Here at the Haynes Clinic – a private addiction treatment centre – we get many enquiries from people addicted to cannabis who started using it to ease their social anxiety, calm their moods, help them sleep etc. However, by the time they or their family who loves and cares about them come to seek help, they are still struggling. Either with their mood swings or anxiety, sleep etc – in most cases more than they were in the first place.
They may now even have developed an anger problem. Or they now find that cannabis is not doing what it used to do. They will have tried using more and more to get that same effect that they got in the early days. A feeling of calm and being at peace with the world. However they will find that nothing seems to work any more. Some people may even have been experiencing quite extreme mood swings, thinking themselves bipolar.
The cannabis detox
The reality is that all these mood issues are now caused or at least exacerbated by the cannabis. The first thing that needs to happen is to stop smoking it. This is easier said than done although there is no detox as such necessary. And nothing that would be prescribed in order to assist the process in terms of the physicality of detoxing. If you are in a private drug rehab it may be that something might be prescribed to ease the associated anxiety. As you come to terms with no longer using cannabis. It may be you will even get a sleeping tablet or two as you adjust to life without weed. However this will be more for your comfort than as a necessity.
Protection from daily triggers
So you can just stop without any harm to you if you can manage it mentally. However many people cannot – the need for the drug and the associated stress and anxiety of giving it up means they need help. The principal reason for going to rehab is that you will be going into a safe environment. That is without the triggers you have in your day to day life. In drug rehab you will also get counselling and help with managing your anxiety issues, your sleep patterns and anything else you have been struggling with without the need to turn to cannabis, any other drug, alcohol or any mood altering medication.
Rehab is not a holiday. It is hard work. You are possibly fighting for your life. Or at least for an opportunity to live a happy and fulfilled life. Anything worth having is worth fighting for. So on the one hand you will be looking at the reasons you first thought cannabis was such a good idea. What it did for you and other ways of getting the same result without using drugs. On the other hand you will be looking at all the negative consequences of your using. And why you have to stop in order to survive life as you know it.