Exit, Pursued by Addiction
A Stoner Show in 5 Acts: Now Playing
Performance, Pain, & Escape Artistry.
I managed my pain by using marijuana for years. Emotional Pain. Physical Pain. Spiritual Pain. Perceived Pain.
Perform. Pain. Numb. Escape. Release. Repeat. Perform. Pain. Numb. Escape. Release. Repeat.
I needed weed to survive. I had a regular smoking habit for long enough that it changed my brain function. The reward center in my brain needed weed to be present to release that hit of happiness dopamine. I needed weed to feel good. To the modern human, feeling good is what we’re after in this whole survival game. Sure other things made me feel good occasionally sometimes— but nothing compared to that first hit. That lifted feeling, that sweet release, relaxation, freedom. It was the feeling I was chasing all the time. And the reality is, I needed weed not just to feel good but to also “feel normal.” Any stoner will tell you why they wake and bake like it’s their caffeine (oooh weed and coffee though) because it makes them click and feel normal. Because it does. We don’t consider it “getting high,” it’s just what we do to function and feel good.
The Fantasy of Functionality.
The fantasy feels pretty damn delicious. For awhile. Far better than merely surviving as a function. I used weed to function and survive.
People who smoke marijuana to function daily may have a less visible problem (possibly) than addicts who use other substances. For many marijuana addicts weed didn’t completely destroy our lives. Just our spirits and our mental faculties and our emotional wellbeing. Which can be even more insidious because we believe we don’t have a problem. And neither does society. Because weed isn’t addictive right? We’ve all heard this. And I believed it.
I couldn’t have a problem where it was not possible for a problem to exist.
We believe that we’re crushing it. We have jobs, relationships, awesome lives, all our friends smoke weed and we are living the California dream. We can go on for years believing this. In many ways, smoking weed was one of my favorite things about myself. It helped me connect with lots of people, enjoy social situations, elevated my art making, and allowed me to see the world through a different lens. It was spiritual for me. Weed was my Highest Self.
Again, I couldn’t have a problem where it wasn’t possible for a problem to exist. Because we’re told that weed isn’t even a real drug. That’s what I believed and that’s the argument I touted to anyone who questioned me or attacked my love of green. “It’s not addictive, not a real drug, and there are so many worse things I could be doing, right?” In fact, many people who have problems with “real drugs” and “real addictions” go into recovery or get sober and still smoke weed— or start smoking week as part of their recovery. Many will tell you that weed is what’s keeping them off what they were using before or that what they were using before is way worse than weed. And this is probably totally true.
MA was created in part because marijuana addicts were tired of being laughed at and ridiculed in other recovery rooms for considering themselves to be addicts who needed help. Trying to seek help for a problem society told them was impossible to have: How can you be an addict if you just smoke weed? It’s not addictive and it’s definitely not a real drug. Your life isn’t in ruins like these real drug addicts over here. How dare you act like you have a problem. It’s insulting to real addicts and alcoholics.
The real addicts were busy recovering from real drugs and real problems and I imagine they didn’t want to consider their weed could also cause an issue. Weed was helping them survive and manage their pain. And why shouldn’t it? Harm reduction1 is an effective and compassionate recovery strategy. I used CBD when I stopped smoking weed because it took the edge off withdrawal symptoms and detox. I truly believe that it helped me heal and lessened my cravings to smoke. I am very grateful that I had that tool, and that other’s can use marijuana as part of a harm reduction strategy. Recovering addicts are processing and dealing with a lot. A lot of pain. A lot of unknowns. The first steps to healing and recovery are the hardest, and the most vital. I get why people go “California sober2” when they get sober. The plant is a gift to so many folks in so many ways.
However, the belief that weed is not addictive and not a real drug must be dismantled. Too many of us have lived the experience of marijuana addiction, and have been damaged because of this misinformation. Our stories ought to shape the new narrative and truth we tell about marijuana and marijuana addiction.
We are all just trying to stay sane and stay sober out here. Whatever that looks for each of us. At the end of the day, it’s the choice of each individual to decide what path is right for them. I know I did, and I owe that respect to anyone else trying anything to stay sober. My experience is my experience, I can’t presume to know someone else’s journey. I will always strive to come to a place from non-judgment.
If we become addicted to one thing, we have a propensity to become addicted to another thing. It’s not about which substance, it’s about the behavior and the human underneath.
