If you are seeking treatment to help stop your use of marijuana, chances are you have been down this road before. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that adults seeking treatment for marijuana use disorder have used the drug for more than 10 years and have tried to quit more than a half-dozen times. How is marijuana abuse defined? According to the NIDA, the use of marijuana evolves into a problem for some people, who tend to feel dependent upon the drug and suffer withdrawal symptoms when without it. At that point, it is considered a substance abuse disorder.
Signs of Marijuana Abuse or Addiction
If you are a frequent user of marijuana, think about how you have felt when you stopped using. Were you irritable and moody? Did you have problems sleeping? Were you restless or in any kind of physical discomfort? After frequent use of marijuana, your brain has adapted to the drug in your system and when you take it away, those kinds of symptoms occur.
Abuse becomes addiction when the drive for the drug overtakes other aspects of daily life. A person who might go to extreme measures to obtain the drug and the tendency to put it before family or work are some of the possible signs of addiction.
Treatment for Marijuana Abuse
Several different kinds of therapy are utilized to help users break the stranglehold of marijuana. They include:
- Motivational Enhancement Therapy, which works on the person’s motivation to change
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which works on the patient’s coping skills
- Contingency Management, which utilizes a system of rewards for abstinence
In many instances, a combination of two or three of these approaches yields the best results. Our goal at LifeLens Psychological and Counseling Services is to find the right treatment not only for recovery but for long-term abstinence from marijuana use altogether.
Working with you to identify an effective approach to therapy is what we do best at LifeLens