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A new leaf
Recovery from marijuana addiction through the human
condition
By
Judy Masterson
STAFF WRITER
The founder of Lake County's only
Marijuana Anonymous group began his dope odyssey in the
summer of 1971 when he smoked his first joint at a Christian
youth camp in Wisconsin.
"It was really low grade weed,"
said. "I didn't feel the effect of the THC (the active
compound in marijuana). But I felt the liberation of 'Now
I'm one of the insiders.'"
More important than the actual inhaling,
Joe said, was the new cultural identification that smoking
pot offered.
"I suddenly belonged to a group of
rebels," he said.
What happened next should have provided a
presentiment of the next 26 years he would fritter away on
getting high. He was kicked out of the camp, sent home on a
slow Greyhound to his disgraced father, an elder in his
church. He was given a lecture and a haircut, but no reason
to stop the habit he was looking forward to acquiring.
Dodging police
In the years that followed, Joe was kicked
out of college, and busted to an early exit from the U.S.
Air Force. While he was never arrested for drugs, he spent a
lot of time dodging police.
"I knew the rules, but I felt I was being
victimized," Joe said.
He went on to hold a decent job, buy a
house and pay taxes — the whole time, getting a buzz-on —
freely experimenting with many kinds of illicit drugs,
including hallucinogens. He was a connoisseur, a free spirit
— he said he liked to think — a maverick who was not
accountable to ordinary rules.
"I had an obsession for the culture and I
used compulsively," Joe said. "There were times I was stoned
every waking moment for years and times I only smoked on
occasional nights and weekends. I went back to school. I
tried to grow as a human. But I was held back by my
obsession with marijuana."
Joe continued to live a normal life on the
outside, but what he calls a subhuman existence on the
inside.
"I could not make consistent, decent
choices," he said. "I was impulsive. I rationalized and made
excuses. My growth, my emotional growth, was stunted."
Then at age 43, after his girlfriend, who
like all the others was married to someone else, left him.
Weed no longer offered an effective
escape. After bouts of heavy drinking and anxiety attacks
after toking, Joe decided to get help.
"I saw that the struggles in my life were
my own doing," he said. "That the crises and the problems in
my life weren't because I was a victim of some conspiracy,
but that it was of my own doing and that I needed help.
Help found
Joe found help, first through Alcoholics
Anonymous then through Narcotics Anonymous. But he felt most
comfortable at meetings of a Marijuana Anonymous meeting
held in Lincoln Park.
"A person doesn't have to be a grower or a
dealer or an everyday user or a hippie from the psychedelic
culture to get help from MA," Joe said. "Just someone who
has problems with their marijuana use and wants to stop."
Looking around for an MA group closer to
home, Joe, now 49, found none. Almost two years ago, he
started a chapter, a group he dubbed THC — The Human
Condition.
Founded in California in 1989, Marijuana
Anonymous World Services started as an amalgam of groups
begun by former marijuana smokers in San Francisco, Orange
County, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle, who felt out of
place in other 12-step or self-help programs.
As marijuana addicts, they had a hard time
identifying with some heavier substance abusers and were
sometimes called "lightweights" by other addicts and told
"come back when you get a real addiction."
Those who seek out MA, find a safe place
for recovery among those who know that marijuana addiction
is nothing to joke about.
"It's easy to minimize marijuana
addiction," Joe said. "It's just a bud. You can drive on it.
You can function on it. That's the fallacy of functionality.
But it stops you from connecting to your potential."
The disease of alcoholism and addiction
are the same, no matter the drug of choice, MA claims. Drug
users use to either lift their mood or to bring it down. The
substance of choice depends on which direction they want to
take and what they've been exposed to.
Different symptoms
But the symptoms of addiction can be
different. Marijuana has a tranquilizing effect with addicts
who tend to be passive.
"It's not the substance that's necessarily
addictive, it's the person," Joe said. "Tell people in
Overeaters Anonymous who weigh 400 pounds that fried
chicken, pizza and ice cream are not addictive. It's a
dependency.
