BrainDead87: I'm sort of in the same boat as you, not sure my brain is back to functioning at its optimal level after about 3 years of moderate to heavy daily smoking. My circumstances may be different than your's: I used pot to self-medicate my depression and anxiety. It gave me energy, motivation, made me extroverted and I liked myself, who I was.

I quit on Oct 17, 2010 and am working through the depression and anxiety one day at a time. It's work - although the hardest work for me is learning not to struggle, taking one day at a time, being patient with myself and others and all sorts of attempts at self-care (exercise, eating better, calling friends and going out even when I don't want to).

I will say that I'm reading and writing a lot more than I ever did when I was high and that is a good thing. Simple free-association journaling is all I do but it makes a difference (something I learned about in the book, The Artist's Way).

Hope this helps. Keep at it.

Fran

Hi Brain! Welcome to the forum.

I used pot more heavily and for much, much, much longer than you. I've been clean over a year and I'm studying, learning, confident and fine. Our brains are tremendous organs and we don't use even half of them.

I absolutely think you should investigate your health, diet and inner landscape and take the best possible care of yourself. Your state of distraction might be due to problems or issues you avoided and masked as a stoner, and not because of the pot. I think it might be an overdramatization to contemplate " a mindless, lowpaying job" at this point.

Sending health and confidence,
Lucy

THC is not water-soluble so our body takes a long time to clean THC stored. You didnt smoke for a very long time but you used to smoke high quality marijuana. People who smoke high quality heavily everyday for many years and stop cold turkey usually have symptoms of withdrawal lasting many months, up to 2 years. But dont be afraid, you smoked good stuff but for only an year so i think that you gonna feel better before 6 months after you quit.
What you are feeling is normal, i feel the symptoms you describe too and i know people who does. The mental and emotional parts of marijuana withdrawal lasts longer than the physical part.
Be patient, try to think positive and dont keep your mind in the problem, dont feed the problem. Try to think that you had a problem but you dont have it no more. Dont smoke and keep going. You will feel better soon.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the supportive words guys.
Fran Maybe I have developed more severe anxiety and depression in the past year than I realized and that could be the brain fog Im feeling. Im also working on just trying to get my life back together through exercise and the support of friends and family who really care about me, not the people I thought were my friends but found out they were just people to get high with. Unfortunately Im at a point in my life where I need to be making some serious decisions about my future and career and need to figure out if my mental capacity truly has changed and where I need to go from here. It feels like time is slipping past me while I sit around hopefully waiting for my mind to recover.

Lucy Thanks for the words of encouragement. I really hope I can get to the point where you are now. Did you experience any of the brain fog and memory problems I was talking about in the first few months of being clean? I have also thought about maybe the smoking wasnt the true problem and I was unfairly blaming it but really it was the only thing I changed about my life. Of course I gained weight from the munchies and lost a lot of my active life style from just laying around being high all the time but since I then I have returned to being more active and lost almost all the weight I gained. Plus, I really dont see how these can have such a profound effect on my mental well being.

The Brazilian Thanks for your response. I have also done the research on marijuana and how it affects the mind and is stored in the body. (unfortunately after I smoked so heavily, not before. If I knew then what I know now, I would have never taken my first hit.) One of the things Im very worried about is brain cells that have been killed in the process of smoking. My research on whether this actually occurs or not is difficult because very little scientific research has been done in this area. Most of the information out there is extremely biased and is either some toker who is lying to himself and others that what he is doing is not causing any harm, while at the same time he is so high that he isnt realizing the harm hes doing to himself (kind of like where I was a few months ago) or it seems like some anti drug add that is making claims with very little scientific evidence. Do you know anyone who was feeling these symptoms of poor memory and difficulty concentrating after smoking who felt better after extended periods of abstaining? Im trying to keep the mindset that my problem is in my past but Im having a hard time dealing with the possible lasting consequences.
Once again thank you for all your support, I wish you all the best in your recoveries. If anyone else has any insight I would love to hear it

Hi Again BrainAlive!

When I quit I was mostly overcome with immense relief to be "safe," and almost unbearable grief about how I had lived my life and spent my energies as a doper.

I have experienced this inability to focus, and I've experienced it stoned, straight, young and old(er). It happens when I am distracted by worry or anger, and too many circuits are devoted to a gnawing problem instead of the task at hand.

You sound concerned about your future. Good for you! You'll make the right decisions, so try to be at peace. Who knows what wonderful adventures and successes are ahead of you? AND, you get to point yourself in the right direction! Go, go, go!

