If you think that your son or daughter is smoking weed problematically as in
addictively this video is definitely for you now you might be thinking Well
at least it's not those hard drugs it's just weed or you might be thinking You
know what I smoked a little weed when I was younger it's really no big deal
or maybe you're even thinking Heck I still smoke weed every now and then myself it's not a problem
if you're having any of those maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong let's take a look at how
to know marijuana is most certainly a drug and just like with any other addictive thing some
people do it and they don't have problems and other people do it and they have big problems
in this video we're gonna be talking about marijuana addiction now you may
be wondering well how do I know if my son or daughter falls into the addiction
category or just into like the regular use category well there are official criteria
and I'll put those in the description but for now just ask yourself these questions
number one do I know that my kid is using marijuana pretty regularly or at least do
I have a very strong belief that they are number two does my kids seem to be
more depressed and anxious number three does it seem like my kid is
stuck in life like they're just not moving forward number four does it seem like I'm
having a very hard time getting my son or daughter to be responsible for themselves
those are the biggest complaints that I hear from parents who have a son or
daughter who is addicted to weed now before I go into this next part I gotta tell you
something and this is very important so listen up everything I'm about to tell
you in this video is not for you to go and repeat back to your son and daughter
please do not do that you're going to make it worse I do have videos on how to have
a conversation with them about it and I'll link those at the end but the things I'm telling you in
this video are for you not for you to go and argue with them about which also includes sending 'them
this video to watch because all you're going to do is make them defensive and it's not going to help
all right now that we got that cleared up let's move on now I'm sure that you've noticed that
over the past several years marijuana has become way more acceptable and accessible in fact I think
that marijuana is the most difficult addiction that I treat because of the fact that it's so
acceptable and accessible and because it is extremely difficult to get someone to recognize
that it is the marijuana that is causing the problems that they're frustrated with
the person almost always feels like it's the marijuana that's the only good thing
in their life now hang onto that because we're going to come back to why that is in
just a minute now I will tell you one little piece of good news here earlier in my career
as an addiction counselor I would frequently hear things like marijuana's not addictive
or people say Oh marijuana it may be psychologically addictive but it's not
physically addictive well the good news I haven't heard someone tell me any of those
statements in a really long time you know why because I think even more and more young
people even teenagers are starting to see that yes marijuana is extremely addictive
so in the past people you say it's totally fine it's not addictive it
can't cause you problems I don't hear that anymore I think that people kind of know
it's addictive but they still hold onto this it's harmless it's no big deal kind
of thinking sort of like how you might think about like a caffeine addiction
most people are like Okay yes it's addictive but is it really that bad people wanna lump
marijuana into that category but that is a mistake let's talk about why because
it's so accessible there are now lots and lots of ways to consume marijuana
and one of the really popular ways these days is to use weed in a vape
you know like a vape like you would use nicotine in and when people use it in a
vape it's almost impossible to detect which means that people are now using
weed all day every day like people use nicotine so we're not talking about Oh I
smoke weed every now and then with my friends we're talking about wake up use marijuana use
it again all day every day multiple times a day like someone with a cigarette habit
now that is a whole new bar game and not only are people using it so much
more frequently and in such larger amounts but the potency is way you have all these
big businesses which are very invested in coming up with all these different
strains and different strengths and how to make it consumable in different ways
so because of that addiction to marijuana has skyrocketed so now that we've talked about
why weed is addictive and it's progressively more and more and more addictive let's talk
about why having a marijuana addiction is a problem the biggest problem I see
from people who are addicted to marijuana is that they stop moving forward in life
now if your son or daughter is a teenager and they start smoking weed when they're 14 15 16 17
this is a big problem because what that means is they get like Failure to launch they do not leave
your house because they never pass through those teenage and young adult emotional developmental
phases meaning they never learn how to adult because they're stuck in this marijuana addiction
now if your son or daughter started using marijuana problematically a little later
in life maybe they have moved out but they're probably not really killing it out there as an
adult now if you've ever had a conversation with them about weed you've probably heard
them tell you that it's the only thing that helps my depression and anxiety
