Coca-Cola could be making a move into cannabis-infused beverages. https://t.co/WE0Iw5rzjd pic.twitter.com/tVUhQTFG21
— WebMD (@WebMD) September 18, 2018
More background on Flick here https://www.adidaupclose.org/Finding_Adi_Da/flick_rahke.html
Coca-Cola could be making a move into cannabis-infused beverages. https://t.co/WE0Iw5rzjd pic.twitter.com/tVUhQTFG21
— WebMD (@WebMD) September 18, 2018
More background on Flick here https://www.adidaupclose.org/Finding_Adi_Da/flick_rahke.html
Cannabis for Relief « on: August 07, 2018, 02:01:15 am »
Does anyone use cannabis for relief from withdrawal symptoms? If so, Indica or Sativa? Any particular strain for calm/pain etc…
Re: Cannabis for Relief « Reply #1 on: August 07, 2018, 02:22:26 am »
I use a 2:1 CBD THC oil tincture. The oil goes right under your tounge and it helps a lot with sleep and nighttime anxiety. I also smoke regular high grade marijuana, usually a nice kush, it really takes the edge off, sometimes it makes me paranoid if my anxirety is real bad but otherwise it helps!
At least TWENTY-FIVE people ‘looking like zombies’ collapse after overdosing on synthetic marijuana known as ‘K2’ in NYC https://t.co/KeqxpoEvl0 @DailyMail
— Washington News Line (@WashNewsLine) May 20, 2018
Mary Jane and Benzo Withdrawal « on: December 26, 2017, 04:41:52 pm »
Hi I am looking for some reail information on this subject of marijuana and benzo withdrawal. Medical marijuana and marijuana in general is legal where I live. I really don’t care to hear crap from people who are rigid and uptight and grew up thinking that weed was bad. Marijuana is no worse than alcohol so anyone that feels otherwise please don’t comment. I hate the close-mindedness of that kind of crap.
Re: Mary Jane and Benzo Withdrawal « Reply #1 on: December 26, 2017, 04:44:02 pm »
And one other quick thing if anyone of us was prescribed marijuana instead of benzos we wouldn’t have this problem right now that we all have.
Re: Mary Jane and Benzo Withdrawal « Reply #2 on: December 26, 2017, 04:47:42 pm »
I was wondering this, too. I have cbd hemp oil and have read it’s great for anxiety. But I have also read that you can’t take it with antidepressants. Weed is a beneficial for lots of things! My husband swears by it and up until 4 months ago, I smoked like a chimney.
Re: Mary Jane and Benzo Withdrawal « Reply #3 on: December 26, 2017, 04:49:24 pm »
Found this for starters:
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/801982-CBD-for-anxiety-benzo-withdrawal
Re: Mary Jane and Benzo Withdrawal « Reply #4 on: December 26, 2017, 04:55:15 pm »
Quote from: [Buddie] on December 26, 2017, 04:47:42 pm
I was wondering this, too. I have cbd hemp oil and have read it’s great for anxiety. But I have also read that you can’t take it with antidepressants. Weed is a beneficial for lots of things! My husband swears by it and up until 4 months ago, I smoked like a chimney.
[…]
I’ll bet the right kind of weed obtained from a medical dispensary could really help us. I have smoked marijuana before in the past and it has been very relaxing. Personally I would rather take the edible type than ingest smoke into my lungs. I wish there was more research done on this subject because I think for open-minded people this would help a great deal.
Luckily I live in a part of the United States where medical marijuana is legal and marijuana has also just become legal.
Benzos and other psychiatric drugs are far worse than alcohol or marijuana. I think of them more like an LSD type of drug. So nobody should sit in judgment of somebody that wants to smoke a little weed if they are popping pills. I ended up on these shity pills because a doctor recommended it for me for job stress back in the 1990’s. I wish she told me to run or do yoga or to smoke weed instead. If that was the case I wouldn’t be having these problems right now.
