Dakaholic in New Zealand

By Bern G.

My name is Bern, I am a marijuana addict.

I was born in a small town in the central North Island of New Zealand (NZ). Looking back it was an area that was beautiful to grow up in, especially when I consider where others must grow up. My parents were role models of healthy emotions, moderate drinking and gambling, and fairness in dealing with others. They went without things to put me and my three brothers through education, and supported us in sports and cultural interests.

When I first had access to alcohol I loved it, and tried to get drunk thereafter. At age 17 I finally had an opportunity to smoke marijuana (“dak” in New Zealand), and although it seemed to have no effect the first time, I kept trying until I learned how to get high. I left university and teachers’ training college before finishing, and hitchhiked around the country reading Lord of the Rings from my backpack visiting “friends” and using their booze and drugs until asked to move on. I grew the hair, wore the clothes, and played the hippy role from then on.

I faced willful damage charges in court. “You are aimless … drifting….” said the Judge. Relationships with women bred lines like “you druggie”, “you drink too much”, “can’t you have fun without marijuana?”. So I finally got to a detox ward and on to a residential treatment centre where I was very careful not to mention my marijuana consumption. I was stoned the first day out, and within a month I realized there was not enough weed around so…..back to the booze.

For the next ten years my friends were decided by who had dope. I looked up to those who could supply me with better and stronger weed. The types I hung out with to score from were not people I felt comfortable with. Scoring weed was the only reason to be around them.

I married, fathered five children, and remained booze-free for most of ten years, but was using dope daily, especially in the workplace. Then came a fatality in the workplace and paranoia on my part. I was stoned that day, not unusual. But I believed that weed didn’t impede my actions or decisions when I had gotten used to machinery sounds while under the influence. I was the supervisor of several workers but happy enough just being stoned. I believe today that if I hadn’t been using dope regularly I would have had the guts to point out that a safety guard was not safe at all. However in the days following the tragedy that came from that, I came to understand what “paranoia” really means. I needed help after a week of headpoison, and could not contemplate giving up using. In fact my cannabis consumption increased but with less effect.

So I talked with a counselor, who I think was quite shocked at my revelations. I saw him once, and didn’t go back. This was the turning point. I no longer pretended that I could control marijuana. I continued to use marijuana more rather than less to treat the shock. I needed it totally. I used whether I was happy or sad. I used because I couldn’t see myself NOT using. I became moody to live with, happy when I had a stash hidden somewhere, morose and self-pitying when running low or out of weed. I was unreliable, telling lies about my using, the amounts, and the people I had been with. When my wife was having our fifth child I travelled 100 miles to score and left the kids in the car with the dog guarding them at 3am while I dealt with the dealer and tasted the buy for over 3 hours.

I went through separation and divorce— drugged and drunk, unemployable, untrustworthy and uninterested in improving myself. Even the broken-asses I hung out with now got sick of me, and I couldn’t afford any more geographical shifts. I’d lost it all, encountering the hospital, suicidal thoughts and selfdisgust. Smoking larger amounts all day and night had built up my tolerance so that it had little or no effect and I had to score more to use more. It wasn’t working and I found myself back in court.

Then came another detox, and another residential treatment at rehab for ten weeks. I was determined to NEVER drink booze again, but was smoking weed within weeks, only to drink not long after that. Those around me looked at me with disdain, with distrust.

My new girlfriend flew away to another country. God help me. I was totally alone and remorseful. I’d hit rock bottom. Loved ones had left me over the years because of my marijuana and alcohol abuse. I hated myself for lack of control and for fear of giving it up. I knew where to seek help this time, and had to do so because the pain of stopping was finally beginning to appear less than the pain of using. I last used any mind-altering substance on 4th June, 1991.

I was accepted into a support house system after yet another detox and had months of slow improvement and caring peer support coupled with professional counselling. The first six weeks were a blur of night and day sweats. My sleep was full of vivid dreams and some nightmares. I had “Electric fleas,” aka itchy skin. It was an emotional rollercoaster of very high ups and extremely low downs. I got the shits at the drop of a hat, and missed dope like it was my lover. But I didn’t use; not marijuana or booze or pills or gambling or sex. I stayed clean. With the help of those around me who were doing it, had done it, and wanted to do it. Several times I packed bags and headed for the wild side, but my peers stayed with me and I reminded myself that I am a slave to the drug. I attended many AA and some NA meetings.

I discovered Marijuana Anonymous. God, I didn’t want that. I knew I had a drinking problem, but surely good old soft marijuana can’t be THAT bad…not. At my first MA meeting I knew I had to close the door on my denial of dope. I felt sad and devastated that my good friend “dak” had to be let go, angry that I had attended MA, yet grateful that I had finally done so.

I have regularly attended Marijuana Anonymous meetings for the last 33+years. By believing in the long timers’ view that the 12 Step Program works, slowly incorporating those steps into my life, living “one day at a time” especially when the big things happen around me, learning how to respect others AND MYSELF, and being willing to accept that recovery can be greatly strengthened, I have not had to use dope even once over that time. Me, the cannabis kid.

Marijuana is all over New Zealand. It has been in every workplace I’ve been in for years. Dak has such a special place in NZ, so MA should have a special place too. I read the foreword of Life with Hope, that NZ was the first nation outside USA to have MA.

I don’t care at all whether dak is ever proven addictive by the medical world – I know it is addictive for ME, as are gambling, booze, and many other behaviours. MA membership has provided me with new friends, most of whom respect me, care for me, tell me truths, and laugh honestly. They have shared their joys and tragedies, life milestones of birth and death, and dumb jokes. My new friends showed me that returning the favour is also part of recovery, and pushed me into service, opening meetings, putting chairs out, preparing literature, boiling water for tea and coffee. The next step seemed natural, after my first year of sobriety, I was elected to the District Committee of a Service Centre, learning how to attend to other groups and feeling that I failed miserably, but picking up the pieces and carrying on because that’s what you do in recovery, without using. Learning how to step back and let others make the same mistakes, and all the time trying to share, especially at meetings what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.

Today I am married. I drive my own car, with a license in my name. I am sponsored and I sponsor. I smile when I see policemen. I speak as truthfully as I can, even if I know the listener may dislike what I have to say. I am not perfect, God knows I am not. I strive however, to live the way I want to be when I’m an old man: sober, caring, not a burden, humorous, attentive, empathic, alert, spiritual, helpful, and not a fool. I go to social occasions and enjoy the hell out of playing in game nights with stoners; I just love it. I don’t care anymore who knows I am in recovery, but I never volunteer the information unless pressed. I respond to genuine calls for help day or night, and my wife understands that I need to do this. I never talk to those under the influence of booze or drugs, and if they are stoned or drunk, I ask the caller or visitor to get back to me tomorrow. My parents trust me again, my wife trusts me again. I trust me again.

I was given two lives on this planet. I am enjoying the second one as much as I should have loved the first one. I am grateful, so grateful. Thank God, whatever THAT is.