@dbrown72

Welcome to the Mayo Connect community. I am a Volunteer Mentor and am not a medical professional so I don't provide diagnosis nor medical recommendations. I share my experience and other members and I will support you. We hope you will feel free to share issues you may not be comfortable sharing with family or friends.

To answer your question, I used marijuana to help me stop smoking many years ago. It was illegal at the time, but I was so anxious and shakey that I needed something. I was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day at the time I quit. There were no medications to help me quit as this was 1982. I wanted to quit so I could become a programmer in Silicon Valley and we couldn't smoke around the computers which were very large and kept enclosed in glass rooms with raised floors. There were special air systems to keep everything stable. Today we use laptop computers and tablets with more power than the big ones I worked with. My point is that I was highly internally motivated to quit. I had "quit" many times before this, but I felt different this time.

I had such heavy withdrawal symptoms that afterwards I said I would have put myself in the hospital if I had realized how bad I was going to feel. For at least 2 weeks I had shakes, sweating, nausea, bad mood, headaches, and anxiety. My hands would sweat so bad I couldn't hold an ink pen or pencil. I've never had my hands sweat before that or after that. I would get up from my desk and walk around the office building when my anxiety got too high. I took deep breaths to remind myself of the healthy life I was choosing. A friend finally recommended that I smoke some pot to help. I was not a drug user (too chicken to try any) but I finally agreed to try it. I smoked it in the evening so I wasn't high at work during the day. It really helped my anxiety, shaking and nausea, which helped me have a better attitude/mood.

I was able to stick to my cold turkey stop of smoking cigarettes because of the marijuana. I smoked marijuana whenever I thought I wanted a cigarette. At some point within 3 months I realized I no longer craved cigarettes, so I stopped smoking marijuana. I didn't want to trade one addiction for another. However, I never had a problem stopping marijuana cold turkey. I have most recently used CBD tincture orally to help me withdraw from Tramadol 50 mg that I was prescribed for pain from my back surgery. I was addicted to it, but using the CBD oil under my tongue a couple of times a day as I reduced my doses of Tramadol helped me to relax. I had a lot of anxiety withdrawing and the CBD really helped me. Now I use CBD orally for the occasional pain that Tylenol doesn't resolve.

@dbrown72, I hope this is helpful for you and your boyfriend. Please let us know how things go for him.

Gail
Volunteer Mentor

Thank you. He already smokes weed too, LOL, I told him I doubt CBD oil would help him quit smoking those nasty cigs. Maybe it will help with his anxiety though