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Comment by Weryj | Hacker News Reader

I would classify myself as addicted to weed.

From my perspective and my best rationalisation of it, when I'm bored or stressed I reach for a dopamine hit and weed is a great source of one. The next day I'll have a low and there's a 'battle' between the rational and want. The rational side almost never wins and I'll be in a daily usage cycle for months.

That being said I think it's an easier drug to break the cycle of with planning, since it only takes a few days of no use to dramatically improve my chances of resisting and honestly, if I didn't suffer from poor memory performance, I'd be okay as a daily smoker. But working is next to impossible at the level needed as a SDE.

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I would say the same for myself. It doesn't interfere with my work performance, and I tell myself it's better than if I were drinking or whatever, but it has definitely become a compulsion and I basically can't regulate my usage if I have it available in the house. Lately I've gotten a little timed lock box to force myself to take breaks which I'm kind of ashamed to have to resort to, but it's helping me keep a better balance.

I will also say - and maybe this is more self-justification - but while I definitely cannot really do focused productive software work while stoned, I really do think that it puts me in a more creative mind-space and helps me see alternatives I wouldn't otherwise. I often go for a long hike after work and get stoned and stumble upon an approach to a work or life problem that's bouncing around in my head that I would not have otherwise.

>... but it has definitely become a compulsion and I basically can't regulate my usage if I have it available in the house.

I just replied to the OP myself, but I can definitely agree with this. When I first quit earlier in the year, I noticed that I'd be sitting on the couch watching TV or chatting with my wife in the evening, and I'd have this innate urge to get up, go to the garage and go smoke. It didn't even feel like I was consciously thinking I needed to get high, it had just become such a habit to do that in those moments. I had to re-train myself to ask, "Okay, why?" before actually doing it, and more often than not I couldn't justify the actual act of getting stoned in that moment beyond, "Well... to just be stoned," and that didn't seem like a good enough excuse to me, making it quite easy to fight the urge.

But YMMV, of course.

> I noticed that I'd be sitting on the couch watching TV or chatting with my wife in the evening, and I'd have this innate urge to get up, go to the garage and go smoke

One of the longer lasting effects of quitting tobacco was the urge at random times to get up and go outside. I knew I didn't smoke any more, I wasn't craving a cigarette, but it had been part of my behaviour for so long, that I just get up and go outside sometimes, that it lingered as a sort of tic for a while.

This is a natural behavior that everyone should take part in.

Animals don't breathe indoor air all day, with no sunlight, and neither should we.

Having a compulsion to go and stand outside your back door for five minutes randomly in the middle of doing something else is not 'natural', no, it's a learned behaviour from smoking.

Yes, we should all get fresh air and sunlight. No we don't need to pause the tv show and head outside for no reason at 9pm when it's dark and cold.

Locked time box tactic is great for anything you want to force yourself to regulate or take a break from (including junk food!)

Here’s a $40 one I can vouch for: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGPKQD17

It can be programmed to remain locked for anywhere from minutes to many months. There’s no override code. The only way to open it once locked is to take a hammer to it (according to the instructions, haven’t verified!).

This is not necessary a rebuttal, but I definitely have the same experience with coming up with creative ideas when I go walking or hiking without weed. I think walking is a great way to get your subconscious working effectively on something.

I found that with the pens/oil I have no self restraint. It's just too convenient and easy to take a quick puff anytime I would feel stressed, bored, etc. Whenever I get an oil cartridge I smoke it every day until it's gone.

Lately I switched to gummies only. It helps because I need to be more deliberate. For me they take an hour to kick in and last a few hours after that, so I know I'm making a conscience choice of whether or not I want to be stoned for the next few hour.

>working is next to impossible at the level needed as a SDE.

This is the truth. I can't reason as well or as quickly. Things go over my head. My working memory is so much smaller. I get lost in code all the time. I forget what I'm working on.

