Are you or someone you know addicted to marijuana?  A lot of people dismiss this idea as being silly or stupid because they believe marijuana is a "soft" drug that does not really have the potential for real addiction.  Other people believe that because there are not really any hard core withdrawal symptoms when someone stops using marijuana cold turkey, that it must not really have addictive potential because there are no serious withdrawal symptoms to speak of.  But the fact of the matter is that marijuana can be addictive, and there are several criteria for what actually defines addiction.  Lack of withdrawal symptoms is not a deal breaker in this case, and we will see why in a moment.  Marijuana addiction is real and those who deny it are, well....in denial.

The typical marijuana addict is actually self medicating.  What does this mean?  It means that they have learned to slowly come to rely on marijuana and getting high as a way to cope with life. 

We all need coping mechanisms.  Even if we do not have drama in our life every day, we still have regular, day to day drama and events that can produce lower, less serious levels of stress in us.  We all have to come up with ways to deal with life, vent our frustrations, and deal with problems or anger that we might have from time to time. 

The thing is that people who get addicted to marijuana tend to smoke every day.  At first it is something that they do for fun but eventually it becomes more and more necessary as something that they have to do in order to feel normal.  What is really happening here is that the addict is using the drug in order to medicate their feelings.  Anger, frustration, boredom, fear, sadness, and so on....any of these can be uncomfortable for the addict to feel so they tend to medicate the situation by getting high.  Eventually they get used to medicating these feelings away and so they do not want to be in a situation where they are forced to have feelings and have to feel them without medicating.  This is really what defines marijuana addiction and this is how the cycle perpetuates itself.  People get used to medicating their feelings away and so they have a need to smoke marijuana every single day.  It is true of course that anyone can stop smoking the stuff cold turkey and they will essentially be just fine, suffering no serious side effects from the sudden stop.  But, you can see that the addiction is psychological in nature, and that people really can get hooked on this as a substance of abuse.

Those who are addicted to marijuana turn the drug into a lifestyle.  It starts to define everything that they do, who they hang around with, even what type of job they hold.  Most everyone who is addicted to marijuana can describe a transition that they went through with their circle of friends.  Before they were addicted to marijuana, they had a diverse group of friends, many of which did not smoke the stuff.  After becoming addicted to it, they now spend all of their time with friends who also smoke marijuana every day.  To the outside world, this is a huge shift in priorities and is easy to see as a huge warning flag.  But to the addict who is steeped in denial, they usually cannot see this argument that they are choosing their friends based on their drug habit. 

The lifestyle of marijuana addiction goes beyond friendships though.  Really we get caught up in obsession about the drug on almost every level.  Addicts are either using it, thinking about using it, or trying to figure out ways and means to get and purchase more of it.  This lifestyle becomes consuming and this is also what leads us to call this a "real" addiction.

There is treatment for marijuana addiction and you can start this out at any residential treatment facility.  Of course you will not really need detox at all, but people can still benefit from the 12 step program or from residential lectures and groups and so on.  In addition, marijuana addicts can benefit from long term treatment, especially since the lifestyle aspect of this addiction is so encompassing.  Suffice it to say, the younger you are, the more you would probably benefit from going to a long term treatment center in order to get over marijuana addiction.  The sad thing is that the younger a person is, the less willing they are probably going to be to do so.  It is only after a long time of pain and struggle with drug addiction that most people will surrender enough to give serious treatment methods a chance.  This is a shame because there is an awesome life to be lived out there without drugs and alcohol screwing it up.