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I stumbled upon an old PSA from the 1980s warning kids to stay away from drugs, with a specific recommendation to avoid marijuana at all costs. It used the phrase “gateway drug.”
I laughed. I remember as a little kid being scared away from weed, and I didn’t light my first joint until college. The entire time, I had this deep fear that if I smoked any weed, I would have no control over what happens after that.
That was a pretty good instinct now that I think about it. I’m not sure if it’s because the ad scared me away… or if some part of me, deep down, knew that there were no single thing that was a gateway drug for me—because they were all gateway drugs! It wouldn’t have mattered what order I tried alcohol, weed, pills, whatever—I was going to be an addict.
I should just say right here that one of the most frequently-asked type of question I get is how I feel about the drug war, the opioid crisis and legalizing pot. I think because I am an alcoholic and an addict, people assume I want everything to be illegal or at least have strong opinions about those topics.
I don’t. The strongest opinion I have is that I cannot under any circumstance do any of those things. But I actually don’t have much of an opinion about whether anybody else can. I know most of the population can drink and not have their lives become unmanageable, so hey, go have a good time, guys—I won’t be joining you!
I don’t really vote or protest for or against any of those things. I just know that they do not work in any way for me. I guess if I had to say something about my viewpoint, I would say that I have done a lot of work involving inmates who had a desire to stop drinking and drugging, and many of them are in prison because of drugs and alcohol. And some of them are in prison based on laws and sentencing guidelines from decades ago, not from 2022. So it is important to me the way we show forgiveness to people who make mistakes but want to do better.
Let me get back to the gateway concept because I find it still applies in my life. I accepted a long time ago that alcohol and drugs were terrible for me and I need to totally abstain. That even goes for non-alcoholic beer. I just cannot go through any of the motions of drinking booze, in any way, because I think that could be a gateway back.
I also cannot smoke or use chewing tobacco any more. I had a pretty nasty nicotine habit when I was an active addict, and nicotine, drugs and alcohol are too wrapped up together for me to ever go back to nicotine. In my head, they all party together.
I also cannot do any kind of gambling, even lottery tickets. It was never my biggest problem, but I did like the way gambling made me feel. Now that gambling is legalized in over half the country, including the state I live in, I have to be very careful to avoid all the apps and online casinos and real casinos. As somebody who watches a lot of sports, I feel like I am getting drilled in the face every 30 seconds with a new opportunity to spend all of my money on football games and UFC fights.
So overall, when I think about my sobriety, I think about it like a big road that I am on. I know where that road is going. I know what it takes to stay on that road, and it ain’t easy. I get tempted all the time by the stuff I already mentioned. But those are gateways to get off the road I need to stay on and try a different one. And I can’t do that.
As I wrote this one, I did look at what was a pretty long list of stuff I can’t do and I felt a pang in my stomach like, “Oh man, that’s all the fun stuff! I can’t do any of it.” That’s not true. That’s the bad voice in my head. The truth is, there are a million ways to enjoy life other than that list for me. I just need to do it without a non-alcoholic beer in one hand and some scratch offs in the other!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
SENILITY PRAYER:
God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked,
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
And the eyesight to tell the difference.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, August, 2005, from Cindy C.)
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