My name is Suzy and I am a marijuana addict. I haven't smoked pot in over 3 years. I used since I was 12 years old and kept trying even though the side effects were really insane. About 10 years later after I graduated from college I started buying it myself and using alone, and this became a pattern that lasted another 10+ years. I smoked and smoked and went into debt to afford my habit. It was what I cared about most, even though part of me always knew it was wrong and it was f*%$ing me up. I smoked to cope with everything, and my ability to actually cope was so thwarted. I finally hit a bottom when my live in boyfriend turned to crack. I realized I had made pot my higher power, and I wanted to stop. I was able to after a few tries, abstain for months at a time by relying on a God of my understanding. I needed to find other sober potheads and I eventually got into a 12 step recovery program to help me learn how to live life clean and sober

The symptom of using pot doesn't have to continue indefinitely. The 12 steps of recovery is a very good way to get help for pot addiction, especially using www.marijuana-anonymous.org

Going cold turkey, switching addictions to other addictive substances or behaviors, is not recovery from addiction. To me recovery and abstinance from my drug of choice are not the same thing. I get help from 12 step meetings of MA and AA and NA. I get help from following the suggestions there and from a sponsor who helps me take the steps. There are so many people who come here and want to quit smoking pot or think they may want to quit, and I can tell you from my experience that I have been able to be clean and sober for over 3 years thanks to the 12 steps of MA and AA. I read recovery literature and I am accountable to my higher power God and my sponsor and my fellows in recovery at meetings and on the phone and online at places like this. Pot is such a growing addiction and MA is growing, too. At the MA convention this year we had people from all over the US and even had a girl from Denmark, one of the newest countries to start MA meetings.

I want to share with you some tools that help me.

www.ma-online.org for online meetings and a list of MA meetings on land

www.marijuana-anonymous.org for more information

http://www.ma-online.org/newcomer.html the 12 questions to determine if marijuana is a problem in your life

http://www.ma-online.org/anl.html A New Leaf, the monthly publication for marijuana anonymous

http://www.marijuana-anonymous.org/lifewithhope.shtml Life With Hope, the book of Marijuana Anonymous with the 12 steps and 12 traditions and personal stories.

http://ma-online.org/august2005anl2.pdf
Here is a submission I gave to A New Leaf. I wrote this at a writing workshop at my first MA onland experience at the MA convention.

Here is something else I wrote that means a lot to me. It's about journaling.
http://ma-online.org/june2006anl.pdf

I am not saying this is the only way to stay clean from marijuana. I am saying this is how I have done it and hundreds of other sober potheads who I have met on land at meetings, conventions and online at ma.org. My sponsor has 20 years of sobriety next month and she had has been around since the very early beginnings of marijuana anonymous.

Once we get clean part of helping us stay clean is to spread the message to others, but we have to have something to give away. It helps my recovery to come here and share with you some experience, strength and hope.