So...tried pot « on: September 18, 2017, 03:06:18 pm »
I live in NV so thought I would try some pot. Being 67 and remembering the great times back when. The good feeling and calmness I felt. Well, not now. I tried it a couple of times and felt wired, with no sense of well-being at all. Never again. How messed up is my body that it doesn’t react at all like a healthy body. My cns is so out of balance. I really feel this is for the rest of my life. 38 months out lots have healed, but my insomnia and fatigue is pretty much holding the same. In a very sad way, I have accepted it finally. Early on really thought I would get a life back. Oh well, tell myself I had 55 or so quite wonderful years. Many have not had that, with or without benzo use. I am grateful for those memories, as that is what gets me through the long lonely days and nights. Hugs to all.😏
Re: So...tried pot « Reply #1 on: September 18, 2017, 03:08:09 pm »
Oh that’s too bad. Maybe it’s the strain? Either way, that doesn’t like fun.
Re: So...tried pot « Reply #2 on: September 18, 2017, 03:13:29 pm »
Oh, don’t give up now, […]!! I’m 65 and 42 months out. I have to keep telling myself I’m going to make it through this. I don’t want to have my immune system go down for some damned drugs I’ve taken. I tried pot, too, in earlier times. Had wonderful experiences on it before. Especially liked it for exercising. I should have stayed with it instead of being put on a benzo, but at that time I thought “do the right thing” since it was illegal. HAH!! What a crock. Now I don’t feel the same way at all and had to forget about pot. It’s just not the same feeling anymore, unfortunately.
Re: So...tried pot « Reply #3 on: September 18, 2017, 03:15:19 pm »
If you tried a high THC strain, that’s why. I would suggest trying a high CBD strain instead. I don’t know how long you’ve been off, but high THC would throw many folks into paranoia.
Re: So...tried pot « Reply #4 on: September 18, 2017, 03:45:56 pm »
That isn’t the pot from your youth. It’s so much stronger. I’d guess that most of the stuff I did in high school (easy 70s) was 5-6% THC (maybe 8% if we got really good stuff). Nowadays, it’s usually 20% or higher, and can approach 30%. You have to take that into account and go super easy on it when you’re first starting (or re-starting).
Much depends on the strain as some have eluded to. Some strains make me all hyper (good for getting things done, but not for calming down). Some mellow me out. Those are the ones I seek to help with sleep. Best relaxing/sedating strain I found so far has a lot of myrcene (a terpene) in it.
Another route, as […] mentioned, was to add some CBD to the mix. A lot of people like strains that are moderate in both THC and CBD. Some use strains that are almost all CBD. So many choices today, so much information. Not like scoring a dime bag of whatever was available (often little better than ditch weed) back in the day.
Pot « on: July 04, 2017, 09:09:09 pm »
So, I […] in NV and recreational pot is now legal. From everything I read, it appears it isn’t directly linked to gaba. In fact, one site stated it puts the body in balance. Everything in moderation, of course. I will try some and see. Anyone
Re: Pot « Reply #1 on: July 04, 2017, 10:25:11 pm »
Hi, I’ve found cannabis to be very effective for Benzo withdrawal, as well as a host of other issues. Check out the support groups. There are lots of people who chime in on marijuana use, and it’s benefits.
Re: Pot « Reply #2 on: July 04, 2017, 11:57:46 pm »
I use it at bedtime and it puts me to sleep fast.
It just hit me « on: March 08, 2017, 10:14:34 pm »
Almost a year in this hell, and it just hit me how ridiculous our laws are. Benzodiazepines, which we all know what it is doing to us (suicidal thoughts, psychosis, deprrssion, addiction, etx) are legal, yet marijuana is ? Shaking my head.
This country is messed up. These doctors are the biggest drug pushers in the world.
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Doctors put me on 40 different meds for bipolar and depression « on: June 02, 2016, 05:30:28 am »
Tears were flooding down my face. Textbooks, highlighters, and my laptop were strewn across the bed, along with my crumpled body. I sobbed into my pillow, in hopes that it would all go away. Deep, low depressive swings had once again returned to my life. Despite my outward appearance as a highly motivated 21-year-old college student, my energy was sapped. It was getting harder to concentrate, harder to get out of bed, harder to get through the day without weeping.
