Marijuana took over and I started smoking it as a release. What happened in those situations?
This year I went heavily into smoking marijuana, taking excessive amounts of dextroamphetamines and drinking. However, marijuana took over and I started smoking it as a release. When using it like this, I became very dependent upon it. I began to notice very peculiar reactions in my mind. For example, I wouldn't be high but as I was driving and sitting in traffic i felt myself moving backwards (i wasn't) but it just freaked me out. Also i began to suffer from loss of memory.
I was lucky to stop just after my birthday in July and have been clean since then. I am just wondering what happened in those situations.
There is no definite or simple answer to a question like this—marijuana is a complex compound of a number of drugs which have varying effects on people.
The main (but not only) "psychoactive" drugs in marijuana are called cannabinoids, and there are about 70 of these in cannabis. A psychoactive substance is a chemical that alters brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness and behaviour. The effect of these drugs on different individuals varies a lot, and different people can be more sensitive to some cannabinoids than to others.
The effects are always subjective; that is, what you feel is always filtered through your own emotions, thoughts, experience, situation and expectations. So what it "does" to you, may be common to most users, or unique to yourself.
You don't need to be "high" to be affected, for several reasons. The first is that you become increasingly less aware of the effects of marijuana the longer you use, or the more heavily you use. That is common to all drugs of dependence, and is called habituation or tolerance. You need more to feel the effects and it seems to wear off faster, but in fact, it is still affecting you, but you are less aware of it and your body has learned to overcome the major effects and keep on functioning more or less normally.
The second reason you can still be affected even though you don't feel stoned or high is that the most active of the drug compounds are fat soluble. You tend to build up a store of THC if you smoke more than your body can absorb or dump if you smoke, say 2 or 3 bongs in a session, more than a couple of times a week. After a few days without marijuana, your body starts to release this stored THC back into your bloodstream.
Thirdly, marijuana has been shown to make long-lasting changes to the brain—memory and concentration are the areas most affected for quite a while after you quit. How sensitive you are to the effects, and the pattern of your use are important, as is how much marijuana you were using, how potent it was, and what other drugs you were using. But the good news is that there is no good evidence that the changes are permanent—they should wear off with time if you do not use.