> Things go over my head. My working memory is so much smaller. I get lost in code all the time. I forget what I'm working on.

I have the same symptons but I don't smoke weed. Maybe I'm just bored of the work required.

> I can't reason as well or as quickly. Things go over my head. My working memory is so much smaller. I get lost in code all the time. I forget what I'm working on.

Is that while being high on THC, or being sober but having consumed lets say the day before?

Both. When I'm high at work it's very very acute. When I'm not high but I was high yesterday I can tell I'm lower-functioning but it's not as bad.

Weed and untreated bipolar disorder are directly responsible for me losing my jobs at SpaceX, Google, and 2 other smaller companies.

Do you still consume cannabis?

Yes

why if its cost you so much? Are you seeking treatment or is treatment something you even want? This is not an attack, genuinely interested. My sister is bipolar and she saw positives from stopping cannabis use.

Because I don't care. I'm burnt out. I have lost motivation. I used to care but I let my bipolar disorder get the best of me and there were consequences. I fell off the wagon and it stuck. I started smoking a lot in the pandemic and it compounded.

I work a dead end job now. It pays a fraction of google and is nowhere near the prestige of SpaceX. I don't care at this point.

Sorry you reached that point. You are clearly a smart person to have landed those jobs in the first place. I hope that everything works out for you, really do

Personally I care more about continuing to use marijuana than continuing to work. I've made enough money that I don't really need to work at least for the next decade and don't have anyone depending on me being responsible so the motivation to quit isn't really there.

I would guess marijuana only makes me about 10% worse at my job so it's not like I'm being fired like the other guy.

Not the GP, but for me it can be both. Depends a lot on your overall usage pattern.

Right now I only really smoke once a month at most, when the opportunity presents itself. In these cases, I'm obviously completely non-functional under the influence. But I also smoke a lot less because I have no tolerance, I feel pretty much completely fine the next day, possibly even better than usual, because the resulting night of REM suppressed sleep gives me a jolt of antidepressant effect without the downsides of sleep deprivation.

If I'm in a binging mode, it means I have a huge tolerance, smoke a ton more, and honestly it takes at 2-3 weeks of abstinence before I'm back to baseline for working memory, possibly longer.

But paradoxically, if I'm in such a binge, I'm probably more functional if I've had my morning smoke compared to skipping it for the day, because abstaining would then cause me to be highly irritable and unable to focus on anything in addition to the state of temporary dementia I'd be in. And since there's a massive tolerance, one dose won't have acute deleterious effects to the same degree.

This puts what I tried typing out a lot more succinctly than I could, at least as far as my own experience goes (YMMV, of course). At the beginning of the year I went cold turkey after consuming cannabis on a daily basis for about three years straight. At the time, I was plowing through at least ~4000mg of tincture (~150mg/dose) and ~2oz of flower in a single month - my frequent use meant that even one bong rip would do nothing, I'd need at least 5 or so to even reach the point where I'd go, "Oh, I think I'm stoned now, maybe?". Went cold turkey for a month and when I ate 20mg it rocked my world, and a single rip would kick my ass for an entire evening.

>That being said I think it's an easier drug to break the cycle of with planning...

Yep, this is what's worked best for me. I ended up using daily for a week earlier this summer and it was wild to me that I could watch my use go from one bong rip on a Monday rocking my world, to needing 3 or 4 rips the following Friday to get to the same level. Now, what works for me, is buying only a tiny amount at a time and saying, "Okay, this is gonna be used at X event, Y event and Z event over the next two months". If I'm an idiot and use it up before the end of that time, oh well, no more until then.

I'm 20 years deep in at least every-other-day usage (since I was 16), with breaks whenever I have to travel for work. Honestly the idea of quitting is a bit scary.

The only saving grace is that I've very rarely been a day-smoker (now vaper), it's almost always been a post-8pm thing.

Had the same issue with pornography. The conditioning is difficult to break, but you can do it.

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