Numbing is numbing. There is pain. This outside source dulls it, lessens it, fixes it. Provides us with temporary relief.
Relief is not recovery. Relief is a focus on the short term. Relief can be a doorway to recovery if we can begin to see beyond the next craving for relief.
Recovery is a lifetime devotion that is lived every day. Recovery doesn’t seek a fix for the pain. It lives with it. It greets it, welcomes it as part of the whole. Pain is part of what truly heals us. Pain is our forward propellant out of our past and into our lives, now.
“All obstacles are a detour in the right direction” - Gabby Bernstein author, addict, spiritual coach
Behind the Curtain: A New Act
I’m so grateful the stoners all got together in their own room and started talking about their common problem. I’m grateful they didn’t fit in with the other addicts and alcoholics. Everyone deserves a room where they belong and can feel understood. I’m so grateful they opened up about their struggles and asked their fellows about theirs. I’m grateful they started to ask questions about what they had been told. That they started to put their lived experience up against what they thought they knew about marijuana. I’m so grateful they asked for help. That they were brave enough to begin the hard, necessary self-inquiry of recovery.
I am powerless over this substance.
Me too.
My life has become unmanageable.
Me too.
Every time I think I can control it, or stop, or cut back— I can’t.
Me too.
Getting high used to be fun but now I don’t even get high anymore.
Me too.
I feel totally disconnected from myself and other people.
Me, too.
I didn’t think you could be addicted to weed but when I stop I go through crazy withdrawals.
Me too.
I want my life to be better than this.
Me too.
I want to feel better than this.
Me too.
I don’t want weed to control how I live my life anymore.
ME TOO.
Dank Dramaturgy3: Weed Addiction in Action
“Addiction is a chronic brain disease” — Marvin D. Seppala, MD Chief Medical Officer, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation4
My addiction is a chronic brain disease. Chronic indeed. Not only is this ironic pun super potent, but also powerful in helping to shift my understanding of my addiction as a disease that impacts my brain function. I never considered my marijuana use addictive or a disease. Now I can understand that it is both, and that offers me new context, understanding, relief, and self-forgiveness. I was truly tangled up with something I did not understand and was much more powerful than me. Research has revealed marijuana addiction to be a complex illness often referred to as a “bio-psycho-social-spiritual disease because its manifestations undermine all of these aspects of life”. To give this concept more context, let me elaborate on how marijuana addiction manifested in my experience physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually; and how I now understand the true impact of my disease based on my research in recovery.
Things I Wish My Younger Self Knew About Marijuana Addiction
PHYSICAL
I experienced physical cravings and a compulsion to use that would often override my ability to prioritize taking care of my body in other vital ways like getting quality sleep and eating healthy. I was exhausted and stressed all the time. My chronic usage over many years tripped internal stressors in my body because my smoking habit made it difficult for my body to find homeostasis. I developed an autoimmune condition which is stress-induced and I believe was triggered by my prolonged period of using. At the height of my addiction, I felt like my body was having an anxiety attack all the time. I felt like my body was betraying me. I’m sure my body felt the same way about me. I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror.
MENTAL
Marijuana addiction impacts the reward center of your brain and the frontal cortex which is responsible for long-term planning and problem-solving. While I prided myself on my mental acuity and intelligence, I spent most of my time in a diminished mental state where I couldn’t perform cognitively at a demanding level. This lack of confidence in my abilities kept me from pursuing opportunities I was more than capable of succeeding at. I didn’t believe in myself and didn’t trust my capacities. This left me unsatisfied and frustrated but I was unable to strategize a different approach or implement any meaningful change. This impacted my career, my relationships, and my creative work. Natural skills and talents I had started to disappear because I didn’t practice them. Interests in hobbies or activities that weren’t smoking weed, or interfered with my weed smoking were non-existent. I struggled to be a functioning adult on many levels. I found my growth stunted as I remained stuck in limiting behavioral patterns. I struggled to communicate effectively or engage with my responsibilities (like managing my time and money, planning my calendar, organizing my life) in an effective way. I survived day to day and didn’t envision my plans for the future much. I was often not fully present even if I wasn’t actively high. The lingering effects of my daily smoking habit were always present. I lived under a dull mental fog. After living this way for many years I developed a negatively warped sense of myself and my abilities. I had extremely low self-confidence and became discouraged from challenging myself or pursuing any type of intentional personal growth. Fear and self-doubt ran my life. I thought, “this is just who I am.”
