Wellness Healthworks

FAQ’s

My son doesn’t want me to hug him anymore.  He plays games on the computer all day, he smokes cigarettes and drinks coffee.  He tell me he has a hard time concentrating and is very frustrated in trying to find a job.

When my son was in his delicate or recovering stages, he didn’t want any hugs or to be treated any different than we normally would.  Daniel wanted to feel he could live independently and make decisions for himself.  His nervous system was affected similarly like you would feel after a hangover plus your thoughts being fragmented.  Would you feel like getting a hug if you can’t even feel your emotions anymore and with the extra heaviness involved.  So don’t take this personally.  Keep telling him you love him and try to invite him to do normal things with you. ie. walks, chores, playing cards or whatever may interest him.

This heaviness can be  due to medication, poor nutrition and lack of sleep.  A lot of people with mental illness try to compensate and obtain extra energy by drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.  This gives them an artificial high for a short period of time and then they crash. To start getting his concentration back, he needs to eat protein (meat, fish, nuts) and vegetables, fruits even if they don’t feel like it. Who can resist a nice turkey supper.  Avoid sugar, alcohol, street drugs, cigarettes.

The computer is almost an addiction for some people.  The EMF (electromagnetic fields) coming out of the computer is very hard on the anyone.  It sucks out all your energy and puts you on adrenal overdrive, which in turn gets you thoughts to race.  Someone with a mental illness should limit their time to half hours at a time or none whatsoever until they reach a level of balance.

When my son had the courage to look for a job, it took a few tries until he found one that fit his needs.  He had to start part-time until his body adjusted to this pace.  After awhile he could work full time and have his own appartment.

Small steps at a time and the body will start balancing itself.

My son always has a harder time with his illness at this time of the year (November December).

My son was more subject to relapses in the Spring and the Fall, at the change of seasons.

My son is a very intelligent young man but does not have the concentration required to do anything, not even reading a book.  He compares himself  to his brother and sister and feels like a failure.

My son was in the same situation.  If you compare the brain to a computer regulating the body and its senses, picture the computer having a virus and the thoughts and senses are often scrambled.  He feels he has lost control of his life and no longer has a purpose.  This is why he is being hard on himself.  Tell him not to lose courage.  Sleep, good nutrition and lots of fresh air will start to balance his body.  Please read the page on mental illness on this website, some vitamins can help provide energy and start repairing and strengthening the nervous system.  Stay in contact with his psychiatrist in case he needs to have his meds adjusted.  This was our experience.  As Daniel became better his doctor had to diminish his meds.  Best of luck!

When you stopped smoking cannabis, what did you feel physically and emotionally.  Did you ever feel the urge to start again, let`s say two months after… What gave you the inner strength to stay clean.  Did you do anything out of your routine to beat this?

To be fair, I started on and off and always had it in my heart to want to quit but could not do it myself as I didn’t have strong enough reasons to quit at the time.

I would quit for 6-8 weeks and start again due to either peer influence or sometimes just the choice of my own. Reasons sometimes are as trivial as being bored or more reasonable like being stressed or feeling down or frustrated with something. I guess I needed a better reason to stay clean and before I knew that I could be off medications completely, I guess I never had that reason to stay off as I couldn’t physically see it for myself what benefits I could have from being off pot.

It was only after about 3 years or so that Jill was fed up with being married to a pot smoker. It wasn’t as much an ultimatum but she had her choice of whether she wanted to be married to a drug user or not. She whole heartily trusted me when I said from my heart I didn’t want to do drugs anymore and when I would move to England it would give me a chance to break away from any ties like friends or dealers I would have access to have want I was hooked on.

After a few arguments and promises to quit, Jill confronted me again with the issue of quitting and as per usual, I would tell her that at the bottom of my heart I really want to quit. She said she lost trust and me and we were scratching our heads of how we could make this work as we were ready for a permanent break up regardless of my promises to try harder to quit. She suggested a drug testing which you can buy these online. My initial reaction was shock and spieled out something of our relationship needs to be based on trust and a drug test is not trust. I walked out of the house, got in my car, smoked probably 3 times as much as I normally would have that day. Coming back home around 9:30pm as I walked in the room, she was on the bed crying. It had touched me so much that I knew I would do anything for my Jill. I apologized and said I would be drug tested. Eventhough it stays in your system for about 30 days, I was tested every week. First few times the negative result stripe wouldn’t show, which was expected. The the negative srtipe started showing in a faded colour and then darker and darker each week until it remained solid to show there was virtually no cannabis in my system anymore.

Eventually the test was only every couple week, once a month, then depending who I hung out with and then the trust came back until maybe sometimes I would come back having had a drink or I would see doubt in her eyes… When this happened, I volunteered to take a test without being asked.

I guess the few main things of pointing how to stay off may be:

1. You need to want to in the depth of your heart

2. You got to really try and have good reason to quit and keep focus on why you are quitting

3. You need to know your weak triggers and avoid them.

Friends you could be caught in the trap with

Find a better way to divert your frustrations or emotional triggers that get you to want to light up

Avoid boredom and always find something to do other than smoking

Find someone who cares about you being clean and spend more time in times of weakness

And let’s not forget number 4 which is the best advice I ever got from you “If you’re not fed up enough of your circumstances in life whatever it is, you won’t do anything about it. You’ll get where you want when you are fed up enough to do something about!”

Don’t know if this will help anybody, but this is my story and advice.

Daniel