MENTAL HEALTH
No One Wants to Tell You Abusing Cannabis Ruins Your Mental Health Care. It Does.
Would you prefer a better chance at recovery? Or, would you give up stability to stay high on marijuana for longer?
Think about it. What if you’ve had hallucinations, become addicted, felt paranoid, or like you’ve lost control? If any of those problems apply, it’s worth thinking about your mental health care and how your cannabis addiction might be making it worse.
Are you having trouble making progress in counseling? Is it hard to get to your appointments? Maybe even a challenge to continue with your wellness and recovery plans?
If so, your cannabis habit may be the reason. DrugRehab.com cited a 2016 study that found that more than 28% of adults who used marijuana in the last year experienced a major depressive episode.
So, maybe now you’re interested in quitting or cutting back. If so, you came across the right article. After all, you’ve noticed how cannabis is slowing you down. You’ve seen how it’s affecting how you feel, but you’re clueless about how it’s affecting your mental health care. Let’s start by focusing on what you recently discovered.
Your cannabis use interferes with your mental health care
Most of society focuses on heroin, crack, and other hardcore street drugs that clearly and overwhelmingly ruin lives. But people who abuse cannabis are struck with problems too. These people may struggle to find purpose and stability in their lives. And if there are emotional, social, or psychological problems, a cannabis addiction can worsen.
So, the Marijuana Problem remains hidden throughout society, while people who abuse cannabis remain disconnected from reality.
For one, marijuana hurts motivation, mainly when consumed in high amounts for sustained periods. Research shows dopamine levels drop as you use more cannabis. So, jobs, self-care, and goals matter less.
That’s because what’s supposed to matter doesn’t matter as much when you’re high.
That’s fine if your life doesn’t include time for self-improvement.
But think of the need to work smarter and be more productive and healthy. As it turns out, the behaviors needed for authentic self-improvement are also essential to effective mental health recovery.
Take setting goals, for example. If goals aren’t necessary, you’ll find it’s easier to abuse cannabis. You’ll find it easier to drift away from the activities, tasks, and responsibilities needed to stay well.
But if you want to stop or cut back, you’ll have noticed some reasons why.
Maybe you’ve noticed that:
- You care less
- You’re spending too much money to invest in yourself
- You feel as if people and society are stigmatizing you
- You’ve started using other substances
- You’ve stopped taking your medication and noticed the difference
Feeling, living, and functioning won’t be easy. So, you may never get to the same level of satisfaction and rarely grow and make progress. A cannabis addiction won’t help you maintain a healthy well-being.
Mental health resources will ultimately have little effect.
Therefore, quitting should be your priority. Research shows that 1 in 10 users can become addicted in the long term. Some frequent long-term users face even more severe problems later. That’s why you must understand how a cannabis addiction interferes with mental health care in the future.
How cannabis use interferes with mental health care
One day you will grow and make progress.
In this life, you place a goal, project, healthy activity, or commitment before marijuana. Awaiting you might be a rewarding career that gets you paid and appreciated for your work. Your life could be fuller, brighter, and filled with more opportunities.
But if you’re abusing cannabis and receiving mental health care, there are a few ways that goal would be unlikely.
1. You can’t help yourself or have others help you
If you abuse marijuana, you’ll often withdraw deeply into yourself during therapy. Instead of communicating and discussing issues openly, you might remain cut off from others. You might even find it difficult to tell others how your habit worsens your life.
While you’re high, there is a thick cloud between you and the problems you must discuss. Your therapy sessions may pass in silence, and you can’t help yourself. You’re not asking for help or responding to what people are offering.
But it’s more important than ever to ensure you’re open to being helped.
Primarily because of the pandemic, many mental health organizations use teletherapy. Even since then, it’s relatively common for mental health organizations to carry out telehealth counseling and therapy. A COVID-19 Telehealth Impact Study found that 41% of surveyed individuals would have preferred telehealth over an in-person visit. And 84% felt confident their information was secure. And 83% of surveyed individuals reported having solid communication with their mental health professionals.
Therapy is where some of your most challenging work will begin. It’s crucial that you’re thinking clearly and rationally and you have a clear head to make progress.
2. Your marijuana addiction eliminates the incentive to change
You’re constantly rewarding yourself with a high to your brain. That’s because growth comes during times of discomfort, but being high allows you to feel satisfied when life isn’t as functional as it should be. Because of this constant high in your brain, you’ve taken away the incentive to change.
The incentive to change will help you recognize what’s not working in your recovery. You can fix what’s not working when you’re aware and not comfortable at all hours of the day.
If you’re not addicted to consuming cannabis, then you’re able to make the necessary changes to your routine. For example, if you consistently stay up too late at night and consequently lose sleep, not abusing cannabis means you’ll have a clearer mind. You’ll be able to determine what behaviors are self-destructive.
Someone addicted to cannabis may consume caffeine at the late hours of the night. But a clear-minded person would be interested in their recovery. Instead, they would eliminate caffeine and wind their day down gradually.
You realize that you need to make changes when you’re not constantly high. There are a few mindsets and ideas people who aren’t consuming cannabis might think about that help. These ideas lead to self-improvement and recovery rather than the setbacks and failures that come with addiction.
If you’re free of cannabis, you might think about:
- Never settling for less
- Striving for your best performance
- Eating healthy foods
- Working plenty before a reward
- Monitoring your mental health and,
- Working hard instead of daydreaming
As you can see, it’s worth trusting that real self-improvement begins with a clear mind and a focused strategy to improve. While marijuana use eliminates the incentive to change, being free of this addiction will open your eyes. You’ll see all the opportunities to feel better ahead of you.
3. You’re not all there or invested in your care
You’re not all there because your mind is somewhere else.
With cannabis, your mind can wander, and your mind can race. Cannabis-Sativa strains are energizing, uplifting, and helpful for motivation and creativity. But these strains can also induce paranoia and anxiety.
In contrast, Indica-dominant strains can make you feel heavy and sedated. Still, they can result in a condition called “couch lock.” You may feel disconnected entirely from the activities in which you participate. During this phase, you may forget about what it takes to stay well might completely.
Either way, with cannabis addiction, your connection to reality and the things that matter might be superficial. There are problems with this way of living, such as:
- Your memory might be negatively affected
- You struggle to put into words what you’re experiencing
- You feel detached from the activities you once found purposeful
The truth is that mental health care works best when daily self-care activities have meaning. If you think of what it takes to know you’re doing better than ever, you know how important it is to realize you’re getting smarter. But feeling as if you’re mind is wondering is a sign of cognitive dysfunction.
You’re not as consciously aware of your surroundings and what’s happening around you.
In the future, wouldn’t you like to feel more aware? Wouldn’t you want to feel as if you’re all there?
If you’re someone who is abusing cannabis, no one will tell you that you don’t seem like you’re all there. No one else will honestly know for sure. Meanwhile, you might feel detached and isolated, far from focused on the quality of your mental health care.
The hard work behind mental health care will still be on your shoulders. So, quitting marijuana today would be a good decision. Putting your mental health care first should be your priority.
Final thoughts
You know what it feels like to be high all the time.
Pleasant at first, but then there is the sluggishness. The feeling you’ve eliminated the incentive to change.
At one point, you felt connected to everything in life, including the daily activities you complete to stay well. You were focused and clear-headed and motivated, and intelligent. One thing was for sure, your mental health was important.
So, if that’s the kind of life you want again, then choose today to put mental health above marijuana.