EMOTIONAL
It’s hard to convey the deep shame that comes from constantly hiding yourself and your behavior from the world. It was so deep that I often couldn’t acknowledge it myself. I understand now that almost every emotional issue I had was directly tied to my marijuana use, or was exacerbated by it in some way.
It’s soul-crushing to not live up to your true potential. It’s even worse to actively sabotage it and literally watch your dreams go up in smoke.
I was so broken emotionally I couldn’t even begin to put the pieces back together. I escaped this pain regularly through my addiction and ensured that I didn’t have to face it. This is why it was so important for me to maintain my usage. A lapse in using was a terrifying stretch of time where I started to see myself as I really was: depressed, anxious, unhappy, and filled with hopelessness. I didn’t believe or accept that I had a problem, I didn’t know how to fix it or ask for help, and worst of all I didn’t believe that I deserved to feel better. I thought I was unworthy and incapable of living any differently.
SPIRITUAL
Not believing I was worthy of feeling good and being devoid of hope for a better life was my spiritual bottom. I felt like a stranger to myself. I had almost no spiritual connection to my inner self or a higher power. I believed in both of these things but the hopelessness of my addiction made me believe that both were ashamed of me and had no faith in me anymore. That was how I felt about myself.
Yet, I am grateful for my chronic brain disease. I am grateful my addiction impacted all areas of my life. Because of that impact, I was invited to transform in every area of my life. My transformation began about 4 years before I got sober. It began when I started trusting that Spark5 inside of me. When the void got so vast that the Spark was the only thing I could see clearly. The Spark of Light was all I had left to turn to. It shined bright, if ever so briefly. That voice of pure Love inside me said:
“You Matter. You are Loved. All is Well. Trust me.”
So I did. I began to trust that Spark of Knowing inside me. I clung to My Spark like my life depended on it; because it did.
That was the beginning of me finally waking up. The moment I said YES and chose myself for the very first time. Me over Weed. The beginning of knowing myself, of rebuilding trust with myself, and putting trust in a power greater than myself. That spiritual connection led me out of the darkness and onto a path of rebuilding my life.
It’s indeed a miracle that a girl with no spiritual principles found recovery in a spiritual program and now lives every day with spirituality as the foundation for life. I believe the darkest corners of our addictions and ourselves are the brightest places for our light to expand. My addiction impacted all areas of my life physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual— but my emotional and spiritual bankruptcy within myself is what threatened to destroy me. The joy of recovery is that those areas of my life are now the most fulfilling and radiant. My addiction was the true escape artist, hiding me from myself. The glorious second act of my life is the constant and ongoing reveal of my full self every day that I am sober and pursuing recovery.
To Use or Not to Use? That isn’t really the question.
“An addiction is continued behavior despite negative consequences.” — Dr. Nzinga Harrison 6
This seemingly simple definition leaves a playground of space for interpretation. This is why judgment of someone else’s experience or opinion is ultimately irrelevant. It’s all about what you perceive a negative consequence in your life to be. I totally empathize with the story that smoking weed is better than your prescription drug habit (or fill in your addiction here). I think it’s less about whether that’s true or not, and rather about our ability to accept the stages of our progress and recovery evolution.
What was better for us a year ago— does not serve us now— and is totally unacceptable to who we may become in six months. If recovery is an ever-evolving process of Revealing, Healing, Knowing, Reclaiming, and Reconnecting with the best of who we are and can be— and I believe that it is— we ought to be committed to rigorously examining WHY we engage in ANY behavior.
This is not about judging ourselves, others, or our behavior-- it’s about what we believe, what we do because of those beliefs, and how that action impacts our lives. Is that impact what we truly want and need to live fully?
Not the story we tell ourselves about our lives— but the actual lived experience of our lives. Our experiences are shaped by our actions, which amounts to who we will become and the content of our character.
How we are being, how we are connecting, how we are showing up.
Our life is made up of moments and in each moment we have a choice of how we will be: Present or not present. Healed or Wounded. Open or Closed. Contracting or Expanding.
Let us not minimize why addicts use or why anyone reaches for something outside of themselves for Relief. We do it because we are in pain and need relief to survive. Humans have always done this. Survival is hard. It sucks most of the time and we need a reprieve. We seek relief. To fulfill our needs. We chase good feelings. We long for peace. Using substances to fill this void has been a part of the human experience since the beginning. It’s from the earth, it’s natural bro.
