Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction

by Judith Grisel

Fortunately, after nine long years pining away, I realized one day that I didn’t crave marijuana. For the next twenty years or so, I relished my freedom! I could be around weed without feeling like the last one sitting at a dance. And then I entered perimenopause and really understood why the drug was on the planet. Though I hadn’t smoked in thirty years, I just knew it would be a perfect antidote to the irritability, hypersensitivity, and frustration with daily tasks that accompanied my transition. During the first few years of plummeting hormones, not only would I have given my left arm to smoke; I’d have cut it off myself and felt as if I’d gotten a decent deal. The craving not only came back but had somehow matured. I even fantasized I would get cancer and a doctor would deem the prescription necessary. Hmmm, a life-threatening illness, but I could toke away! The reason I didn’t start smoking despite my desire was that I knew the delicious escape it would afford me would come at a cost. The things about my life that I’d come to enjoy—my intellectual work, family, and other ambitions and hobbies—would grow pale in comparison to sitting around smoking a bowl.