Drug addiction and alcoholism is a disease. This disease is something that is genetically inherited from our ancestors. No one chooses to become an alcoholic or an addict. Alcoholics and addicts (like me) are generally really nice people. What sets us apart from “normal people” is when we use alcohol or other drugs we develop the phenomenon of craving. There is a point at which someone who has the genetic make-up can successfully stop using drugs/alcohol and not develop the disease. Unfortunately, most of us don’t stop before reaching “the point of no return”. Once this has happened, the individual can no longer successfully use drugs or alcohol.

I had a great time using drugs and alcohol when I first started using them. But eventually I no longer got very much enjoyment from them and felt I had to use them to feel “normal”. As you can tell from the name of this website and the other statements I’ve made, my drug of choice was marijuana. Most alcoholics and addicts have a drug of choice; this is the “standby” or one they cannot go without. Most of the people I meet in AA stated that their drug of choice was alcohol. There were several times when me and my friends tried to get cocaine or other drugs and were unsuccessful. But, marijuana was always there and it was our drug of choice.

By age 25, marijuana was no longer working like it used to. Really all I wanted was to be comfortable in my own skin. My psychiatrist stated (years after I got sober) he thought I eventually would have switched over to pain pills. I guess he took note of all of the statements I made regarding how this type of drug made me feel. Pain pills were definitely one of my favorites because of the energy and overall good feeling they gave me. I used to tell my friends that I could be at work “Smiling” as I was taking out the trash.

If you’re an addict like me and you’re pretty young, the odds of me convincing you that you have a problem are pretty slim. It’s very difficult to convince us addicts that we have a problem when the drugs are still working for us. After you finish reading this article I would like for you to take a few minutes and really think. Look back on your life. When you were 10 years old did you think this was how your life was going to turn out? Are you living up to your full potential or is something holding you back? This was the case with me. In my early teens I was on the computer all the time and at age 16 I had a bulletin board system running at my parents’ house. Once I started using drugs and alcohol heavily, I lost all interest in the thing I loved the most (the computer). I was definitely not living up to my potential and I definitely didn’t think by the time I was 25 that I would be smoking pot all day long and using other drugs just so I could get through the day. Take some time to think.  Think back to when you were 10 years old.