It’s a common misconception that marijuana is a harmless recreational drug that doesn’t lead to abuse. Consider that at the very heart of any addiction there are specific behaviors and thought patterns. The ultimate goal is a numbing that helps someone to deal with life. Set against this backdrop, a marijuana addiction isn’t just possible, but highly likely.
Signs of a Physical Marijuana Addiction
When discussing any form of dependence, it makes sense to separate symptoms into physical and psychological categories. Physical signs of a marijuana addiction start with reaching a tolerance level. The same half joint that got you high in the past no longer suffices. You now need to smoke more to get the same effect.
You may tell yourself that you’ll only have a few hits off the joint. But when the evening is over, you’ve finished it. The more limits you try to set for your use, the more frequently you overdo them. You catch yourself getting frustrated with your inability to stay within a limit.
As time goes on, you spend more and more money on buying pot. Even though you have bills to pay, you choose to hand over the money to purchase the drug instead. You might move in with family members or live with a group of roommates to save funds for partying. However, you don’t thrive on the social interactions that these changes in living situations typically offer.
Smoking weed distorts your memory and slows your reaction time. As a result, you don’t have as many hobbies as you did in the past. You catch yourself getting a little paranoid of having others find out about your use, particularly when your eyes look bloodshot. When, in spite of these negatives, you continue using, you may be a victim of a marijuana addiction.
Symptoms of an Emotional or Psychological Marijuana Addiction
As with any other drug, an addiction to weed also has a psychological component. There’s nothing harmless about the substance even as more and more people use it. The psychological signs of a marijuana addiction mimic those of so many other substances. For starters, you spend your time thinking about buying the drug, waiting to use it, and then using.
You don’t like anyone commenting on your drug use. You might get argumentative, make claims about the wholesome nature of marijuana, and shut down further comments. Eventually, you shut out anyone who’s critical of your actions and surround yourself with other pot users. Gradually, you lose touch with close friends and family members who would normally be a support network.
As you invest more and more time in drug-seeking behavior, you change the activities you engage in. Marijuana might be causing problems at school or work. You’re no longer on top of tasks and risk losing your ability to continue your education or career. To escape from this unpleasant reality, you get high even more. Your mental health suffers.
Rising above a marijuana addiction is possible. As with other drugs, detox is the first step to breaking the physical hold the substance has over a user. But that’s only the beginning of recovery. Rehab protects you from suffering a relapse by helping you get to the “why” of your addiction and designing a plan based on that.
During the rehabilitation process, you have to face some tough questions. You learn more about yourself and about what causes you to have addictive tendencies. You’ll look at your past to learn about the present, which may uncover some hurts that you had locked away. In the process, it’s possible to learn new ways of dealing with pain, upset, hurts, and stressors that are currently causing drug use.
How to Overcome Drug Dependence
There are no shortcuts to beating a marijuana addiction. Working with a rehab facility that focuses on the reasons for the addictive behavior is a must. The same goes for the presence of a staff that genuinely cares about each client on a personal level. Treatment options should include:
- Residential stays that allow you to take the time you need to get help–recovery isn’t a race
- Short-term stay options for those with an extensive support network who are ready to pitch in and assist
- Dual diagnosis assessments that help clients identify the presence of psychological conditions affecting addictive behaviors
- Trauma model incorporation that boosts the staff’s commitment to a bio-psycho-social model of treatment
- A family program that helps break the cycle by incorporating those individuals whom the client lives with during recovery efforts
The vast majority of individuals in recovery for a marijuana addiction do best in a 90-day residential treatment program. The reason for an extended stay is the need for unlearning behaviors and disarming stressors. Leave the treatment program too early, and you may fall victim to relapse. Since addiction is a disease that has a physical as well as psychological component, it’s impossible to rush healing.
Sure, other facilities might send you out after just a few weeks or a month. Nevertheless, do they succeed in truly helping their clients? In many cases, individuals struggling with a substance abuse problem recognize that they quickly fall back into old habits and mindsets. Their recovery strategies receive a setback, and they don’t know how to handle it.
Because these folks underwent their treatment with the best of intentions, they now – falsely – believe that rehab doesn’t work. Rather, what didn’t work was receiving someone else’s therapy. In other words, a rehab center stay must start with a complete customization of the treatment protocol based on your needs. From there, it incorporates medically identified requirements–or it isn’t your recovery.
Therapies that Show Promise When Dealing with any Form of Substance Abuse
Another crucial aspect in overcoming a marijuana addiction is a change of focus in daily living activities. A functional living wellness program can be instrumental in seeing the need for these changes and putting them into action. Consider that your substance abuse problem doesn’t define you as a person. It’s only one part of the whole.
Although some decisions you made resulted from drug use, they don’t identify each part of your personality. They pinpoint a time in your life that a chronic brain disease went without treatment and affected many other aspects of daily life. Now, the fact that you seek out recovery and healing starts a new chapter of your life. It, too, becomes part of who you are, which is crucial for individuals struggling with an addiction to remember.
But to effect lasting changes that permeate all facets of your life, a holistic approach to treatment is necessary. Combining healthy nutritional intake and meal preparation training with botanically based diet supplementation assures wellness. The availability of a workout facility, swimming pool, and other recreational activities furthers the goal of bodily health. Add Yoga to the mix. This helps with quieting the mind and living in the now as opposed to the past.
The social aspect of recovery is another discipline that far too many centers miss out on. Healing Springs Ranch combines vocational mentoring and life skills training with cognitive behavioral therapy for a well-rounded treatment model. Group activities–during therapy settings as well as during recreational opportunities–help you escape from self-isolation. As we’ve already noted, marijuana use easily contributes to a narrowing of the social circle, which eventually isolates you completely.
In this aspect, pot, alcohol, and other addictions operate along similar lines. As a result, individuals struggling alone to overcome them and return to a level of functioning before the dependence, typically fail. The smaller the support network becomes over time, the more likely it is that a relapse or recovery failure will occur. Undoing this danger is possible when you choose a holistic methodology that takes into account social, psychological, and physical needs.
Call to Get Help for a Marijuana Addiction Today
Just as recovery is not a race, it’s also not a one-size-fits-all solution you grab off a shelf. An exhaustive intake interview with a skilled counselor gets the ball rolling. Healing is not far behind. If you’re struggling with a marijuana addiction today, know that you’re not alone.
Plenty of individuals just like you are trying to overcome the drug that so many claim to be harmless. At Healing Springs Ranch, you experience treatment as an individual with unique needs that our addiction experts seek to meet. Don’t let addiction rob you of another day of living. Dial 866-656-8384 today for immediate individualized attention.