I say, don't eat chemical crap, avoid stupid TV and always be learning. My friend, look around at all the poisons most humans pump into their poor, brave bodies on daily basis. You're no worse off than anyone else.

Take care!
Lucy

Hey Brain

I never talked about this with someone who stopped smoking for a long time. I used to smoke a lot for more than 9 years and i couldnt stop cold turkey because the withdrawals were unbeareble. Ive been slowing down for 2 years and now i smoke less than a gram daily. I think that if i could stop completely now i would feel withdrawals for a long time. When i slow down too much i go crazy with the anxiety, paranoia, panic all the time. I have a friend who is in the same boat, slowing down, cant stop.
But you didnt smoked for many years like me and my friend, so you gonna feel all right soon. You already stopped! This is GREAT man!
I know that thinking positive wont take the problem away today but will make you feel better than you would feel thinking negative. In this case, some negative feelings and thoughts are inevitable but you are not forced to feed the negative, just let than go away. I know its hard but you are in the right way;
The feeling of fear you have about permanent brain damage i had once 5 years ago when i stopped smoking for many days. I freaked out thinking about the damage i did to my brain, thinking about the kilos i smoked. This is big anxiety, the worst symptom of marijuana withdrawal that turns to panic and paranoia. And everything with depression. Today i have a lot of other paranoias about my health everytime i slow down. Im really tired of feeling bad but i will keep struggling and in the end i will win.
You already won. Just keep winning my friend! Like Fran and Lucy said: Eat well, drink a lot of water and do exercises....stay busy!

Wow, thanks for sharing that. It really made me appreciate my return of cognitive function after 6 years off pot, nearly 6 years sober from alcohol.
I relate so much to your symptoms I lived with for so long, and I definitely feel a LOT of relief. I think what I struggle with most is remembering names, which can be embarassing but I know I'm not alone.
I can't tell you when or what, as far as feeling smarter, but it's happened! Definitely. I know the last year I used pot, I only used about 10 times all year, after using about 10 times a day of high grade for about 10 years daily (20 years of use, 10 years of daily use). About 3 years into sobriety I started teaching - a HUGE change from working at a mindless bar job. There's hope :)

Brian i remember these symptoms you're having they happened to me when i was still smoking and they ceased long before i even quit, so i think it's a problem other than pot itself. to me it was strong depression and it went away within a year even though i was still a heavy smoker. i quit 8 months ago and i am very happy now, i didn't have any of the cognitive effects you're having. it's great you're doing sports, this was my number 1 helper. i have no fog at all and i feel like my brain is functioning very well, although i still have mild anxiety from time to time. i lowered caffeine intake and it helped a lot, but my anxiety never lasts for more than a few days. weed doesn't kill brain cells so that's a good thing, it only makes them dormant until you cease abuse so don't worry about that, just deal with your mental problem. i strongly suspect depression. good luck.

The brain does recover but it takes time. I have a passion for holistic nutrition ( which doesnt jive with being a stoner AT ALL) and Ive learned things about foods for our brains. first off our brains need healthy fats - walnuts, hemp seeds ( no they wont get you high), pumpkin seeds, flax oil, and wild salmon are the best sources of fats for rebuilding the brain. I think adding in these fats and getting rid of any processed fats ( canola oil, margarine, red meat, non-organic butter, anything hydrogenated) goes a long long way. Other foods/or superfoods that help are spirulina, maca, goji berries and chlorella. They contain dopamine and tryptophan which pot depletes. they can also help with anxiety and depression. All these things can be found in health food stores or online. I also think brain-building challenges like crossword puzzles an sodoku would help.
Im in the same boat as you but starting to find some clarity after incorporating these foods into my diet. Intelligence is too precious a gift to waste and I totally understand how you feel right now.

Hey Braindead87,

I have EXACTLY the same thing going on as you do, although i quit smoking 43 days ago. I smoked 1-2 joints of very powerful weed every evening for 2 years.

I now have problems with recalling memories and remembering details of both small and big magnitude. I have problems coordinating, finding the right words to articulate myself and several other symptoms that relate to the speed of my cognitive skills. I also have depression and anxiety, which are quite troubling and make me thing whether all these problems are due to heavy smoking or whether they are due to something else.

I am also graduating from a competitive university with a masters degree in international management, and im extremely scared now since getting a job in my field would usually require people who pay attention to detail and who are highly interpersonal.

