“I started using cannabis as a young man aged 18. I had recently split with my first long term girlfriend, whilst at the same time dealing with several other significant changes in my life such as my family being broken up by my Mother deciding to move her and my sister to Spain, my brother went to live with my Father where there was not room for me resulting in me having no choice but to live with my grandparents, a move I objected to profusely.
It started as a distraction to take mind away from the upside down life I has just acquainted with. Me and my good friend ZH would sit in my car on my grandparents driveway smoking £20 worth of weed every night for the first few months. At first it seemed fun and harmless and that it would soon pass once everything sunk in and began to return to normal. I thought oh well if everyone else does it what’s the harm. It will pass when I am ready. I WAS WRONG.
Before I could realise smoking weed had become a daily occurrence and almost a ritual. It got harder and harder to get through an evening without smoking a joint. By the end of the forth month I had a new girlfriend who also began to smoke it regularly with me. After that I felt it was out of control, I had found something to take away the pain of the sudden life change combined with missing my family and the even the occasional absence of this began to bring out the worst in me once again. It got the the stage where the thought of going an evening without at least a single joint would send me into a deep state of unrest and agitation.
I tried to quit for the first time after 6 months when my Mother pleaded with me to stop. I agreed but the attempt and quitting lasted less than 2 days before I was punching my pillow in sheer anger from the withdrawal of weed. For the next 18 months I continued to smoke weed daily and often in large quantities and surrounded by peers. It resulted in my only really associating with others who enjoyed the drug and several friendships dematerialised as the whole planning of my evenings a was who was I going to smoke with today. After several failed attempts to quit, the longest being 3 weeks before breaking I began to accept that this was my life now. I would spend only 6 months in every job and all of my free money on weed. The more I smoked it the more I hated it but as time went on I couldn’t bring myself to break the habit.
In October of 2015 I met Kerry Williams, a hypnotherapist, while I was out delivering advertising leaflets for my new job. I knocked on her door after spotting the sign outlining her profession. I had my first session with her three weeks later, I was a little dubious about the process and wasn’t entirely convinced by it but thought what harm could it do. After my first session I managed to go three weeks without weed. The first week was beyond brutal in the withdrawal symptoms, I was angry, snappy and sleep was near on impossible prior to 4am, I eventually broke when my friend ZH brought some weed round and convinced me one wouldn’t hurt and before I knew it I was back into the same daily cycle.
It took another 8 months for me to come to the conclusion that weed was a problem in my life, this time it was mainly the effects it was having on my new found career. I was noticing a significant decline in my short term memory. So I took the decision to go and see Kerry again for my second session of hypnotherapy. This time I was determined, nothing was going to stand in my way. This time round I responded far better to the treatment. I was in a deeper state of relaxation and afterwards the thought of weed repulsed just as Kerry said it would. Since that day I have had it smoked in front of me without a second thought of it. I have had one myself a fortnight after treatment and although I felt the full effects of the drugs that I had once loved, the entire experience was a nightmare one that I do not intend to repeat.
Giving up weed may feel like the hardest thing in the world and believe me you’re not in the state of mind where you want to do it then it will be hardest thing in the world. Once you have that winning mentality to finally quit you will do just that, all it takes is a strong will and a single phone call to Kerry Williams at About Mind Hypnotherapy. I hope this testimony on my experiences will be of help to others hoping to win the battle I have just won. Good luck”. Jack