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Comment by Yuioup | Hacker News Reader

How long do they persist? 1 day, 1 week, a year, ten years?

I used to be a daily smoker and was horribly addicted. Now, at least ten years after I quit, I find myself having trouble remembering things. I lose my train of thought a lot too, really annoying. I don't know if that was attributed to my cannabis use, or just my brain in general.

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It's a bit distressing how many people don't think weed can be addictive, clearly it is, just not in the same way as something like cigarettes.

That said, my friend, 10 years of life make you forgetful sometimes.

That's just called living.

I was going to say as well, just the act of getting older means some things will be forgotten. The brain does not have an infinite store. And as you get older, there are many more things that you are responsible for, and therefore some things get sacrificed from your memory. That’s just fact.

It's just really sucks that of the things that can't be remembered is the important stuff, yet I can still remember the opening bit of the Canterbury Tales that was commited to memory in school some couple of decades ago. yes, I know there's a difference in memory types, but come on!

It's not addictive, you just can't sleep any more for a while if you try to stop

It isn't physically addictive but it is mentally addictive and in this regard it will affect different people differently. I personally found it quite difficult to stop, it took over 5 years. Regardless I support its legalisation.

That sucks, I empathise. If it’s any help the same thing happens to me and I smoked and drank very rarely. There could be a link between substance use and cognitive impairment but part of it could just be getting older.

Agree. Most people our senior (boomers, silent generation) never smoked or smoked briefly and what they smoked was very weak by modern standards. Yet many from those generations also suffered with cognitive decline despit little to no marijuana use.

Umm we're talking about being young in the 60s here though right?

As a continuous overthinker, I switched from admonishing myself for losing my train of thought to feeling relief for a brief moment of thoughtlessness.

In terms of evolutionary biology, all forms of life develop memory first. Only once sufficiently resilient, an organism can begin to learn to forget things. Forgetting is an incredibly valuable tool. Don't diss it. Embrace the train of thought going off the rails every now and then.

If it was important, it'll come back. If not, congratulations, you've just made space in your brain for new memories!

> In terms of evolutionary biology, all forms of life develop memory first. Only once sufficiently resilient, an organism can begin to learn to forget things.

Interesting, can you link to more info on this?

Now that I am in my forties, simply having a bad night of sleep can have me forgetting names of colleagues and messing up the names between the dogs and my daughters. Lack of sleep is one of the most debilitating thing and it certainly wasn't like that 10-15 years ago. Ageing sucks!

I've found that a daily regimen of lion's mane plus bacopa and for just one month did wonders at restoring my memory and clarity after quitting weed a while back. This was before I was officially diagnosed as ADHD, I had tried for the longest to avoid getting on stimulants, but at a certain point, my career and my life was falling apart due to my inability to control my impulses.

It said 14 days of abstinence was enough to eliminate several effects, like verbal learning and verbal memory.

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