Comment by catchaway1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by catchaway1 | Hacker News Reader

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I have a question for you actually. I have noticed things very similar to what you talk about after a few years of regular smoking. I started at 19 and I'm 21 now (edit, 22, forgot my own age). I used to evangelize marijuana since it has no overt medical side effects, but I think I'm coming to realize what you are talking about -- it kinda does make you stupid, like my Mom warned me about years ago. And not just when you're high, either.

I try to mitigate the negative effects by alternating -- a month of daily smoking, then a month off. If I have any in the house, I can't help myself, so I moderate the quantities I buy.

But, I have started to have episodes around things like locked doors. Did I lock the door -- or even close it? It's like I can't trust my previous decision and I have to go check again. Sometimes I will check a door five times in an hour. It's basically neurotic. If I don't check, I feel very nervous. I think this might be related to marijuana since it seems to fall into the category of absentminded behavior. It's like I am not present in reality enough to have faith in my past decisions.

I definitely don't feel stupid, but I do feel unfocused -- you could say my thoughts are accurate but not very precise. Or put in other terms, I feel like my of my intellectual powers are locked up because it feels to difficult to think about hard things.

Anyway, I was wondering how long you feel like it took you to "get smart again", as it were. Should a month be long enough to return to a baseline state of mind? Or should I try a multiple month T break to see if it has a big impact? (If it did, I would quit).

Haha, that hits home hard. Locking my deadbolt and worrying that I didn't as I walked through the apartment lobby. Locking my car and worrying that I didn't while I'm still looking at my car.

The good news is that when I stopped, my brain came back almost immediately, and in force. Basically as soon as I could tell that I hadn't recently smoked. A few days, tops.

What helped me to quit the most actually was buying some horrid weed from my guy that I still insisted on smoking. The stuff was low-grade enough that I was going through slow withdrawal even during the weeks when I was smoking it. And smoking it was no fun. I know for sure that my symptoms this time around pale in comparison to the times in the past when I briefly quit (for a drug test or whatever) after smoking that bubonic chronic (SFV OG, GSC and such).

Wow, that sounds exactly like what I do. I can stare at something without really seeing it, the information goes in one eye and out the other. It's like I have to "try to see it" a couple times.

Just hearing about someone else having the same symptoms from marijuana actually helps clarify things for me. I also have some other anxiety related issues so it can be difficult for me to disentangle what is my problem vs. a substance causing some effect, but it sounds like in this case it might actually be the ol' cannabanoids doing work on my body chemistry.

The common thing to point out on these kinds of anecdotes are the "started at 1# and I'm 2# now" part of it. I started at 23! Didn't even bother drinking until 21! This is what all the studies are about and usually are conclusive about - the brain is still forming in these years, and you really should wait. (Although, in my opinion, the legal age for both should be 18). My advice for the "did I lock the door" / "did I leave the coffee maker on" issues is this: create habits and follow them. Unplug the coffee maker. Either the door is wide open, or it is locked. Either your keys are in the spot where the keys always are, or they are in your pocket. You have to be able to trust yourself.

Habits actually make it worse for me because I go through on autopilot and then I have no way to confirm mentally if I skipped a step or not.

What helps me the most is to actually make a mnemonic to remember that I did something when I did it, by closely paying attention to my specific actions. For example, if I lock the door, I will specifically check my watch and note the date and time and that yes, I did just lock my door right then. I find I can get relief by referencing that timestamped memory, whereas with truly habitual behavior I still need to double check. Using a mental checklist or something would probably be a good option too, but then I have to compose the checklists beforehand and it's a pain.

I do think there is something to be said for the age question, although starting at 19, I think I was passed the main formative period. Actually I think the most important thing is the # of years, since I would not be saying these things after 1 or even 2 years of smoking, but only now almost 3 years later am I starting to get concerned.

>at 19, I think I was passed the main formative period.

Not in the slightest. That doesn't happen until 25. :)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647...

Here's another anecdote, for what it's worth:

I started smoking at age 21, when I graduated college a year early, and smoked nonstop after graduation until age 23.

At that point, my life basically fell apart, and it was definitely related to being high 24/7.

So I quit cold turkey. By age 25, I had started my own web business that was very successful. SaaS business, recurring revenue, amazing growth, etc. I was driving a fancy car, living in Palo Alto, and was on track to being a millionaire by my late 20's, almost guaranteed, just based on the growth of the business. I was so financially secure that I even got married and had a kid very young.

Of course, running the business (plus starting a business at the same time) was stressful. There were customers, partners, employees, etc., to deal with. And a toddler, and new wife.

I had very little support or mentors. None of my family or friends were entrepreneurs and I had no connections.

Eventually, I started getting migraine headaches on a regular basis. Around age 27. I convinced myself that smoking marijuana again was a logical thing to do, despite the fact that it had literally destroyed my life after college, and I had to rebuild my life back up again already.

I was smoking large quantities of high grade stuff. I had a lot of money from my business, so I went all out. Oils, kiefs, fancy bongs, the whole deal.

Being high all day, I started making terrible decisions and being really reckless with my business.

Long story short: within 12 months I went from a highly profitable, debt-free, lifestyle business that allowed me to effortlessly live in the heart of Silicon Valley (out of choice -- I could have lived anywhere I wanted to), to having a nervous breakdown, bankrupting my business, and ending up $250,000 in debt.

Today, I am 34. I am still paying off the debt from that mistake. I have no business, and work a "shitty" (meaning, comfortable six figures, but no real ownership) job as a software engineer. I am regularly depressed when I think about what I lost, and how foolish I was to lose it.

This is an extreme case, and of course only an anecdote. But it's pretty black and white: smoking a lot of marijuana all the time made me dumb and caused me to make really bad decisions.

As for weaning off of marijuana and its resultant impact on the sharpness of mind:

I found that after 3 days, there is a very noticeable difference. You are probably about 70-90% recovered at that point. But it takes a good 6-12 months to get that back that really sharp "edge" that you once had, the remaining 10-30%.

But, as I hope I have related in this story, it's not just about getting back the intelligence and sharpness of mind. It's that even when you get that stuff back, you will still be left with the consequences of whatever dumb shit you did while living your life high all the time.

That sucks dude, but it's also hilarious. I can't believe you would try to make business decisions while being high. I can imagine going to work high as shit, for starters, I would forget everyone's names, and then I would probably forget everything else too. But I can definitely imagine how you could talk yourself into it especially if you are self employed.

I think hearing these stories is really interesting, since I can relate them to my own experience. Thanks for sharing! I guess I should start working on getting that "edge" back.

Did your wife stay with you through all that craziness?

Yes, she is a saint.

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