Cannabis withdrawal, is there such a thing and is this why hes being nasty.

[Illustrated]

I'm not sure if this section is the right place to put this thread, let me know if it will be better off elsewhere.

My dp used to smoke weed a lot during his teenage years. When we met I was aware he still did every now and again. Recently its come to light that he has been smoking a lot more than I thought and as soon as he runs out he's buying more. I've noticed over the past few months a huge change in his moods, specially in the time when he's not smoking it (I can tell from his moods the day he's run out). He's nasty, selfish, short tempered, drowsy, anti-social and depressed when he's not had any and each time he does have a few days break between smoking these moods seem to get worse.

Its come to my attention that he's not been without weed for long since being 15 (he's late 20's now) and its made me realise I've got to know someone who's been fuelled by drugs and I probably don't know him at all. He knows how I feel and that I hate him treating me the way he does when he's without weed but we seem to go round in circles - He runs out of weed, He gets moody and wants to buy more, I tell him how I feel about that, he gets nastier, he calms down and opens up, makes promises that he will stop and get therapy and then the cycle starts again.

What I want to know is how addictive can weed really be? Will any particular therapy work? Is there such a thing as withdrawal symptoms from cannabis or is this nastiness his true colours?

It can be very addictive my sisters ex boyfriend smoked lots of weed and he was really nasty when he didn't have any. And years later he is still the same but he never had therapy or anything.

If he's making spliffs with weed AND tobacco then it's probably nicotine withdrawal. An unspecified moody feeling of needing a fag, basically. That doesn't help with general "I'll smoke weed and fuck you" stuff and it's HIS problem but that might explain it. Patches? Champix?

He's still smoking tobacco when he's run out of weed though. He's supposed to be giving up cigarettes too...

I agree that it's likely to be the nicotine rather than the weed.mdoes he smoke cigarettes?

My ex used to smoke weed and when he had none my life was sheer hell for the first week or so. He couldnt sleep, wouldnt eat. He was irritable, moody and woukd fly off at every thing with it all being my fault. We would live in a horrible atmosphere for days til he got some.

Its definitely addictive yet no addict wants to admit it. They lie to themselves. Its a horrible way to live and its one reason I could never go back to him.

Personally I think the addiction is more psychological wrt cannabis. I used to smoke weed and gave up easily dh otoh has smoked it since his early teens and has never gone without from choice ,always because he couldn't get any. He always plans to stop but never actually does anything about it.
Do you have kids?

The question isn't whether cannabis is causing him to display Jekyll & Hyde facets to his character.

The question is why you have stayed in a relationship with a man who is nasty, selfish, short tempered, drowsy, anti-social and depressed and has no qualms about taking his moods out on you?

It's possible he has an addictive personality and, in the unlikely event he quits smoking spliffs for good, he'll become addicted to some other substance or undesirable habit such as gambling/porn etc.

Can you not see that you deserve a lot more from a relationship than this hophead can offer?

Sometimes people smoke it a lot as a form of self medication.
Basically he used weed to cover up his anxiety or any other condition he may have. He needs to at least talk to someone.

what arsenal said

People who smoke every day, are generally nor standard recreational users. They are using it as a calming agent for anxiety or depression, and in the same way that coming off antidepressants doesnt make someone actually depressed, but it can cause a relapse of depression that the anti-ds were adequatly treating. The same can be said for cannabis in these instances.
It may be the case that the symptoms will ease off as he gets used to everything being a bit more real and without any help to get through the day, but I really think it would be worth having an honest conversation about stopping, and encouragement rather than anger and judgement about the fact that hes actually been self medicating all the time

His behaviour sounds exactly like my ex and is the weed yes.

My ex hasnt smoked weed in 4 years or cigs in about 3 years. Hes still a twunt most of the time. He still wants to control and belittle me.

The weed might be exacerbating the behaviour, but its not creating it.