A
female
age
30-35,
*ifteen
writes:please someone help me. my best friend is depressed and he is mentally addicted to weed. he explainsto me that its the only way he can escape. he knows its stupid and he knows its ruining his life. hes 17. and i just know that its a cry for help or else he wouldnt be telling me this. what can i say to him to make him think clearly and realise he needs to do something about this before its too late. please, i dont know what to do.
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female
reader, Legioness  +, writes (3 August 2009):
 Take it from someone who's been there a dozen times.. He's relying on the skunk to escape, for a release, he's obviously become dependent on it to get him through, right? If you really want to help him, and I know damn well it's hard, but the only way he'd really see any light is finding a distraction, some other form of escape apart from drugs. It'll take time, alot of patients and just plain scouring around everything from stuff going on in your area to information sources, use your creative energy in helping find something to distract him. Is he into anything in particular? And I think from there once a new distraction has been established try and get him to see a counsellor or someone about his problems which caused this despendancy to begin with.
A
female
reader, Fifteen +, writes (2 August 2009):
Fifteen is verified as being by the original poster of the questionlegioness,
well i ask him to hang out but i have been trying for two months and i havent seen him at all. he chooses to go be with his "friends" that smoke
weed instead of his real friends that are here for him and always will be. as for the shock therapy thing, he has a perfect example right in front of him. his dad. part of the reason he is depressed, he says he has been for years since his parents got devorced. but i guess i just have to be there for him whatever happens. i certainly do not support his decision to smoke and he knows that because i told him. he also knows that i will always be there for him if he needed me. but he seems to take advantage of the fact that i will ALWAYS be there, because he continuously chooses to smoke rather than be with me. which i understand he is addicted but it still hurts me. well thank you for all your answers and even more answers would be appreciated.
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A
male
reader, LazyGuy  +, writes (2 August 2009):
 Weed and anti-depressant medicine works against each other.
The addictive factor in drugs is that the body starts to compensate for them. As you get a euphoric feeling from weed, your body will release less of its own euphoric hormones because it thinks it has produced enough already.
So you need the weed NOT just for the high anymore but to keep the baseline at the level it used to be.
For someone with depression this means that the highs from weed will not be as high but the downs afterwards will be even lower.
This is the result of all recreational drugs, you start using it to feel better then normal, but soon normal will be worse then ever before and the drugs soon have to be taken just to feel normal again. Not that the person immidiatly notices this, because the normal has gotten so much worse.
Most druggies have to hit rock bottom themselves, have to deal with that on their own before they can change their behaviour. Be to supportive of him and you are just enabling him to hang on in this bad state for longer.
Not that it is easy for him to get out. As said, he needs the weed now as his body has grown used to it. that is what being addicted really is all about. With the ongoing depression, quitting will put him really low.
About the best you can do is try to make him face the cause of his depression, but don't get your hopes up that this is going to work at all. Remember, he is running away from facing his life. Stopping him and making him face it, is not going to happen just like that.
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A
female
reader, Legioness +, writes (2 August 2009):
Be there as a friend, talk to him about his worries and try and help him through his problems, try and get him to do other stuff to distract him from smoking weed, like activities, and not boring stuff either, try bmx'ing or going to play pool, something fun :) and if he continues to smoke it, then try a bit of shock therapy- stories of people who smoke weed and how their life deteriorated etc. Hopefully it'd have an impact and then maybe suggest seeing a professional. All the best x
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A
female
reader, thatgothgirl20 +, writes (2 August 2009):
 He is not solving his problems. He is basically "zoning out." Sometimes depression can be caused by chemical imbalances, but it can also be caused by other things going on, as in actual reasons, actual problems.
Ask him what he is trying to escape from? Problems, or just depressed feelings?
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