hoping that this changes in the next couple of months. I'm not sure how much longer I can stand the poor quality of sleep even though technically i'm sleeping longer than when using it, it feels like I barely even sleep at all. I MUCH prefer my dreamless sleep over the garbage that i'm experiencing now.

I'm leaving it up to fate to decide the future... and listen to my body. At this point life isn't even worth living like this due to the extremely poor quality of life I have due to the previously mentioned insomnia issues, mental malaise, chronic pain issues, etc. Life was just so much better with it, with few side effects that i'm starting to realize now.

I hope I can last a year or longer like you, which was the original plan, but at this point it's not looking very promising. Cannabis just seems to make me so much healthier and life much more enjoyable. Perhaps i've just dug a hole that is too deep and impossible to get out of, but i'm ok with it.

CynicalTendency wrote:Have you had your testosterone levels checked? I was 32, your age, when I decided to have mine checked as I was noticing more body aches, less results in the gym, depression, etc. I found out my total testosterone was 470 (normal is 250 - 950). My free testosterone, which is the bioavailable testosterone and what actually counts was 11 (8-25). So I had very low bioavailable testosterone. It could have been due to the depression or it could have been causing the depression. There were probably other factors at play. Doctors wouldn't treat me since I was technically not low enough to be labelled as having "low-t," but with a Free T of 11, I decided to take things into my own hands. I did not want to have the testosterone level of someone in their 60s. I got on TRT and I immediately felt a lot better... my body started changing over the next couple of years. It caused some major improvements in my life, but of course, there were still ups and downs and I was still using weed to self medicate. I normally wouldn't recommend this to the average joe who isn't into fitness, but since you said you were (and how we look plays a big part in how we feel as well), I thought I'd mention this to you. It may not be an issue for you, but it's something to consider looking into. I'm not sure where you are, but here in the US, there are website where you can get an order for blood work for relatively cheap and take it to a clinic that takes some blood out, and you have your results in a few days by email. That's what I did.

Anyway, for me, the biggest motivator for quitting was that I wanted to see what I could do living my best life weed-less. I wanted to get a baseline on who I am without this drug. I don't think 6 months is enough time to get that picture after consuming for 15 years (or 20 years as was my case). I am at 6 months, but I plan to go without it for the rest of the year to see where it takes me. It can either stay the same or get better. I can live with that. If all else fails, there will always be weed, but I'll never get back the years I wasted getting high and avoiding things in my life because I was too stoned and paranoid. If, at the end of the year, I don't find I benefited much - then I will reconsider. I'm going to try not to assume that the past 6 months are indicative of what the next 10 years will be without weed. I have to have an open mind and try to rebalance my dopaminergic signaling. There are a lot of factors at play in how we live life today vs before we had smart phones, social media, internet, porn, etc. Anything that gives us easy dopamine, such as weed and porn, a bright shiny YouTube screen, etc., acts in very much the same way on our brains. It's cheap pleasure, and that's why it's so addictive.

This is from Wikipedia: "Studies of motivation suggest that laziness may be caused by a decreased level of motivation, which in turn can be caused by over-stimulation or excessive impulses or distractions. These increase the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for reward and pleasure. The more dopamine that is released, the greater intolerance one has for valuing and accepting productive and rewarding action.[6] This desensitization leads to dulling of the neural patterns and affects negatively the anterior insula of the brain responsible for risk perception.[7]

ADHD specialists say engaging in multiple activities can cause behavioral problems such as attention/focus failure or perfectionism and subsequently pessimism"

I don't know about you, but this rings true for me. I'm notorious for putting things off and getting distracted by everything except what I should be doing. I hoped that quitting weed would help, but it actually hasn't - yet. I now removed the drug that was blurring the lines and can now focus on the real issues at hand - my consumption of media, how I interact with the world, etc. The drug is just a blanket, it's what we do without that veil that will determine our fate.