Weed is a true chameleon. Weed is a good time, a legit medicine and pain management tool— and weed can also be a textbook addiction.
It all comes down to how and why you use it. Why do you seek relief? What feeling are you chasing or escaping? Only you know where that scale tips.
Only 9% will be amongst the lucky ones like myself who actually become Marijuana Addicts. Smoking weed is not addictive for most people, and casual use doesn’t typically cause major issues— but it has the potential to become an addiction for anyone who uses it.
Addiction is an equal opportunist. Even more so for people like me who believed they were immune because I wasn’t like the “real drug addicts” in the movies or because my drug of choice was a part of the mainstream culture and everyone told me it wasn’t a big deal.
I wish I had known that these beliefs made me more susceptible to addiction because I believed I was invincible. I forgive myself for being young and believing that youth doesn’t have lasting consequences.
Aside: Ode to The Good Times
I mostly wish I had a casual relationship with weed so I could still enjoy getting high from time to time. Most folks can smoke, enjoy, partake casually and never develop a habit. I don’t understand these people, but I envy them. My addict self wants to be them. I pretended to be them for a long time. But Stoner Sara always wants to smoke more— and she is also super annoyed that they only want to hit it once. Like really? Are we out here getting high or what? Pack that shit up and pass it down.
Now that I’m sober my greatest fantasy is to casually smoke weed and be FINE. To get that sweet high of an occasional smoker and live the good life. But that’s not my truth anymore. It’s a fantasy because that’s not how that situation goes down for me. There’s no casual smoking option on my weed menu. That option is not available to me. I don’t get to turn off being an addict. I tried. All addicts have. And we all learn the same lesson. Many before us and many after us will keep trying. Keep taking the same action and hoping for a different result. Or expecting the same destructive result, and just not caring.
So, instead, to those casual green delighters I say— roll one up for me. Burn one down. Get lifted on my behalf. I honor you and wish you the toastiest of bakes. I hope the weather is warm and the tunes are a vibe and the company is chill. I hope there is a beach nearby. That will always be a happy place for me. I never want to leave. I have lived a thousand happy lives in that place. I take all those beautiful fond memories with me— those moments of love and lifted loveliness— more than the dark, desolate, and desperate ones— as I strike out on new adventures.
I am on a different path now and that’s ok. I actually believe that now. I didn’t always. But now I take great comfort in this road less traveled and of my own making.
Character Development: A Workshop in Hope
Now, I seek to not use anything outside of myself for the relief I crave. That need to be seen, nurtured, and known is a spiritual one. I have learned that true relief only comes when you turn inward. Attuning with your Higher Self and the Greater Whole. The high that I experience from being truly lifted from the magnitude of my own Spirit is unlike anything I’ve previously experienced. I don’t ever want to risk losing this connection. I lived without it for so long. I want to be fully present, pain and all, for every moment. That is the feeling I am chasing now. That’s my new High.
I am human. I falter. I want to use. I relapse in my thinking and ways of being. I try to manage the unmanageable. I try to control the uncontrollable. I feel pain. I crave a quick fix. Outside gratification. I want relief. And from what I’ve seen and experienced, that never changes. I try to accept that.
We begin again each day. Each morning we are given new breath, new moments, new pain and obstacles, and new invitations to expand evermore.
Wake up and be present for them. Trust your Knowing. Follow your Spark.
Your Highest Self is waiting for you to say YES.
Harm Reduction: Policies, programs, and practices that aim to reduce the harms associated with the use of alcohol or other drugs.
“California sober” is an approach to recovery that includes drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in moderation.
Addictionary: “If we want addiction destigmatized, we need a language that's unified. The words we use matter. Caution needs to be taken, especially when the disorders concerned are heavily stigmatized as substance use disorders are.” Recovery Research Institute.
Source: A Doctor’s Opinion About Marijuana Addiction. Marvin D. Seppala, MD Chief Medical Officer, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
A Note to the Reader: I capitalize these words because I hold them in reverence and want to signify and honor their importance in my journey.
Source: “Actually, Weed is Addictive.” In Recovery Podcast with Dr. Nzinga Harrison on Spotify.
Wow-so very brave, honest and astute. In all my years of recovery work, I didn't even realize there WAS an MA! I'm so grateful for the much deeper understanding of your amazing journey, and resonate completely with your story- not so surprising given our shared emotional and physical DNA. "California sober" indeed.