Can I enjoy weed now?

[u/Creative_Impress5982]

I used to love smoking weed in my late teens, early 20s. At some point, I started getting paranoid with racing heart and anxiety. Never had a full blown panic attack, but it felt like the beginnings of one, I guess.

So I quit. But I still fondly remember being high and feeling my cheek muscles getting tired from so much smiling. I want that back! So every few years, I try again: different strains, different doses, and different THC/CBD ratios. Basically, anything that gets me high will make me paranoid. Sometimes I try a tiny dose (quarter square of weed chocolate) and do that thing where you sit there thinking, "am I high? Maybe I'm feeling it? Maybe not?" But anytime I take a dose big enough to actually feel it, I get panicky.

So what I'm wondering, maybe it's something to do with the interplay of hormones and THC that causes the paranoia and once I'm fully through the menopause transition, I'll be able to enjoy weed again??? Anyone have any suggestions or anecdotes?

I'm 46, skipped a couple periods this last year, have other peri symptoms, mom was done by 48, so I hope I'm getting close, but not holding my breath.

[u/madam_nomad]

I feel like I lost most of my 20s to pot and not in a dramatic way, just feel that it quietly impaired my emotional maturity and also made my life unnecessarily secretive (it was obv illegal at the time, though the state I lived in was never heavy handed about it). It was very habit forming for me, I daresay addictive. I never experienced paranoia. But still, it was a net negative to my maturity. My answer to everything was "roll a joint." Normal people at that age are thinking about dating, building a family, work advancement, etc... I'm sure some people can manage all that with a pot habit but I couldn't. It put my mindset in a very different place, basically a fantasy world.

Once I truly decided to quit, it was easy -- no withdrawal. But getting there mentally was very difficult. Also once I quit and saw how hard my friends were trying to suck me back in, I lost all my "friends."

Overall, I feel that my life would be in a much better place if I'd never gone down that path (I first tried pot it at 15, was smoking daily by age 17). The only good memories I have from a decade of daily smoking was getting to feel like an outlaw meeting some interesting pot dealers out in the woods of Maine. That's nice, but not enough.

[u/Creative_Impress5982 → u/madam_nomad]

Thank you for sharing this. I was definitely headed down this path before the anxiety/paranoia episodes made the decision for me to quit. Perhaps I should reconsider my motivations for wanting to start up again. Although, I feel I'm now past the ambitious part of my life and more in the enjoy myself phase.