now I hear that one all the time and usually when a person says that they
really believe that because when they use marijuana is the only time they feel
better but let me tell you a little secret I see all kinds of addictions alcohol addiction
opiate addiction heroin addiction cocaine addiction Xanax addiction you name it I see it
and guess what in general my clients that are addicted to marijuana have way more depression
and anxiety going on than the people I see who are addicted to those harder drugs let's talk
about why There are actually several things that contribute to this problem number one it takes
away the feeling of being bored or temporarily it can take away the feeling of stress or anxiety
because when you're all high smoking on weed you're just all mellow and cool and
you're very likely to just engage in some other addictive kind of behavior
or just plain mind numbing nothing kind of behavior essentially you're usually
not being productive when you're high and to make matters worse
when you're not high you have a deficit of good brain chemicals
including dopamine which is your motivation chemical and so when the
person isn't using marijuana they don't have any regular motivation to kick in
so whether they're high or they're not high they're not being productive and motivated
now sometimes when you smoke weed you may feel like Oh I'm gonna do all these things you have
all these ideas but the action part doesn't usually happen and because people are using
so much so frequent so often it's obviously messing with their brain chemicals causing
them to be sort of neurochemically more and more depressed and anxious
now not only that but because they're not being productive in their life that
creates a whole second set of problems right because eventually they're going
to feel like they're friends their peers everybody else has moved on without them
and then they get kind of depressed because they're not where they should be in life
and guess how they deal with that feeling of depression they smoke more weed which
obviously doesn't get us anywhere and in addition to that it usually causes
your family like your parents to get really upset with you and to start getting on your
case and to start trying to make you get a job or trying to hold you accountable and then you
get resentful and irritated at them and then you blame them for making you feel bad about yourself
so that's another layer about why they're so depressed now everything I've told you
so far happens in the majority of the cases that I see but the next thing it doesn't happen in the
majority of cases but it does happen occasionally and when it does it's really bad and that is the
fact that when you're using marijuana you are at a much higher risk to develop psychosis
yeah that pretty much means like you lose your mind you believe you see things hear
things believe things that are not true and I've seen this many times usually in
young men between the ages of like the say 15 and 26 that's just a guesstimate doesn't mean
that that's the only people that it happens to but that's where I see it most frequently
and this looks like a psychotic break like schizophrenia and oftentimes
lands the person in the psychiatric hospital usually for a long period of but I'm not here
to try scare tactics I don't believe in scare tactics I'm really not trying to
scare you after death I'm just trying to be real with you about this problem
now another issue that I've only started hearing about in the last few years is something called
hyperemesis which is a major stomach problem associated with marijuana you see when you're
marijuana dependent you usually get to the point where you need to smoke to be able to eat but if
you develop hyper ires the smoking will make you throw up so you're caught in this catch 22
this can cause significant weight loss significant distress and it actually
becomes a very significant problem now after hearing all that if you feel like your son
or daughter has a problem with marijuana I want to give you several resources and
things to think the first thing to consider is our Invisible Intervention Program which
is our online program that teaches you step by step how to get someone out
of denial and into those active stages of change and ultimately into recovery
and with marijuana addiction particularly you're going to need a system or a problem
because it is much more difficult to get people outta denial than most of
the other addictive drugs the next thing that I want you to consider is you need
to think about how or if you decide you need to have some conversations about it
it is very important that you do it in a productive way like you do not
need to get all your notes out that you just took from this video and then read
them off to your kid it isn't going to help I have some videos on how to have
that conversation and I'm going to link them right up here at the end for you
and another resource I wanna tell you about is there's another YouTube channel
called Addiction Mindset and there's this guy on there his name is Dr frank and he
specifically helps people come off of marijuana nicotine energy drinks and
adult entertainment addictions he's very good he has a lot of material on marijuana addiction
so if and when you finally do get your son or daughter to the point where they
might be willing to think about doing something different Addiction Mindset
is a really great resource and I would definitely connect them
with that YouTube channel and maybe even with one of Dr frank's recovery programs
but don't start to send him videos over there until they're in the right mindset
I'll put links for all that in the description