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New pages being added to this section:

*AMAZING FACTS ABOUT OUR BODY’S OWN VERSION OF ‘POT’

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Young people in abusive homes, or coming out of them, are prime candidates for abuse of any substance or activity that makes them ‘feel good’ or ‘feel better’.  In cases such as mine, I had never had a chance to genuinely ‘feel good’ throughout the 18 years I lived at home.  Once I found substances that eased my overwhelming suffering and pain — that I didn’t even know existed — I was HOOKED.

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Cannabinoids – our own internal ‘marijuana’ system

I want to introduce a topic I am working on.  I will notify you on my progress as I complete the pages.  I assure you, you will have a hard time believing what I am going to say.  I sure did, but all the research backs up the facts.

We have our own internal ‘pot’ system in our bodies.  Nobody ever told me that!  I stumbled onto the research as I searched for topics related to our attachment system, and the research on attachment led straight to what is called our ‘endocannabinoid’ system.  Cannabinoid, of course, relates to cannabis.  ‘Endo’ relates to ‘endogenous’ or ‘our very own, inside our own body’,

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Because our attachment systems are rooted in our own opioid (related to ‘our own opiate’ system), it really didn’t surprise me to find cannabis implicated in our attachment systems, as well.  While our own system is not about the ‘getting high’ part, it is about being alive, staying alive and being well.

Our cannabinoid system is so involved with attachment that it governs attachment of sperm to egg, and attachment of egg to the mother’s uterine wall.  It’s the system that even makes newborns suck!  You can’t get any more essential than that.  Or, can you?

I want to give you as much information as possible, but it does get technical and complex.  I will simplify it as much as I can in the pages I am working on, and I will provide the ‘hot links’ to the references for the research itself.

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I was hooked on pot for many years, and it was that chemical combination that I could not live without that led me into inpatient treatment in 1980.  Back then, nobody believed marijuana could possibly be addictive.  I sure knew that it was.  I could not find any help specifically for my addiction to my drug of choice.  I had to go through a program tailored for alcoholism and then make my own translations to make the information given to me so that it applied to what I KNEW was my problem.

I understand now that I used marijuana to self-medicate.  I had no way of knowing even that I had been abused, let alone any way to know what that abuse had done to me.  I didn’t even know what depression was.  But that is what I was ‘getting stoned’ for, to combat all the feelings including the resulting depression that overwhelmed me.  I didn’t party.  I smoked when I woke up and then ‘could get things done’ throughout the day.  Without it, I could not get out of bed.

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In my own simple way I hope the information I present can combat some of the myths about the safety of marijuana for general use.  I do NOT believe it is safe.  I suspect that when we flood our bodies with an external source of the chemicals that our body naturally produces for itself – to control vital functions within our bodies – that we have to pay a price.   I suspect that “getting high’ has a cost and interferes with our own internal cannabinoid system in many, many ways.  Looking at the facts, our internal system is far, far too important to ‘mess around’ with!

Let me give you an idea of the bodily systems that are controlled in part or in whole by our own natural ‘marijuana’ endocannabinoid system — of course without the ‘getting high’ part of the chemical mix:

Learning, memory, reward, motor regulation, pain reduction, reduces alcohol withdrawal symptoms, can elevate dopamine neurotransmitter levels, regulates growth, energy balance control, is involved with thermo regulation – hypothermia, is in our fat cells (obesity), regulates appetite, food intake, digestion, protects the stomach from stress, modulates insulin release from the pancreas, is involved with signaling in regulation of hormone secretion in the pancreas, fights breast cancer – anti proliferative, cancer fighting, signals the immune system, controls bones and the skeleton, mediates septic shock, helps skin allergies, is part of the sleep regulatory process, is cardio protective – heart protection, neuro protective (protects brain cells), is anti-inflammatory, AND is fundamentally involved in fertility, controls sperm functions, controls signaling for implantation of zygote on uterine wall, regulates fertility, is involved in fetal brain development, central control of key aspects of pregnancy and lactation.

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I will be presenting research in the simplest format I can to support this list (above).  I hope it will inspire readers to follow the links as I give them and do some serious internet searching if this issue is of special importance to you or someone you care about.  Thanks for your patience as I put the rest of the pages together!!

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*AMAZING FACTS ABOUT OUR BODY’S OWN VERSION OF ‘POT’

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