Growing up.

I was fortunate enough to train at a substance misuse organisation last year, and in doing so I spent half the year interacting with service users on a daily basis who were at all different stages of recovery (from those who didn't accept they had any dependency all the way up to those who had been abstinent for a decade or more).

Firstly, being able to maintain social responsibilities isn't an accurate measurement of unhealthy behaviour. Those who find it difficult to maintain responsibilities are usually in much later stages of addiction, whereas those who have a dependency on a substance of choice (whether it be physical, psychological or a combination of the two) are usually able to keep up appearances.

Secondly, don't get taken in by the agenda-driven distractions that people inject into these sorts of issues. There's far too many occasions when I've seen support and advice reduced to people arguing that x drug is a gateway to y drug, or B drug should be legalised because it causes less harm than C drug. Sure, they're interesting social conversations to have, but the frequency that they become a point of focus in support-related issues is nothing more than a distraction fuelled by people with certain moral viewpoints.

The reality of the situation is that you're the best person to know whether it's a problem for you. There are numerous physical and psychological dangers that you face by regularly consuming pot, and a big warning sign that you may have a psychological dependency on it is that you present it as something you need as a way to 'let loose'. People achieve this in all sorts of ways, from recreational hobbies to going down the local pub and consuming alcohol (i.e. a legal substance), so what you're doing isn't automatically a sign of addiction. If, however, you feel that without it your mental well-being would be negatively affected then that's a sign that your relationship with it isn't healthy, and that it's a behaviour that could easily spiral into more complex levels of dependency.

The best questions to ask yourself is what originally led to you taking pot, and how has your relationship with it changed over the years? Furthermore, if you were to give it up or reduce, what do you perceive would be the positive and negative changes to your life? The key to your concerns is within your own understanding of your behaviour and not being afraid to identify patterns which may worry you, which I suspect may be at play to some extent if you're taking the time to enquire on here.

As interesting as societal discourse is surrounding pot and substances in general, it won't help you understand your own problems and I would recommend not allowing it to influence how you approach the situation. Moral politics has no place in helping us understand our health, so the arguments about substances that your family may have (albeit with the best intentions) won't do much to help you remain objective when assessing your own behaviour and the potential problems within that. Whether pot is the most addictive substance in the world or the least addictive substance you can take, it's irrelevant if your relationship with it is seemingly unhealthy and puts you in danger, as is having that relationship with anything.

So yeah, only you can provide the answers to help you understand your situation. There'll be no shortage of people willing to give you their moral opinions on what you're doing, but only you'll know what effect the behaviour is having on your life. The key is to remain objective and aware, rather than burying your head in the sand as a way of coping with unhealthy patterns of behaviour.

Martin.

 

It sounds like you have a pretty strong understanding of your situation then, which is fantastic. Based on what you've said there's just a couple of points I'd like to expand upon for you to also consider.

Firstly, I would be wary by the fact that you've indicated that you have had depression recently, as it is mental health issues such as them which can be a major trigger for addictive behaviours developing. It's what we commonly refer to in the substance misuse field as a dual diagnosis (i.e. a dependency and diagnosed mental health condition existing concurrently), and it's particularly problematic for people who take drugs containing psychoactive properties, such as Cannabis.

It's extremely common for people to have a dependency on a substance due to a breakdown in their emotions and mood, and the relationship with their substance then becomes something that they need as a form of medication to give them that 'buzz' of happiness and calm that they don't get from being abstinent/sober. Sadly, those with a dual diagnosis are one of the most at-risk groups for having the strongest signs of dependency, so it's vital that you stay constantly aware of the context that you're using any substance (whether it legal or illegal). If you take pot recreationally as a way to relax then that's relatively low-risk, whereas if taking it is the only way you know how to feel relaxed and happy then that's when your psychological dependency has overstepped the line and it does become an issue for you. There is, after all, a massive difference in me going down the local pub for a few drinks, and me spending my day at work thinking about when I can get my next drink because I'm feeling a bit crap or emotionally unfulfilled and need that nice buzz it gives off. In the latter case, it's self-medicating and not recreational.

Secondly, I wouldn't necessarily conclude that your past experiment of going cold turkey is evidence of there being no dependency. I'm certainly not implying that you are dependent, but merely that it isn't an accurate test for a drug that has no physical signs of addiction. If you were using a drug such as heroin then that would give you fairly strong signs of addiction when taking the 'test', whereas drugs like cannabis can be stopped without physical symptoms being present. What impact it had on your mental health and emotions would be a good way of measuring your psychological dependency. If you found very little changed and that you were able to 'let loose' just as easily without it then that's a great sign, whereas if you were able to stop using it but felt unfulfilled and that something important was missing from your relaxing routine then that becomes a worrying sign of a developing dependency, even if you don't feel any urges to take it. At that point it's not something that you are doing recreationally, but something you've developed a reliance on in order to achieve an artificial state of healthy emotion and mood.

As I said above, you're the best person to understand your situation. I certainly can't rule out that you may not have any underlying dependency on it simply because there are risk factors identified in your posts which can easily push behaviour beyond recreation and into routine. However, the awareness that you have and your willingness to confront problems will be an excellent tool in helping you understand your relationship with the drug. The whole idea that certain drugs are a gateway to more intense drugs is nothing more than a hypothesis, and research used to demonstrate this tends to be something along the lines of "x% of heroin users initially took cannabis. Therefore, cannabis is a gateway drug.". The part they don't tell you is that those x% started taking drugs because they had Y and Z as significant life events that make them feel like shit, and it's those unresolved emotional problems that are the catalyst and motivator for their progression of self-medicating. The whole 'gateway' issue is no more evidenced than saying that having sugary products as a teenager causes people to then consume alcohol. Sure, I'd easily be able to develop statistics outlining a link between the two, but emotionally there's probably very little connection that the two share within consumptive patterns.

If you're fortunate enough to live in an urban area then there may be a local organisation that provides resources for substance misuse, so I would definetly recommend checking in with them at some point in the future *if* you felt you needed to. Many people (including myself this time last year) have the perception that those places will be populated by stereotypical junkies, but a lot of the time you meet people with established careers in medicine, social work, teaching etc, and many who have retired and felt lonely as a result of it. I'm certainly not saying you need to access it, but they'd certainly be the best people to speak to for any information or questions you may have. Finally, if you ever did want to give it up then I would strongly recommend not going cold turkey without either speaking to somebody at a specialised organisation or your GP, regardless of whether the drug is taken recreationally or as something you may be dependent on.

Martin.