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For my entire life, I can remember a common debate between people around the question of, Is weed addictive?
I get asked that quite a bit, and I have my own answer to that question. But I’ll answer broadly first.
Weed usually sparks some very interesting conversation, with a wide array of responses. The general consensus seems to be no, marijuana is not an addictive substance, and that certainly seems to have picked up steam over the past 20 years or so as marijuana laws have been significantly scaled back. I’d say I am out once a week these days and encounter a weed cloud in a public place where I don’t remember that happening before. It sure seems like at least 51 percent of the general public is pretty chill about putting marijuana in a separate category than cocaine, opiates and other drugs.
There’s also a key distinction that I run into a lot when talking with normal, non-alcoholic/addict friends—the difference between physically addictive and mentally addictive. Is weed physically addictive? The verdict seems to be no, you won’t have physical withdrawals if you stop. But are donuts physically addictive? Is money physically addictive? Is love physically addictive? Probably not, right?
But does a person with an addictive personality come to rely upon them in an unhealthy way? In my experience, yes, that’s possible. So is a donut addictive? Lots of people would say no. But for an addict like me, if I eat 10 donuts every day and think I can’t live without them… well, look out if you try to stop me from my donuts.
OK, now let me give my personal answer, which—sort of—came up recently at a doctor’s visit for me. As I have written about many times before, I had the ends of both amputated 20 years ago. I’m doing well these days, but my feet are a significant disability that cause me pain every day. I got a new podiatrist, and she is awesome. She’s about 40 years old. Super smart. Super energetic. Her office is cool and upbeat and seems like it is run by a cool 40-year-old doctor. When I told her that I am in recovery and don’t want to mess around with any sort of medication, she had a very good understanding of what I was saying to her. I’ve had doctors who listen to me explain my past and then they nod their head and say, “OK, we’ll keep you off morphine but here’s a prescription for 300 Vicodin.” Not her. She got it.
Well, at least I thought she did. At the end of the conversation, I mentioned that my foot pain keeps me up some nights, and she said, “Just take one or two Benadryl. That will help.” I said that I didn’t think that was a good idea, and she said, “Just take one once in a while. Not every day.” I still said I didn’t want to do that, that I had messed around with Benadryl during my active drinking and drugging days and that I had abused it.
She said," “Well, you’re sober now, so you know now to do that.”
I ended up just nodding my head and saying I’d think about it. But I couldn’t believe it.
What she was missing is that for somebody who is an addict, such as myself, everything should be treated as potentially addictive until proven otherwise. I drank and did drugs because I wanted to change the way that I felt. Was there physical addiction, too? Yes, eventually. But it was a two-pronged addiction that involved my mind and my body.
So to come back to the original question: Is weed addictive? I don’t know what the medical journals and rehabs will end up saying about that 50 years from now. I never did much weed and didn’t enjoy it when I did. But when I think about whether weed is addictive, my answer is yes… for me!
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:
HEARD AT MEETINGS: “At first I thought the ‘God thing’ was a crutch. Turns out to be stilts.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2001, Mark)
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