I started drinking and smoking pot to cope with social anxiety, fit in, feel more confident, many reasons. I was so young, barely 13! Actually I was 12, I have diaries to keep an account. My parents were rather neglectful so I was able to hide it. I had a lot of freedom as a kid.
I found a boyfriend at age 16 who was into pot. It didn't make me throw up like alcohol but I didn't really like how it made me feel, but I kept trying for 10 years and I started to love it, then I started to use it alone for another 10 years, and I ended up
...a marijuana addict.
Sometimes it felt good and sometimes it felt bad. The thing is I no longer had a choice - I HAD to smoke. I was a daily smoker, many times a day, smoking in the car, at work, at home, with friends.
...my career was in a bar and I could never say no to alcohol or stop drinking at just one (even though I wanted to). I was drinking and driving on a regular basis. This went on for years.
My boyfriend at the time turned from pot to crack and this was my bottom where I had a moment of clarity about my pot addiction, so I tried to stop, and turned to spirituality. I believed in some kind of God and that I had made pot my god. I moved out of the boyfriends and back home, and did a month clean. I found the info in detox at the marijuana-anonymous.org website, a friend had given me that detox pamphlet years before. I coughed up a lot and had insomnia and night sweats like crazy, I even threw up. I went to see the ex and relapsed, and spent a few months with my bong in my car driving an hour to the bar and living with my parents.
I buried my bong. I turned it into a ceremony. I wrote down every bad thing about pot and all the people I had been a bad influence on, becaus all I wanted to do was get high (Oh yeah I racked up $30 grand in debt though I worked, I just HAD to have my weed.) I took me over a year to get some help in 12 step rooms. I was going months at a time without pot, and I found ma-online.org and did meetings online and chat. I went to my first MA meeting at a convention and WOW. It changed my life. I had a week free from alcohol, and identified my sobriety date from the first day sober. I began to realize, I needed to stop drinking in order to be sober.
I was tired of drinking and driving and not being able to say no. I wanted sobriety, I had connected with people who had longterm sobriety in marijuana anonymous, and I wasn't able to go to enough MA meetings because it wasn't easily accessable. So I looked into AA.
If it wasn't for attending AA I don't think I could have admitted I couldn't do this alone.
It has been 3 years since I had a drink or smoke or any other mind altering substance.
In AA and MA WE learn how to abstain from alcohol and pot ONE DAY AT A TIME. We learn that no human power can relieve us of our addiciton. We learn that we have an allergy of the body, an obsession of the mind, and the phenomenon of craving. We learn this together, thanks to the founders of AA who learned through much trial and error what works, and how this program has branched into others and turned from 2 people into millions in a matter of years. MA is awesome because it is for those of us who NEED to be around other pot heads, because we have a problem with pot and MA usually we don't need to try to "prove" that pot is addictive and we couldn't stop and it affected our lives in a way we needed help with.
I learned by working step 1 that I had tried to manage my feelings for my lifetime by using alcohol and drugs. My feelings didn't go away, I just prevented myself from learning to cope with them.
I learned that one drink or one smoke or one binge was NEVER going to satisfy my craving, that only abstaining one day at a time would my body learn to live without alcohol and marijuana.
I learned in step 2 that I had tried for so long to live life without my concept of a higher power and by running on self will I was out of God's will, so in step 3 I learned to turn my will over to the care of God and learn what is in God's will, and trust that I have God's help.
In step 4 I had to look at years of fears and resentments and hurtful behavior and see the pattern of holding onto these things, that I was letting my shortcomings get the best of me. I was allowing myself to be ruled by those parts of me that were not going to help me live a life in God's will, sober. I learned in step 5 to admit this stuff mostly to MYSELF that I had to let God take these things from me in steps 6 and 7, please God remove from me such things as self centeredness, resentments, fears, dishonesty, self pity, inconsiderateness.
In step 8 I learned to look at how those people I resented I had a part in the dysfunction, and to admit in step 9 MY part in all this that I felt so uncomfortable with. I had to admit my wrongs and learn to change them. I am here now with a ways to go.
My sponsor (Oh yeah I didn't do these steps alone, NO WAY) told me I could start steps 10, 11 and 12 right away. I had learned how to take an inventory in step 4, and on a daily basis I could look into my fears and resentments and see MY part in them, and turn them over to God. I could pray and meditate and seek to communicate, share and listen, to God as I understand God. I could pray for God's will, for knowlege of God's will and the power and strength to carry that out. I could share the message of AA and MA to others in whatever capacity I could, and when I started step 9 my sponsor told me when I was ready, I could start to sponsor. I cried. Two days later a woman asked me if I would sponsor her. Giving this gift to someone else that someone has given me is so precious.
(Oh I didn't consider myself an alcoholic, not until I got my 30 day chip did I admit it. I just needed to know I usually couldn't say no or stop when I wanted to stop)
Recovering from alcoholism and marijuana addiction really are about getting out of self and learning to share what I have learned with someone else.
I hope you don't mind me sharing this big long thing with you. I do not want to scare you off. I am telling you what has worked for me and millions others. If you can go out and try to drink like a lady or a gentleman or smoke in moderation, maybe you are not among the millions of alcoholics who use the fellowship of AA and MA and the 12 steps to recover. If you are one of us, you are welcome to join us if you want, the only requirement is a desire to quit drinking in AA and a desire to quit smoking pot in MA (even if you're not sure).
I'm sorry for coming off with a big AA and MA story, this is the only way I have been able to stay sober. I couldn't get sober until I could...
#1 Admit I couldn't get sober and had a problem
#2 Let God and others help me through AA, MA and the 12 steps
#3 Keep coming back, one day at a time, and focus on my progress, not perfection.