My psychiatrist had been changing my medication in hopes of finding an anti-depressant combination that would help me to feel like my passionate self again. It wasn’t working. That night I called my friends and family crying. I needed to vent and release some of my pent-up sorrow. I needed to connect with people who would understand. I needed loved ones to help me hold a bit of the gut-wrenching, depressive pain that flowed through every inch of my body. After I hung up, I felt a bit better. I set my alarm for an early morning wake-up to get in some studying before finals the next day. I hazily drifted off to sleep, salty tears drying on my cheek.
A couple of hours later, my heart erupted with panic as two armed police officers burst into my tiny dorm room. I was half-naked, shaking my head in terror as one cop ripped open drawer after drawer, barking “Where are your pills?” Another police officer got in my face and demanded an answer to the question, “Are you going to kill yourself?”
One of the police officers shoved a phone in my ear. On the other end was a psychiatrist I’d never spoken with before. With terror in my voice, I told him I wasn’t going to kill myself, that I was just letting off some steam. I pleaded and begged with him to tell the officers to leave — not to handcuff me and take me to the psychiatric ward that night.
I was lucky. Something I said convinced the doctor I didn’t need to be placed on a mandatory involuntary hold in a mental hospital. But if the color of my skin wasn’t white, or if I wasn’t cisgender, or at an affluent college, I may not have been so lucky. People of color face disproportionate risk of violence in police encounters — and police are the first responders in mental health crises.
I didn’t make it to my finals the next day. I had stayed up most of the night, trembling with fear, so when the sun finally rose, I took a long, warm shower. Sitting on the bathroom floor, back pressed against the wall, fingers shaking, I dialed the number of my psychiatrist. I wasn’t sobbing this time. My tone was distant and my gaze was glassy and vacant. She convinced me to check myself into the psychiatric ward. In a haze, I slowly packed items into a bag and a man I’d never met before dropped me off for my first psychiatric ward visit.
Within an hour of checking into the hospital, I knew I needed to leave. The air was thick with pain. People wandered the fluorescent lit halls. Like mine, their eyes were vacuous. When someone erupted in an expression of intense emotion, doctors swiftly followed the outburst with sedatives. There was no wellness here. After several hours, I packed my bag, walked up to the front desk and told the secretary:
“I’d like to check out.”
“You can’t leave.”
“… I came here voluntarily.”
“If you walk through those doors, we’ll place a mandatory involuntary hold on you and put you in there,” she motioned toward the ward next to mine, where I would’ve been taken last night.
My breath grew heavier and my eyes darted back and forth. I was trapped. Still reeling from the previous evening, my heart was beating out of my chest. I slowly curled in a fetal position on the hospital floor. I was having a panic attack. Two doctors in white coats and clipboards hovered over me. After a few minutes, they medicated me and I drifted into sleep.
I had never been suicidal before being locked in a mental hospital.
Much of my stay there was a blur of medications. I laid on my back in a cold bed for days, for the first time wanting to die. I shuffled off to group therapy in my gray hospital socks, listened to the screams of my neighbors, peered into the ward next door, and obliged when student doctors and clergy came into my room and asked if I wanted to pray or take long surveys about my mental health. I took the surveys but declined the prayers.
Sometime during my stay doctors etched the diagnosis “Bipolar Disorder” onto my chart. My brow furrowed with confusion. I had managed intense OCD and anxiety since I was in elementary school, and yes, over the last several years, I had waves of depression, but otherwise I was high-functioning: I took the maximum course load, got straight A’s, worked multiple jobs, led several campus organizations, and performed in numerous plays simultaneously. I thrived off the adrenaline of being busy. I crackled with ideas and buzzed with creativity. My energy and passion were my greatest assets, how could that be an illness?
