[Cannabis-Myths] Is it true that you can't get addicted to Cannabis?

Hello everyone,

i hope it's ok when i'm just cheecky and make the beginning ;)

As an ex daily stoner i have gathered some experience and often heard the statement You can't get addicted to cannabis. But is this true? This i will explain in this post!

For an addiction we must divide it into two parts:

1. Physical addiction
2. Psychical addiction

A physical addiction is when your body gets used to the substance and you get physical withdrawal symptoms. I assume that fewer people here would've experienced the physical withdrawal symptoms of heroin: sweating, cramps and puking. A more common example for physical withdrawal symptoms could be coffein, like from used to drink coffee on a daily basis and suddenly stop it one day you get a headache -> your body is addicted/used to it's daily dosis coffein.

On the other hand a psychical addiction is "just" in your head. "Just", because some times it could be harder to overcome that addiciton mentally than physically... Like physically you know you have to hold it for two weeks and it get's better. Psychically it could take several months to fully come away from it. Like physically you're allright again, no headaches, no cramps, no sweating anymore. But you still crave for that substance psychically.

For cannabis, you can't get physically addicted to it, like to heroin for example. But you still can get troubles to sleep, sweat, feeling more anxious, or headaches. But those are just "little" side effects. The harder part is the psychical aspect. I, for example needed weed.

Why? For that we have to make a little excursion to my past: I didn't had an easy childhood, there went many things wrong and much got eaten inside of me. And some day in my ~16th i threw everything up. My thoughts went circles. Always more, always faster, always the same topic. Day in, day out. And i couldn't switch them off. At the same time i used to get stoned more and more. And some day i noticed something: Those thoughts in my head, those overwhelm me since i can't stop them. But after smoking a joint, my thoughts suddenly got slower and weren't that many anymore until after some hits on my joint they dissapeared at least for a little while. So i got at least a little break from them before going complete crazy!

So yeah, it helped me. I smoked for both, fun and self-medication. And it went well. Only thing: When i run out of weed. Like i got it illegal in my country. So i couldn't just ask for an attest from my doctor and fill up my stash again. And sometimes there where some bottlenecks on delivery. Those were the hard times for me. Like i went crazy in those periods. Nothing that stopped my thoughts. And they came even faster and faster and more and more... So i threw myself against the wall. Also i had a lot of social struggles, so later i quit school for 2 years and was mostly only at home, alone, in my room. So often i just smoked out of boredom. Like at least it's bearable for me. But without something to smoke it wasn't bearable anymore. I was bored. I couldn't wait for night to come so i could go to sleep.

So i would say i was addicted to cannabis, which would burst this myth about it.

Now, years later, i'm feeling way better. I got a legal medication that calms my thoughts (even if i'm not that happy with it, since it calms me physically a bit too much...). But so i don't need to smoke on a daily basis (up to 8 joints a day) and can now just smoke once in a while for fun, which i noticed is better, also for work i'm more present in my head this way and understand more from it :)

Also the process to finally "quit" weed (or at least break it down to a few per year) served a year to come to this point, and without my girlfriend, together with the social service in my area, i wouldn't have been able to make this far!

Cheers everyone and be carefull,
@dissi