“The truth is that I am a marijuana addict, and I will never again be able to smoke pot like a non-addicted human being…I don’t have any brakes to slow me down.”

– Started Off with a Bang, Life with Hope, third edition, page 113

I didn’t have a hard time accepting I was an addict. After 25 years of consuming copious amounts of marijuana, many of those years on an hourly basis, with the exception of sleeping hours when I would only smoke every two to three hours, I knew I was an addict. The thing that I was reluctant to accept was that I wasn’t ever going to be able to smoke weed like a “normal” human being. Any time I would manage to put together a few days or a couple weeks of sobriety, I would reward myself with a joint, have a few hits, and throw it away. This would be followed by a gradual increase in smoking marijuana. I hung tightly to the idea that I was capable of just smoking occasionally, or just on holidays, if I could just improve my self-control.

It wasn’t until I accepted the idea that to stay clean meant that there would never be any weed in my future, that I found relief. No amount, regardless of how small or how infrequent, would be OK for me. It was OK for non-addicted people, but not for me. Once I let go of the idea that if I could fix my self-control or my willpower and then I would be able to smoke occasionally with control, my life changed drastically. I was one of the lucky ones whose desire to get stoned lifted immediately.

Final thought: Today, I accept that as an addicted person, no amount of weed will ever be OK, and no amount of self control will keep me from relapsing.