“Many of us spent years trying to control our use of marijuana. We justified our using and rationalized that we could control it…All these efforts failed us.”

– Life with Hope, first edition, page 1

I had to develop a relationship with my powerlessness over marijuana before I was ever ready to admit that I had a problem. It took me years of stepping into the ring with weed and getting hit harder and harder, knocked down over and over, before I came into the rooms and got honest about my addiction. I had a really hard time admitting my powerlessness because in the beginning weed worked for me—it was fun and then it became my medicine that I would look forward to every day. Finally, it became my greatest struggle and a symbol of my failure and broken heart.

Now I have a relationship with honesty and recovery that empowers me each day to stay clean. I have an intimate relationship with powerlessness as a foundational spiritual principle upon which the rest of my recovery stands. I’ve been told that the only Step that one needs to work perfectly is Step One—admitting that I’m powerless over marijuana and that my life has become unmanageable.

Upon that spiritual foundation I build a profoundly powerful life in recovery, full of self-determination and service to others. It’s one of the many paradoxes of my spiritual path—it’s through admitting my powerlessness that I begin to gain real empowerment.

Final thought: Today, I will honestly admit my powerlessness over addictive behavior and upon that spiritual foundation, I will build an empowered life free of addiction.