Liz Benton recently quit weed after smoking it at least once a day for seven years — and the first week was especially brutal. Within two days of quitting, she experienced a panic attack. She struggled to fall asleep, and when she did, she’d have horrifying nightmares, or wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat.
“My anxiety was through the roof,” Benton — a 33-year-old Oakland resident — recalls of her experience five years ago. Her head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, and her stomach felt queasy. She couldn’t bring herself to eat. Her symptoms finally subsided roughly three weeks later, but it took a full month for her to feel like her normal self again.