"I couldn't picture my life without
marijuana," Joe said. "I chose my friends based on whether
they got high. When my stash was running low, I would get
stressed out about finding more. It's not just a matter of
using it everyday, but that it occupies a place in your
mind, in your consciousness. I used it to cope with my
feelings and run away from my problems."
Those attending the THC group, which meets
two nights per week at the College of Lake County in
Grayslake, must be clean of all mind-altering substances for
at least 24 hours before they can earn the right to speak.
Members earn clean-time awards. But even if a member
continues to use, he or she is welcome.
How big a problem is marijuana addiction?
MA believes it affects millions each year. According to
Illinois health statistics, 41 percent of 12th graders in
Lake County have used marijuana in the past 30 days.
MA Members range from those who never used
any drug but marijuana to those, like Joe W., who used
everything possible and who could get off everything but
pot.
At a meeting of the THC group last week,
marijuana addicts shared their stories and their struggles.
Todd didn't start smoking marijuana until
he was 27.
"I smoked the next 15 years away," said
the auto-body repairman who grew the expensive herb — a
quarter bag of premium weed can cost $150 — in a cabinet in
his garage under a 600 watt bulb.
Jason, 31, who first used marijuana at age
12, talked of how marijuana addiction had robbed him of
meaning, purpose and ambition.
"I was bored but I didn't want to do
anything," he said. "I couldn't make a choice to do
anything. I'd just get high and go to sleep.
'Doing nothing'
"I put so much effort into — 'doing
nothing' chimed in Todd — making sure no one depended on
me," Jason continued. "I had this delusion that as long as
I'm stoned, I'm living in the present. But I was living in
confusion."
Many of those who come to the THC group,
are referred by counselors and parole or probation officers.
Some are not really ready to quit, which is OK, said Joe,
who focuses on planting a seed of hope for recovery.
"We're about getting clean and staying
clean," he said. "People who don't come to meetings because
they're still using are like fat people who won't go to the
gym or sinners who stay away from church. Where do you go to
be healed?"
MA helps people with the "and then what,"
Joe said. It helps show how to live life on life's terms,
how to fill the void that's created after users stop using.
At nine months sober, Joe earned his first
job promotion in 20 years. Jason said he is no longer
worried about security guards at airports searching his
luggage. And Todd no longer shares his growing secrets.
"When I first came to a meeting I had the
heebie jeebies," Todd said. "Now I'm feeling pretty good."
With the help of MA, by following its 12
steps and finding meaning in its 12 traditions, Joe W. has
found release from addiction. By helping others find the
same release, Joe W. said he's expressing gratitude for his
recovery.
"People didn't reach down into the pit of
funk where I was and pull me out," Joe said. "What happened
was I got to hear them share their experiences before and
during recovery. I climbed out of that hole of the way I'd
been living via the 12 steps. By taking those steps I was
able to stop smoking dope, stop drinking and stop taking
short cuts. I stopped making excuses and rationalizations.
"Recovery has allowed me to attain the
human condition."
Meeting schedule
The THC group of Marijuana Anonymous meets
from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and 8 to 10 p.m. Fridays at CLC
in Grayslake. For more information, call Joe W. at (262)
862-6244. On the Web, visit: www.marijuana-anonymous.org. Or
call 800-766-6779.
Marijuana quiz
A yes answer to any of the following
questions, could indicate a serious problem with marijuana
use, according to Marijuana Anonymous:
 Has smoking pot
stopped being fun?
Do you ever get high alone?
Is it hard for you to imagine a
life without marijuana?
Do you find that your friends are
determined by your marijuana use?
Do you smoke marijuana to avoid
dealing with your problems?
Do you smoke pot to cope with
your feelings?
Does your marijuana use let you
live in a privately defined world?
Have you ever failed to keep
promises you made about cutting down or controlling your
dope smoking?
Has your use of marijuana caused
problems with memory, concentration, or motivation?
When your stash is nearly empty,
do you feel anxious or worried about how to get more?
Do you plan your life around your
marijuana use?
Have friends or relatives ever
complained that your pot smoking is damaging your
relationship with them?
01/26/04
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