Cannabis Use Disorder
"It's just weed" is one of the more honest sentences in the language — and also one of the most exhausting things to keep saying about something that's been waking you up every morning for two years. We're not here to argue legality or culture. We're here for the part where you can't quite put it down.
Cannabis became legal in California in 2018, and the shape of cannabis use changed quickly afterward — higher-THC products, edibles, vape carts, daily and multi-daily use. Cannabis Use Disorder is real and is now widely studied. The criteria look familiar: tolerance, withdrawal, using more than intended, difficulty cutting back, social or occupational impairment.
What this can feel like
- The first thought when you wake up is when you'll smoke or vape, and the second is whether you can wait an hour.
- You don't sleep without it anymore. You haven't in months.
- You've quit "for a week" three times this year and each time the irritability hits harder than you expected.
- Your appetite, your motivation, your mood, and your timeline have all gotten harder to track.
- You're high more than you mean to be. The line between "tonight" and "all day" has gotten porous.
- Your partner has stopped joining you. Your kids ask about the smell.
How therapy can help
The strongest evidence base for cannabis use is in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Enhancement Therapy, and Contingency Management. CBT works on the moments and thoughts that lead to use — boredom, social anxiety, sleep, mood. Motivational work respects your ambivalence (which is real and valid) and helps you find your own reasons.
Group therapy is particularly useful for cannabis because the cultural messaging is loud. A room of adults working on the same thing — without moralizing about whether or not "it's a real problem" — re-anchors what you're actually trying to change. We expect this group to feel different from any "anti-drug" thing you've encountered before.
Cannabis withdrawal is real (irritability, sleep disruption, appetite changes, low mood, sometimes vivid dreams) and usually peaks in days 3–7. Knowing that it's a finite physiological process, not a personal failure, is part of what makes the second week possible.
You don't have to figure this out alone
If you've been quietly trying to cut back and it keeps slipping — that's exactly the spot we work with people in.