All of this makes me feel the same way that you do. Just waiting for my brain to get back to normal, but at the same time think im wasting my time. The way im working out of this is by staying positive and just coping day by day with exercise and getting things off my to do list.

Ill let you know how i progress, and please, let us also know whether you feel the fog is being reduced through this "recovery" phase. I think its a common thing that not many people discuss in boards like these.

NL85

Hey guys,

I'm back after a long time for an update on everything.

I suffered with this brain fog for awhile and it kept getting worse until my family finally talked me into going and seeing a doctor. She prescribed me anti depressants. I was very skeptical at first but after a few weeks on prozac the fog began to lift. I'm now off prozac and back to 100%. I have a family history of mental illness and I'm guessing the weed caused a chemical inbalance. Some people (like myself) should really avoid the herb.

So for anyone else who is having similar problems, there is hope, you don't have to live like this forever. I know how scary it can be. And even if you don't feel sad or "depressed" it still might be some kind of chemical inbalance. Go see your doctor, be honest, and hopefully they can help.

Best of luck

This summer I smoked weed three times. The last time me and another two friends smoked 0.5 gr. The day after the high i woke up with headache in the back of my head and memory prob;lems( i couldn't remember what i have tought about 5 - 10 seconds before, just forgetting). The other boys are ok, but i wasn't. This continued one month, the headache stopped, but i think some of the memory issues are still persistent five month after this event. Is this from the weed or it was laced, and would i get better? I'm very concerned.

Glad you are feeling better buddy. I'm still going through the motions but I'm sober 2 months. I for sure have chemical imbalances, I suffer anxiety, derealization and depression but all of which have been improving coming off weed. Instead of hiding away from my feelings and situations, I'm taking them head on now.

I won't smoke again and I hope you can continue your journey too (:

Hi everyone I just came across this and I've read alot of ideas on this to try and help me set my mind back to normal because I am currently experiencing this and it has been five days already. I will see a doctor in a couple of days for help but I'm curious on why everyone is saying to drink more water eat healthy and do exercises. I want to know how does this help and what kind of exercises should I be doing to help me get back to normal life. One thing I do want to mention is I was scared to do exercises because recently I ran a mile in school since I'm currently in high school about to graduate, and when I was done I started to have that same feeling again like if I was high, specifically brain fog I'm not sure if it was because of the heat and lack of water or because some thc was released back into my bloodstream. If you can please reply It would help me alot thank you.

I will tell you my story... after getting out of the military me and my buddy decided that we were going to smoke weed again but instead bought a 500 mg edible my other friend convinced me that 500 mg is half a gram so we were like ohh well just eat half each.. at first it was fine till boom I hit a wall and I was pretty much unable to move... of ofcourse this freaked me out and I though I was dying... i felt like a piece of bacon and the lights in the room i though that it was an angel coming for me i immediately got a panic attack and Idk how i told my buddy that was sober to take care of me ... which he did all night good friend:)
The next day we went to warp tour and I got really anxious and felt sick to my stomach.. ppl were freaking me out ppl passing out i though i was going to be next.. and I started to get another panic attack I had really bad vertigo I could nearly walk straight and plus if was really hot that day.. I was able to make it back home safely driving with really poor vision which I regret driving on vertigo then like the 2-4 day I had really bad deporsonalization... I didnt feel like I was in my body and I was kind of watching life through a pair of eyes which I was trapped inside and my brain couldnt process anything...and ir es freaking me out I though o was going crazy..but then a few days later everything came back to first person and if was really creepy.. after that I felt really depressed for no reason... I though maybe withdrawals from the military then I did my research and read that 250 mg is a lot thc to process.. i freaked out and though i had immediately tried my brain and started panicking would I ever feel normal again... I just read about ppl stories and it gave me hope that I'll be better so I took it a day at a time I'm on 3 weeks now and my anxiety has almost completely gone away I still get the brain fog when i wake up or I'm driving but it's getting better.. and I am hopeful for that go out and exercise dont think it won't go away because it will slowly but your brain and your body will recover.. I'm at 80 percent now I feel like but definitively been improving! Keep fighting bud dont give up on yourself.. that's one thing I'm learned in the military when you are going to an unknown place you just have to stay positive and hope that you make it back to your family... theres less fortunate people that unfortunately didnt nake it back but you have to live with hope!! And patience and you'll see that things will fall into place and you'll be better dont give up!!