The diagnosis was the first time I really tried to understand myself in the context of pathology. Someone who barely knew me combed through my traits and behaviors and labeled it as a disease. Bipolar Disorder. Grappling with this new way of understanding my identity, I felt my brain begin to slow with each fistful of pills I dutifully swallowed. I wasn’t on merely a drug or two — I was on four or five and counting. Antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, sleep drugs, anxiety pills, each addressing a side effect brought on by the last one. My energy, passion, and strong-will began to fade away as apathy and lethargy settled in. I said “yes” more. I didn’t really care what happened.
The psychiatric ward released me to a halfway house for people with mental health challenges. The doctors at the house sat my worried parents down and told them that I was ill. That my academic and personal accomplishments were not something to be proud of: They were a product of my bipolar mania. The doctors’ answer? An expensive combination of pills that would help me be happy, stable, and “normal.”
After awhile I somehow managed to get back into the swing of school. On the surface it appeared like I was thriving, but people close to me knew I was very unwell. My health declined rapidly. The medications made it almost impossible to wake up for class in the morning. My father, recently laid off from his job at a car dealership after being diagnosed with cancer, drove 45 minutes to my school everyday to wake me up and drive me across campus to class.
My once sharp memory dissipated. I used to be an actress, performing in multiple shows at a time, easily remembering every single line. Creativity was a core part of my identity and wellness. Now I would read one line over and over again, unable to retain a word. I did my last performance with a script in hand. Each time I left the stage, I vomited profusely before coming back on again — another side effect of the medications. Eventually, I stopped performing altogether.
Over time, I developed dependence on the anti-anxiety drug ativan, which I was prescribed to take every day, multiple times a day. On top of my other medications, my doctor prescribed me 20mg adderall to help get me up the morning, followed by 2mg ativan to reduce the teeth-chattering anxiety brought on by the morning’s strong upper. Then I would take another adderall mid-day to bring me up, followed by another dose of ativan. When panic attacks hit — which they frequently did — I would take multiple ativan at a time. Once, I collapsed on the floor of a campus building. A woman working at the front desk found me passed out cold on the floor and called my partner to pick me up.
“I’m just really tired,” I told her.
I gained 125 pounds and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. I started taking a daily hormone to treat a thyroid disorder, which I developed from my mood stabilizer lithium. (The damage from lithium was permanent, I still need to use the thyroid hormone to this day.) I started experiencing severe, incapacitating migraines where I would need to lay in complete darkness for days at a time, vomiting relentlessly, occasionally making a trip to the ER. Migraine preventatives and painkillers were just another addition to my daily fistful of medications.
I barely survived those two years, but still somehow managed to graduate with two degrees, honors, and a Fulbright Scholarship. I even received several academic awards that came with monetary prizes. But my money was gone in the next several months, every cent going to out-of-pocket medication expenses. Lithium alone was $300 a month.
My family didn’t have a lot of money, but we made ends meet. I was better off than most. When I didn’t have an income or home, I stayed with my supportive parents in a safe place. Unfortunately, many marginalized people with mental health challenges don’t have access to this kind of luxury; for many, comprehensive mental health treatment is prohibitively expensive. My family went into debt to pay for medications and treatment because my doctors told me I was sick and needed them. We complied without question.
I never went on my Fulbright scholarship. As my medication count climbed, I slowed to a halt. I stopped being able to drive. Despite my costly treatments, panic and depression still overwhelmed me. I was unable to function. I didn’t feel anything anymore.
Over a five-year period, I was on more than 40 medications. The side effects brought me to the edge of my physical and emotional limits. My body broke out in hives and red bumps. One medication made it difficult to take deep breaths for several weeks. I was either up all night wired in panic or sleeping for 12+ hours. I ate everything I could find or I didn’t eat for days, the thought of food making me feel sick. I was horny all the time and then I didn’t want to be touched.
I couldn’t leave my room. All of my memories became jumbled and I couldn’t tell if I had made a situation up or if it had actually happened. I didn’t recognize myself anymore, physically or mentally. I couldn’t see any way out of this deep pain and numbness. I would lie on my side and stare at the dozen pill bottles on my counter and the boxes of partially used medications that I had been prescribed then taken off of. I laid awake thinking about how easy it would be to swallow every pill in the bottles and drift off into a state where I wouldn’t feel unrelenting emptiness and agony.
