#34 Can You Actually Get Addicted to Weed: what the diagnosis really requires
Quit Smoking Weed | PodcastShow Notes
Cannabis use disorder: what the diagnosis actually requires, why no physical withdrawal is the wrong argument, and which factors raise the risk.
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The question gets asked late at night and never out loud, because the honest answer would cost something. It gets dismissed just as fast, because nobody sees the movie version of an addict when they look in the mirror. This episode replaces that image with the criteria clinicians actually use.
- Around three in ten regular users developing cannabis use disorder, with a considerably higher rate among daily users. - 6.8 percent of US adults in a past year, roughly 19 million people, and 16.6 percent in the 18 to 25 group. - What the DSM-5 criteria list, and what they never mention: arrests, a ruined career, a cinematic rock bottom. - Giving up activities that mattered, translated into cancelling on friends because you already settled onto the couch. - Mild, moderate and severe as a graded scale rather than a binary yes or no. - Whether a failed attempt to cut back is any different from breaking a diet is the objection this episode takes head on. - Dependence and addiction as two separate mechanisms, and why each can exist without the other. - Why not physically addictive is irrelevant to the diagnosis even where the physiology is partly right. - Anandamide, receptor down regulation, and the deficit that produces flatness, anxiety, irritability and broken sleep. - Smoking to feel normal rather than to get high, and the negotiation that always arrives sounding rational. - Risk factors: starting young, daily frequency, THC three to five times higher than two decades ago, use as emotional escape, family history. - The comparison trap against alcohol and opioids, and the quiet erosion of motivation, memory, sleep and emotional range it hides.
This is general information, not medical advice.
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00:00 The question nobody says out loud 00:32 The movie version of an addict 00:55 The blunt answer and the numbers 01:32 Harmless supplement versus 19 million people 02:29 What the DSM-5 actually asks for 03:27 Mild, moderate, severe: a scale 03:59 Cutting back versus hitting snooze 05:19 Dependence and addiction are not one word 06:43 Anandamide and the outsourced regulation 07:48 Rebuilding the department you fired 08:36 Smoking to feel normal, not to get high 09:09 The negotiation you make with yourself 10:43 Why the cycle is not weakness 11:16 Who is most at risk 13:28 The comparison trap and the quiet erosion
#cannabisusedisorder #quittingweed #cannabisaddiction #tolerance #dependence
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