Ah, ok, I think it was the other guy that said he was 32 then. Well, my first comment regarding the testosterone is probably even more applicable to you than him. I had a total test of over 900 when I was 19 or 20 and I've always been a muscular and hairy guy. I had guys in the gym come and ask me what cycle I'm on a few times and friends would tell me that so and so asked them if I'm on steroids. Was 100% natural. Even when I decided to get my blood test done, I was still a big, strong guy. I just felt like crap a lot.

Sleep is the worst for me as well, but some days seem to be ok. Again, maybe the weed was masking some issues that could have been affecting your sleep. I totally get it, though. For years I had the best sleep with weed. I wouldn't have a single dream and I'd sleep the whole 8 hours without waking up once. Nowadays I get up to pee at least once a night and the rest I'm tossing and turning. I also have sleep apnea so I have to wear a CPAP which, while it helps with snoring and breathing, I can only wear it while laying on my back. As soon as I want to turn to the side, the mask moves and I get a gust of air blowing in my eyeballs. At that point I take it off and say **** the CPAP. So really, I'm only wearing it about 2-3 hours a night. I was waking up with a really sore throat before and I was almost falling asleep at work. Now I'm doing a lot better, even though the quality of sleep I get seems to be worse than before. The tiredeness now hits me around 4-5 instead of 10 am.

But I totally get it - if you can't sleep, after a while, you can't keep doing that to yourself. If I didn't experience the negative side effects on my memory and anxiety with weed, I'd probably still be vaping. I'm surprised weed made you more social. Usually when I'd smoke, I wouldn't want to be around strangers or go out anywhere. I'd feel like everyone was watching me. Having to talk to my girlfriend's parents (and sh** I'm in my mid 30's), gave me anxiety if I had vaped recently. But then again, I've always had generalized anxiety. When I started smoking at 15, it relieved me of that anxiety for the first couple of years. In college my anxiety was terrible as I had these huge auditorium classes with hundreds of students and I Didn't know anyone. I sometimes would wake up, smoke, then get too high and paranoid to go to class. I missed I don't know how many tests/quizzes doing this.

Anyway, all you can do is see what happens and take it day by day. If you can't handle the next couple of months, then why not go back? It's not like you were suffering while using. It doesn't make sense to quit a drug only to feel much worse without it in the long run. But, I guess that this is why we are taking a break, to see how we feel without it. I still think that you are in the withdrawal stage as your brain is rebuilding itself without the constant free dopamine surges you were giving it. There's no right or wrong way to live life as long as you are feeling good and treating others around you with kindness. If you have to use weed for the rest of your life to be your best self, so be it.

Yeah you totally get it now. I never had anxiety or depression and functioned better than ever before I quit, but I also had a very high tolerance and this constant background steady state buzz. I accomplished things that a lot of non smokers wouldn't even dream of being able to do. I agree that i'm still in active paws and maybe starting to deal with the waves now, and i'm going to keep going just to see what happens. It's just so disheartening to see such few cases of recoveries and some being 2+ years in struggling with insomnia, depression, etc. At some point I will have to admit that I just have underlying issues that were being helped with cannabis. A lot of people are on anti depressants or self medicating with other dopamine boosting drugs like caffeine, alcohol, sex/porn, or whatever. Being fully sober has been a wake up call indeed, and I know lots of people love it and say they can never go back after 3-6 months or so, but i'm being realistic, and just trying to have the best quality of life possible. I could deal with all the negative mental effects, but not the broken sleep and rem rebound, it's absolutely crippling, and i'm taking it head on with full sobriety and no meds. It's funny the last time I took a break for 3.5 months I said i'd never put myself through it ever again because it wasn't worth it, but I wish I kept going and that's where i'm at now, so i'm just going to keep going and hope for even a 10% improvement maybe at months 7-9 with a turnaround for the better. If not, that's ok too at least I tried. So far there hasn't been any positive changes really, and i've read cases where it's the same around 2 months. Perhaps the damage is done and in the end it's win win for me anyways, sobriety or not!

