“Step One was the first step to freedom. We admitted our lack of power and our inability to control our lives.”

– Life with Hope, third edition, page 5

Several times over the years, I had the thought that I was a marijuana addict. I would conveniently “forget” or minimize my struggle with weed. How could the substance that I believed took me to mystical heights, had cured my ills and was part of my identity, be a problem? It turns out marijuana wasn’t magic or medicine! It had become madness and misery. I was always on some sort of self-improvement project but nothing worked for long. As life became more unmanageable, I began looking for answers.

One day, I came across Life with Hope and read Step One. Each sentence resonated in the core of my being. How did this book know so much about me and my life? It put words to what I had been feeling and experiencing. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t any of the labels that I had shamefully assumed. I had a disease, the disease of addiction.

I repeated the phrase “I’m a marijuana addict” over and over. I said it at Marijuana Anonymous meetings. I wrote about it on my Step One. It unlocked a door I had been searching for my whole life.

Final thought: Today, I take another step to freedom by accepting my marijuana addiction, powerlessness, and unmanageability.