Soon my psychiatrist had a new diagnosis for me: Treatment Resistant Depressive. Because I had taken every psychiatric drug on the market in different combinations and still felt depressed, there was no cure for me and we had to take a more drastic measure: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, a cousin of electroshock therapy. My old self would have resisted. My over-medicated self was much more passive and docile. I didn’t put up a fight, I didn’t care. I felt dead already. And I would have gone through with the procedure if my insurance hadn’t denied me the service because it was too expensive.
A small voice inside of me thought: “I need to get off these medications.”
I devoted the next three years to the challenging, painstaking process of coming off my 10+ drug cocktail. I left my psychiatrist for a new one, a person I told, “I just want to get off of my meds to establish a baseline.” She reluctantly agreed. She didn’t have the vision or understanding of my mission, and I quickly found that my own research outpaced what she knew about the drugs.
Medication is a tool: Some people’s lives are saved by the right combination. Other people respond better to wellness options outside of the mainstream. Cannabis helped ease my depression, anxiety, pain, mood swings, and sleep challenges. Not only alleviating some of my mental and physical pain, cannabis centered me in gratitude and gave me some much-needed motivation and energy. I could now do short errands, drive around the block, even get to my own doctor appointments on public transportation — huge accomplishments for me. It was also the first time I was in control of my own dosing.
Tapering did not come without challenges, however. A whole new batch of withdrawal symptoms entered my life: My entire body itched, and I would scratch until I bled; I frequently woke up convulsing, my body drenched in a cold sweat; my moods were unpredictable; my anxiety, overwhelming. I menstruated everyday for months at a time. And yet, with each medication I eliminated, I became more myself again. I went to a sliding-scale community acupuncture clinic which relieved me of some of the physical and emotional pain of withdrawal. Weight started coming off. I no longer had sleep apnea. My migraines persisted but with less intensity.
As I began to read about alternative mental health frameworks, I realized that I am not sick with mental illness — I live in a sick society and have “dangerous gifts”: They need to be handled with care, but they are also my sources of passion, connectivity, creativity, and drive.
Now I identify as “neurodivergent”, a framework through which I transform what I have been taught are my weaknesses, diseases, and shameful secrets into my strengths.
Neurodivergence also recognizes that mental health challenges are deeply tied to societal oppression along lines including race, class, gender identity, and physical disability. Discriminatory barriers often make it even more difficult to access treatment. It’s hard to achieve wellness within a system that profits from our illness. But when our dangerous gifts receive the meaningful support they need, we can transform society. Our greatest challenges become our wellsprings of power.
I am not an anomaly. I am one of many people who barely survived the mental health system. Lots of folks with dangerous gifts are sitting in prison and psychiatric wards right now instead of receiving the support they need. It’s quite likely that you or someone you know has been deeply impacted by mental health challenges — even if that person hasn’t opened up about them. While each of our stories is unique, many of our experiences echo one another’s, reminding us that we are not alone.
Made a big mistake and paying for it- help! « on: January 10, 2017, 08:45:36 am »
So this weekend I was very stupid and tried medical marijuana (~15mg). Not completely sure why as I’ve never liked pot before and this was my first time having anything pot related in years. I chalk it up to being young and stupid and a little escapist. It gave me such a bad panic attack I went to the ER. Since I was hyperventilating, vomiting, etc and couldn’t control the panic on my own I was given a single Ativan dose, probably 2mg.
My question is- if there is a “hangover” from the weed, how long until it goes away and/or when will the w/d symptoms from the Ativan reach their max point?
I’ve been feeling horrible and it’s about two days out. Slept one of the two nights, I’m up again tonight with anxiety and nausea/heartburn. It’s not the worst w/d symptoms I’ve had but I work now and it’s getting debilitating. I took tomorrow off and now I’m wondering if I need to take the week as well… I know my chance of some of the more life threatening symptoms from w/d are low but my anxiety just won’t let me believe it :/
Edited for typos 🙂
« Last Edit: January 10, 2017, 09:24:19 am by [Buddie] »