biohack9 wrote:Yeah you totally get it now. I never had anxiety or depression and functioned better than ever before I quit, but I also had a very high tolerance and this constant background steady state buzz. I accomplished things that a lot of non smokers wouldn't even dream of being able to do. I agree that i'm still in active paws and maybe starting to deal with the waves now, and i'm going to keep going just to see what happens. It's just so disheartening to see such few cases of recoveries and some being 2+ years in struggling with insomnia, depression, etc. At some point I will have to admit that I just have underlying issues that were being helped with cannabis. A lot of people are on anti depressants or self medicating with other dopamine boosting drugs like caffeine, alcohol, sex/porn, or whatever. Being fully sober has been a wake up call indeed, and I know lots of people love it and say they can never go back after 3-6 months or so, but i'm being realistic, and just trying to have the best quality of life possible. I could deal with all the negative mental effects, but not the broken sleep and rem rebound, it's absolutely crippling, and i'm taking it head on with full sobriety and no meds. It's funny the last time I took a break for 3.5 months I said i'd never put myself through it ever again because it wasn't worth it, but I wish I kept going and that's where i'm at now, so i'm just going to keep going and hope for even a 10% improvement maybe at months 7-9 with a turnaround for the better. If not, that's ok too at least I tried. So far there hasn't been any positive changes really, and i've read cases where it's the same around 2 months. Perhaps the damage is done and in the end it's win win for me anyways, sobriety or not!

The fact that you are going to make it past the point you relapsed last time (I hate using the word relapsed, but whatever), is something you should be proud of. It takes incredible will and determination to suffer through the withdrawals, with no real benefits to speak of. It's one thing to quit and a couple months down the line you're picking daisies at the park and painting pictures of squirrels, and it's another thing to deal with what we've been dealing with. They say addiction is using a drug, then experiencing more negative side effects than benefits and continuing use of the drug. In my case it's more nuanced, but in your case you've clearly expressed quite the opposite of what a drug addict experiences.

Do me a favor, if you don't mind, and if/when you start vaping or whatever, let me know on here. I might be right behind you, but it would be interesting to hear your perspective going from being totally clean to using it recreationally. It's good to document these things, because sometimes you forget what you felt like and it's hard to compare. I tend to view a lot of things in my past with rosy-colored glasses, so I can't always depend on memory to compare and contrast present vs past.

Anyway, hope your sleep gets better at the very least. Take care man.

I forgot one point I was going to make. You said that it's disheartening to see so many people that have been dealing with PAWS for a few years after quitting. I think it's kind of like with online reviews. Most of them are curated by the seller, but you gotta think that most people who have a positive experience don't bother posting online. It's the ones like me and you that have had a negative experience that get online to complain... not that we're complaining per se, but we're sharing our state of minds. The fact that me and you are on here having this conversation is a testament to the struggle we're dealing with at the moment. I'm sure we wouldn't even know this site existrf if withdrawal and PAWS wasn't a real thing, or if we just felt dandy after quitting.

Yeah 3.5 months was my record (2 years ago) and now i'm 2 months more than that, and will go likely another month or three, we'll see. And that's in the past 15 years (although I had a few 3 month or so breaks in there too), but everything always got way better when I returned to it. This time around I feel way more physical pains, mainly in tendons like my shoulders, elbows, and knees, and feel extremely weak in my lifts in the gym, but it could be because i'm further along in the process. My heart rate is so jacked, and stays that way as I guess I stress the sympathetic nervous system more and jack cortisol. After almost 6 months, I just want to be able to lift, sleep, and be pain free! lol I'm fine with not getting "high" although some mental malaise persists it's tolerable, but the physical symptoms are brutal, unless again the cannabis was just helping injuries or masking them.

The issue is not just with "success stories" but there are a tonne of posts here of 12-18 months and still suffering greatly and some even at 2 years although many say that's when they really get better. That can't be me, I can barely even go through what i'm experiencing right now, so it's just not worth it for me. But time will tell, and everything sucks bad with almost no improvement since acute withdrawals. Hoping for something positive in the next months! Nice work on going for the year mark, I will too if I can get at least SOME improvement to motivate me.