“We were not problem users whose problems went away when we threw away our stash. When we stopped using, we found we had a problem with living; we were addicts.”

– Life with Hope, third edition, page 8

I have a living problem. This is both horrible and fantastic news; what is fantastic is that I’m not alone. I am not uniquely failing at the program because I sometimes still massively struggle with living life even though I have put the drugs down; not using doesn’t cure all of my unhappiness.

I might wish it were true that once I put down the marijuana, my life instantly became spectacular and I began floating around on white robes, gravid with wisdom, and smiling at everyone. Instead, I found that I could be a real juvenile jerk at times, outright vicious, and self-pitying at others; only now I didn’t have any drugs to blame!

I heard people in meetings say that their marijuana use had been a symptom of their disease and that their real problem was what was between their ears; that they suffered from uncontrolled bouts of thinking that stood to threaten their life at times.
Getting clean is a delicious miracle. I cannot do anything until I put the drug down. Once I do, though, I can’t afford to stop and pat my own back for the next several decades or so. Getting clean gives me a fighting chance to change my life. I am an addict and that fact doesn’t change when I turn away from marijuana.

Final thought: Today, I will remember that recovery is a delicious miracle that gives me a fighting chance to change my life.