Before You Start

You've already decided to cut down or stop. This toolkit is here to help you do it, not to talk you into it or lecture you. A bit of groundwork before you begin makes the early days easier to ride out, because you'll know what to expect and why you're doing it. This isn't about willpower or shame. It's about having a plan.

One thing worth being clear on up front. "Quitting" here means stopping. But everything in this spoke works just as well whether you're stopping for good or taking a temporary tolerance break, because the first couple of weeks feel the same either way. The only difference is your intent. A T-break is a planned pause to reset and go back. Quitting is a full stop. If a reset is really what you're after, Harm Reduction's Tolerance Breaks section draws that distinction out in full. The timeline, sleep and cravings advice here applies to a break just the same.

Get honest about your use

Before you set a stop date, it helps to see your use clearly. Not to judge it, just to know your starting point. There's no scored quiz here, only a few questions worth sitting with:

• How much, how often? A couple of times a week looks very different from waking-and-baking daily, and it shapes what withdrawal will feel like.
• What does it cost you? Not just money, though add that up: it's often a shock. Time, motivation, sharpness in the morning, the hiding, the smell, the way it's crept into every evening.
• What's it doing for you? Cannabis is usually solving something: boredom, stress, sleep, a quiet mind. Knowing what job it's doing tells you what you'll need to cover another way.
• What made you think about stopping? Hold onto that reason. You'll want it in week one.

Cold turkey or taper?

There are two broad ways in, and the right one depends mostly on how heavy your use is.

Cold turkey means stopping all at once. It gets the withdrawal over with in one concentrated stretch. For light-to-moderate users it's often the cleaner option: a rough week or so, then out the other side. The downside is that the first few days hit hardest.

Tapering means cutting down gradually over one to three weeks. It can soften the peak of withdrawal, which suits very heavy or long-term daily users, or anyone who's tried cold turkey and bounced off it. The catch is that it only works with a firm plan and an end date. "Just smoking a bit less" with no target tends to drift. If you taper, write down the steps: less each day, or fewer sessions, down to a fixed stop day.

Set yourself up

Pick a stop date and do a little prep for it. Clear out your stash and paraphernalia, the grinders, papers and bongs, because seeing them is a trigger (more on that in Cravings & Triggers). Tell someone you trust, if you can. Quitting in secret is lonelier and harder. Plan for the two things that catch people out most, sleep and boredom, before they arrive. And go in expecting a genuinely rough first week or two, because knowing it's coming makes it far less likely to knock you off course.