DOSE:	repeated	smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)
	repeated	oral	Pharms - Clonazepam	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

This is my report of my experience with anxiety attacks from smoking bud and how I got passed them. To me it's an issue that really needs some attention for a few reasons:

1: These anxiety attacks (from what I've experienced) can be suicide provoking. And there are some people (including me) that no matter how unpleasant smoking marijuana might become, they will not quit.

2: No one should have to feel like this when they're around people they enjoy smoking with. It's embarrassing, it's scary, it's frustrating, and it can definitely cripple me if I let it get the best of me.

3: This is not the way weed is supposed to make me feel!

So anyway, on to my report. I used a lot of different substances throughout my *experimenting* period. DXM, Vicodin, Percocet, Marijuana, Alcohol, Dramamine, Benadryl... I stuck mostly to the legal stuff, all at recreational doses though.

The first time I experienced this anxiety problem was while I was on a Christmas vacation. I was with my cousins at one of their houses smoking some bud & watching a movie when it hit me. Everything was calm, we were laughing at the movie, but it just starting coming in waves. It almost seemed in sync with my heart beat, like it was getting more intense with each beat. Eventually I got uncomfortable to the point where I excused myself to the bathroom.

I splashed some water on my face and kept looking at myself in the mirror trying to talk myself down from whatever was happening to me. I figured whatever was going on was only temporary because I had just used a drug. So I decided I'd go back out and try to maintain and ride this thing out. I was good for probably about 10 minutes but the anxiety proved to be stronger than my will. So thinking fast, I took a look at my watch. It was something like 11:20 at night.

So I started thinking 'I'll tell them I have to go because I have to be back at 11:30.' But I figured I'd tell them 12 and try to ride the thing out for a little longer. I sat there, as uncomfortable, paranoid, and scared shitless as I could be until 11:45. By that time it had eased up a little bit, and I do stress *a little bit*. So I told them I had to get going because I needed to be back at the hotel at 12. They took me back with no problems and never had a clue anything was wrong. It was hard to get to sleep that night, and as far as I can remember I was still experiencing symptoms up until when I drifted off. (Probably somewhere around 3 in the morning)

The next very memorable experience I had with this monster was while I was at a party with a few friends. Before we left to go to this party I figured I'd take a few grams of my bud, just incase someone wanted to blaze...

[Before I get too far into this, I feel I should make it known that between the first experience with my cousins and this experience, one of my friends had developed a condition with anxiety. His wasn't drug induced and he had seen a doctor about it and been given a prescription for it.]

So we get to this party and everything was cool. More girls than guys so I was happy :) Anyway, me and one of my other friends found this guy and this girl that wanted to blaze so we went out into the back yard. We packed up a pipe and passed it around a couple times. I was out by then because I figured if I was going to have an anxiety attack, I wasn't going to smoke to the point where I would get a severe one and end up having to leave. The guy and the girl along with my friend finished up and we all went inside. I was feeling good, sippin on a beer when it crept up on me. I knew I hadn't smoked that much, I only had 2 or 3 hits and they weren't that big at all! But just like every other time I got this, it just kept getting worse and worse with every heart beat. And just like every other time I excused myself to the bathroom and conducted my water on the face + talk myself down ritual.

I went back out after a minute or 2 and found my friend I had been smoking with and let him know what was going on. I have to stress the importance of having good friends. The 3 people I was there with are like brothers to me. We always look out for each other no matter what. But anyway, this attack turned out to be one of the worst I've ever experienced. I was with my friend in the living room of this house with a few other people watching TV. I was so on edge that I couldn't even let myself sit down. I was crouching down sitting on my feet (like a catcher in baseball). After a while it got so intense that I told my brother in buds to get my other friend (that also gets anxiety attacks). He came over to me and we talked about what was going on. I let him know that it was getting way too intense to handle in the type of atmosphere we were in and that I might want to leave soon.

So he went and got our other friend that brought us to the party and all 4 of us went into a bedroom to chill for a few. At this point my heart rate had to be at least 110-120 bps, my palms were sweating, my vision was kind of fucked, and any kind of noise I heard made me feel even more uncomfortable. I had this feeling of being detached from myself somehow. I eventually gave up on trying to fight it and told my boys that I had to get out of there. So we ended up taking off a couple minutes later. Halfway home, the intensity of the anxiety died down probably by about half, but my heart was still beating hella fast and I still had the odd disconnected feeling - don’t let this fool you though, I was still scared shitless.

My friend that had the prescription for the anxiety attacks offered to get me one of his pills to see if it would help. At that point I was ready to try absolutely anything to make it stop, so I took the offer. Me and the friend I was smoking with were dropped at my house and my other friend was dropped at his. He showed up about 10 minutes later and gave me the pill. I ate it as soon as I got it and drank a shitload of water over it. I was still in a pretty much full-blown panic when I took it so I got even more anxious about taking this pill I knew absolutely nothing about... except for the fact that it was 0.5mg of Clonazepam intended for Anti-Anxiety purposes. I was also a little skeptical that a pill that contained such a little amount of an active ingredient would be able to phase something like what I was experiencing. But I waited it out and tried to remain completely open to any effects that the pill might've had on me. About 15-20 minutes later it kicked in. For the first time since I'd had this problem, I knew that I had found something that would kick the shit out of this anxiety. The racing thoughts disappeared almost like a cloud of smoke fades.

My heart beat slowed down. And for the first time since it all started, at that moment, I wanted to smoke myself retarded. I felt the weed I had smoked earlier. I felt the beer I had drank as well. And the added sedative effect of the Clonazepam had me in a state of being fucked up that I never wanted to leave. I had a smile on my face and I felt so fucking good! I mean no bullshit all out totally fucking nice.

Soon after that experience, I went and saw my doc and let her know I had been getting panic attacks and insomnia (gotta do your homework in these situations). Since it was my first visit, I didn't want to come off too strong and just straight up ask for a pill. She told me to keep a record of my daily routines and try to find anything that might be causing the condition. Yeah... I knew what was causing it but I damn sure wasn’t telling her. So I went out that time empty handed and went back about 6 months later. I told her how it was interfering with my social life, how my mom had to drive me out to the E.R. on one occasion, and how it's really affecting my sleep (which was all true). We ended up getting into a conversation about it and I ended up telling her that one of my friends had given me a pill and how it was the only thing I had tried that actually left me feeling in control.

She asked what it was and I told her it was half of a milligram of clonazepam. Of course I never admitted anything about recreational drug use. So after a few more minutes of talking, she wrote me a prescription for the pills. As if that wasn't great enough, she wrote it for twice as many as my friend was getting! Everytime I got a sac after that I would take one of those before getting blazed. And every time it did the trick. I eventually started snorting them, they’re actually sweet tasting when they run down the back of my throat! But nevertheless, they have and still do keep me from getting those horrid panic attacks. And in my experience, they seem to put your tolerance for weed a little higher too. But that's how I did it. Before Clonazepam I had tried 5-htp, valerian, kava, and xanax. None of them did anything for me. Honestly, the valerian and kava seemed to make it worse at times.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 35836
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 19, 2006	Views: 78,084
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Pharms - Clonazepam (125), Cannabis (1) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Combinations (3), Various (28)