Written By, Lee N.
A way to stay afloat. That’s what marijuana was for me. My therapist (cringing at myself for being a living, breathing queer, Jewish stereotype by starting a sentence this way but…if the shoe fits) recently shared with me a parable in which someone had compared their addiction to a life raft. Something to cling to while out at sea — to keep one safe from drowning in deep and turbulent inner depths. The waters of emotion, trauma, self-loathing.
It was early 2020. My former husband and I had split up in December of 2019 and I was, figuratively speaking, being asphyxiated by my feelings. Grief, anxiety, existential despair, lots and lots of good old shame. While I’d never been a big drinker (chalk that up to body chemistry and personal preference), I’d smoked weed casually for years. Mostly with friends, mostly evenings and weekends. In one of the many internet holes in which I often spent my evenings, I came across a clip of a favorite comedian and fellow sassy Jewess. In said clip, she referred to having developed an abusive relationship with marijuana as a coping mechanism while getting through her divorce. I feel quite sure now that this is not how most people start to overuse substances—but for me, a lightbulb went off. I made an intentional choice. I am going to start smoking a crap-ton of weed to deal with this pain. In keeping with my nerdy, over-achieving ways, I decided to become an excellent, Grade A, no-holds-barred pothead. It truly seemed like the best option at the time.
A couple of months later, the pandemic hit, and with it the opportunity to spiral even further into isolation and addiction. I had never been good at rolling joints but took on the task of improving said skill with the fervor of an origami master. As the quarantine stretched from weeks into months, I spent my evenings smoking impeccably-crafted cigarettes on the stoop, communing with the small brown rabbit who appeared in my overgrown backyard at dusk each day (in the gender roles of my painfully heteronormative marriage, my ex had obviously been in charge of lawncare).
To stretch the metaphor a bit further—what happens when we are no longer adrift but continue to cling to our raft? We end up lugging around an immensely weighted, wet and stinky piece of wood. What previously appeared as salvation is now nothing but a burden. And cling I did. My habit did not fade as the initial stages of the pandemic began to wane, as we returned to jobs and social lives and being in close proximity once again. If anything, I doubled down on my addiction, which had now become an integrated part of my personality.
I smoked my way through the selling of the New England Victorian we had renovated, several solitary months residing in my architect grandfather’s modern, echo-y home, moving into a new apartment in the town next door. I numbed out through my first post-divorce relationship, the constant sexual harassment of a corporate sales job, and later, before my serving shifts at an upscale chicken spot. It went on. I rid myself of all my belongings, saved what fit into three large suitcases, and moved abroad. I made new friends, improved my Spanish, and started a small culinary business. I did it all stoned.
I’m no longer interested in shaming or judging this version of myself. I know she was doing the best she could at the time—in her messy, drugged-out, forgetful, and often inconsiderate way.
If you ask me what finally pushed me to make a change, I’m not sure I could give you an exact answer. Failed attempts at moderation had made it clear to me that I had a problem. The aforementioned therapist gently suggested I may want to cut back. A psychic reported to me that my spirit guides weren’t able to get me the messages they desired to due to my constantly altered state.
The truth is, once I opened myself up to the idea of quitting, the universe swooped in swiftly with support. My father’s cousin, a fellow food-obsessed chef, visited Mexico City around this time. With decades of sobriety under his belt, he candidly shared with me his stories. I even helped him navigate his way to a meeting during his visit. When I griped to a dear friend that I had an inkling that a recovery community would be helpful but AA just didn’t feel right for me, she was the one who told me about MA, which I had not been aware existed.
I signed on to my first meeting (quite stoned) on a Tuesday evening in late November. It was an LGBTQ+ inclusive group, and minutes after it began I watched the pages of participants grow and grow—there were dozens of folks. I saw a stunning range of diversity among the little squares—in age, gender, race and ethnicity. Yet we all had one essential thing in common—the desire to stop using marijuana.
This is the part that really felt like a moment of divine intervention, if you ask me. One of the first people to share at the meeting was someone I knew. Not like knew, knew—but knew from the internet. Someone in the food world I was familiar with—who I had followed for years. Someone I held as a role model, to whom I related.
Now, I can’t tell you the chances of this happening, but to me they seem pretty damn slim. If this person could be such a badass, someone I admired so greatly, and also be struggling with addiction to weed—maybe I wasn’t such a disaster after all. Maybe I was just a sensitive, creative person who had gone through a really hard few years. Maybe there was still potential for me to have the life and career and relationships that I dreamed of, to be successful, while also admitting that I needed help.
It’s been close to two months now since that first meeting, and I haven’t had a desire to get high since. Many refer to the “pink cloud” of early sobriety, that in some ways it’s easier in the beginning—with the haze finally lifted, the possibilities seem endless. This might be true, but to be honest, it’s also been hell. Detox from marijuana abuse is real and it sucks. I spent much of the first month sober weeping, trembling, snapping at loved ones, running on little-to-no sleep. Now that my system has started to level out, there’s more to deal with. Emotions I previously numbed, relationships whose foundations are in need of repair, a physical body that requires some TLC. But overall, what I feel most is relief. To be fully awake. To be attuned to myself, my needs and my senses. To be back on dry land once again, alive and unencumbered.
