A New Way to Deal With Addiction

“I don’t need another one.”

That is my standard sentence. I say it whenever I head out to the store to purchase a six pack. I tell myself before I even buy that six pack that six beers is enough. I don’t need anymore. I can handle having a few drinks before bed and I can go to sleep without anything more.

Then, around beer five and a half, I reconsider my position. I latch onto any excuse I can think of. “I’m almost out of cigarettes. I really want corn chips, etc.” Anything that will get me back to that store and in possession of another six pack. Then, I will drink myself into a fucking stupor and the cycle will go on all over again.

I can go a few days at a time without drinking, especially after a particularly hard rock bottom episode. I’ll wake up in the morning still slightly messed up and filled with regret. I’ll decide to never drink again.

Then, two days will go by. Around 5 pm, I’ll start to get the craving for a beer. I’ll decide after a whole two days of sobriety, I have earned the right to cut loose. I’ll go out and but a six pack. I’ll tell myself before I go that only one will be necessary.

“I don’t need another one.”

That is my fucking mantra, but deep down, I know its bullshit. I always know I’ll need another one. I might make it through one day sober, but by day two, I’ll be thinking again. I’ll pound 5 sleeping pills to get me to sleep at night. I’ll drink a half a bottle of cough syrup. I’ll take 14 ibuprofen in a row. Because taking anything is better than being sober.

This is the part where I ask for help, right? This is the part where my reassuring friends talk to me about AA and rehab.

This is the part where I pop another top and tell you to go fuck yourself.

Anyone who has ever been an addict knows that being an addict becomes part of your personality. It’s not about praying to Jesus to make it all go away. It’s not about taking it ‘one day at a time.’ It is about the fact that you are born that way.

There is virtually nothing I can’t get addicted to. I get addicted to pills, I get addicted to booze. For a short period of time, I was addicted to internet porn and masturbation. Mainly, when I’m trying to deal with my addiction to any one thing, I get addicted to something else.

To the assholes out there preparing to send your inspirational suggestions like ‘get addicted to family,’ or ‘get addicted to fruits and vegetables’, get fucked. You have no idea what it is like to be an addict. Being an addict to anything is purely a self indulgent practice. That’s why it’s addictive in the first place.

It’s that thing that is only for you. It’s that time when you get to be selfish. It’s that point in the day where you get a break from the world around you.

There is a good reason that people don’t get addicted to church and family. Because that shit isn’t self indulgent. It doesn’t allow us to retain a bit of self identity. Before you call me selfish for that, I am a human fucking being and I am entitled to retain a bit of self identity.

Also, AA has an 80% failure rate. The next time you go to an AA meeting and start feeling all judgmental and proud of yourself, I want you to look around and understand that statically, 50% of the people in the room came loaded on something. Realize something.  AA is the epitome of the self indulgent. For ten minutes you get to make a fucking speech about being an alcoholic and everyone listens to you. They nod along with you. They pretend to listen. But deep down, you need to accept one sad truth.

Nobody gives a fuck.

The only truly successful program for alcoholics has been something called a ‘risk reduction’ program. In these programs, people with alcohol addictions would replace the booze with marijuana.  Most of the time, it worked.

So now you’re saying that I was just replacing one addiction for another. For that, I say you are 100% correct.

But the difference between my booze addiction and my weed addiction was a world apart.

When wasted on booze, I would call up people I hadn’t spoken to in years and bitch them out for giving me a dirty look or being an asshole in an email. I would attack them in a way that would make them disappear from my life forever. I burned bridges.

When wasted on weed, I would smoke a joint and watch Twilight and spend the majority of my time wondering how Robert Patterson got his hair to stay like that.

While addicted to booze, I got really depressed one night. I pulled out a revolver and played a game of six chamber Russian roulette with myself. Every time the chamber clicked empty, I was a little more disappointed.

When wasted on weed, I made a gun out of Playdough, and then I ate it.

My behavior on alcohol and weed were a world apart. They might have both been mind altering drugs, but they came with very different side effects. On marijuana, I was in no danger of hurting myself or anyone else. On alcohol, everyone around me was in danger.

I don’t want to be like this. I didn’t ask to be like this. But the sad fact is, I am a fucking addict. Idiots who dare to tell me that I should get ‘addicted to life’ or ‘addicted to doing good’ don’t even remotely understand the position I am in.

Let me make this clear. 12 steps won’t help me. If you look at the statistics, they don’t help anybody. AA won’t help me. I am a non religious person who is uncomfortable speaking in public. While AA might claim to be secular, let me promise you, they have a 100% religious oriented atmosphere. It’s kind of a bitch to ask someone who doesn’t believe in a benevolent god to ask for help from that god that they don’t even believe exists…

What does help me is marijuana. It keeps me from hurting myself and it keeps me from hurting others. It keeps me calm and it keeps me from doing shit that I can’t take back. For all you anti-marijuana crusaders out there, you have no idea what it is like to be me. You have no idea what is is like to get addicted to anything.

And you don’t get to tell me how to treat that addiction.

I believe in the power of weed. Marijuana allows me to live a normal life without feeling like I need to kill someone or tell them off. It prevents me from feeling like I am controlled by a substance.  It gave me my life back.

When I’m saying “I don’t need another one,” a joint nods at me from my lap and agrees. It gives me a little more control over my life.

I will never be free of addiction. There will always be something that whispers to me ‘come on Essa, just one more.’ But when I have marijuana, I look at that ‘one more;’ and I say ‘no thanks’. That gives me the clarity I need to keep on fighting and keep on writing.

So god bless the Marijuana Policy Project. We change laws but we do it on behalf of the individual. If you’re a voter in Florida, then do a little something. Make a vote that will make medicinal marijuana a viable medical option.

Because addiction is an illness, and no man should be allowed to tell another man how to treat that illness.

Until then, I’ll be here, fighting the good fight. Rock on.