Colorado and Washington Marijuana Legalization, Bad Policy Like Alcohol

By Alexandra Datig

The political climate and hurricane Sandy created the ultimate distraction in the Presidential race and the perfect storm for marijuana advocates.  For the presidential candidates, there was no time to speak about anything that was not a campaign issue and no one seemed to remind the people of Colorado and Washington State that the president’s policy on marijuana legalization is opposition to legalization.  If anyone did, they clearly fell on deaf ears.  President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney had similar positions in opposing legalization of marijuana for recreational use.  Why did the local media choose to ignore White House policy?

Last Tuesday’s passage of recreational marijuana use in the state of Colorado and Washington State has now directly confronted us with the question marijuana advocates have long been asking.  Is it time to take a closer look at our drug laws?  After 40 years of fighting to legalize marijuana politically and 75 years of trying to undo marijuana laws legislatively, was it time proponents finally got their way? 

I have been evaluating both sides of the spectrum for some time now and I think with the exception of few, neither side fully understands their own argument.  Many understand policy, many understand laws, few understand politics and hardly anyone understands recovery from addiction from the recovering person's perspective.  

Does it make sense to be a drug prevention advocate, clock out at five, go to a bar and have a few drinks? Then, go back and argue marijuana should not be legal like alcohol?  Does it make sense to be a drug legalization advocate and not have a plan on how to treat people who get addicted because recovery is broken?  Does it make sense to ask for treatment instead of jail when the 12 Step program, which is used by over 70% of recovery establishments, has a 3-7% success rate? 

I am almost 14 years sober and that means I walk the walk.  It is easy for someone to pontificate that people have a right to be high.  It is also easy to tell people never to use drugs.  But it is shortsighted for proponents who go before the people to get their vote, not to figure out a workable solution for those who become addicted or are forced into treatment through a court order.  I have been saying this for years and no one seems to be paying attention to the fact that recovery is broken! 

The passage of the Colorado and Washington measures may feel like a victory for some and a defeat for others.  Whatever the case may be, we are still dealing with state laws that challenge the supremacy of the Controlled Substances Act under which marijuana is deemed a Schedule I drug, with a high potential for abuse.  In my view, the legalization agenda is a misguided idea that can best be compared to walking a tightrope without a net.  Those who tried to prevent it put up a good fight for a noble cause and for this we must thank them.  


When drug legalization advocates say we are going about the drug war the wrong way, they may have a point.  But in my view, their way is the wrong way because if we don’t fix recovery and legalization efforts continue, we will continue to allow them to destroy America from within.

Women Are Invisible In The 12-Steps

This video is a good example that the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous need to be brought into the 21st Century. While Father Joseph C. Martin is doing a wonderful job in this video explaining some of the mechanics of the 12 Steps, it is clear that women have no place in his dialogue. Why is that? Why did the founding fathers of A.A. not look after women as they did after men? We know women suffer from alcoholism just like men do. 

 After many years of clinical research and findings, recovery experts have discovered that recovery can be gender specific and that women find recovery better in women’s groups and men recover better in groups for men. Would recovery be gender specific however, if the basic text of the 12 Steps included both genders when making reference to actions taken by an alcoholic? Or is the separation of genders a result of the seemingly discriminating text of the 12 Steps?

 

Drug Legalization Would Condemn Addiction and Recovery

It is quite unsettling how in the last few years the voices of the drug legalization movement have been making every argument in favor of drug use, while ignoring the consequences of addiction.  At the same time those opposing drug legalization have also let their voices be heard in opposition to this and rightly so.  Yet there is still a major void in the discussion in terms of recovery and most people in recovery with the exception of an uncounted few, have decided that it is best to stay out of such a complex and messy debate.  

Additionally, it is quite troubling that while we lack real solutions to the problems of addiction that can work for everyone, there are those who turn a blind eye to this reality.  Make no mistake about it; addiction is pure hell and in the mind of an addict, the language of our disease has nothing to do with whether drugs are legal or illegal.  We wrongly think about whether our drugs are easy to get, if we can afford them and whether and for how long we can hide our drug use from those we love.

The most tragically convenient thing that could happen to a drug addict, would be that drugs were legal.  Legal drugs would feed the addiction and would keep an addict afflicted, numb and out of touch, which is most simply put, part of the nature of addiction.  That is until the addiction kills because we can be sure about one thing:  A real addict is not someone who sees him or herself actually quitting.  Ever. It takes serious measures and even consequences to change the way we see things. 

Our greatest social problem is that addiction has it’s own dialogue and is in part socially condoned.  Take for example so-called “Medical Marijuana.”  People who know they do not meet the criteria of a seriously ill cancer patient, that “just want to get high”, are willing to call themselves patients, lie about aliments so they can obtain a doctor’s recommendation and have not a moment of conscience about it.  By condoning this behavior, we are raising a new breed of liars who are not willing to own up to their behavior.  

If we don’t draw the line and send a message that this is not acceptable, we will keep on condoning drug abuse through inaction.  Legalization of drugs would be the ultimate condoning of such inaction and would reward the disgraceful behavior of those breaking drug laws. 

Owning up to drug use means calling things what they are.  Owning up to our behavior in recovery means surrendering to the game of drug abuse and stepping into life on life’s terms.  In recovery we have to own up to who are, who we were, what we were and who we have become because of it.  As we grow, people in recovery find that there is a worthwhile life waiting for us if we are willing to take charge of our life and grow towards becoming mature human beings with a purpose. Drug legalization crushes such promise.

Why Community Based 12-Step Programs Fail

I am one of those few people who got sober through a community based 12-Step program which has a success rate between 3%-7%. Just getting sober is hard enough and when taking the community based approach the caveats and labels are endless. Over the last few years I have been doing a lot of complaining about the rate of successes and failures of the 12-Step approach to recovery at the community level. I am not alone. I have felt this way about the 12-Step program for a long time and would like to point out some specifics about this. First, I need to be absolutely clear about the fact that I truly believe the 12-Step approach does have effective tools for people in early sobriety. However, as people earn more time in recovery they often find out far too late, after he or she relapses, that the 12 Steps that get people sober, do not keep them there. Over the years, as research on substance related disorders and recovery have gained ground, we are learning that people are dying at a far more rapid rate from relapse when compared to first-time use. For this reason it is even more critical that community based 12-Step programs are better evaluated.

Friends and family who watch an addict destroy his or her life feel tremendous relief when their friend or loved one who had almost succumbed to drug abuse finally enters the rooms of recovery. The hope is often short lived however because many who seek recovery who enter these rooms, quickly realize that everyone in these rooms is looking for the same answers and that they are all extremely desperate. While some of the real answers lie in the program of the 12 Steps, this is often not realized. The 12-Step approach has gotten a limited number of people long term recovery and for many who cannot afford to look deeper into his or her own recovery, getting real help is an impossible and financially unattainable dream.

Getting right down to the bottom of it however, when I was a newcomer in a community-based 12-Step program, I really found that I was victimized by a lot of people and found the program to be predatory, sexist and abusive to women of all ages. Sitting in women’s meetings and reading outdated text materials where every action and inaction was written in the masculine form was and is really quite offensive and of little help to any woman suffering from addiction, which also causes depression among other serious conditions.

It amazes me how a 501(c3) like Alcoholics Anonymous, which is tax exempt, cannot afford to, or will not properly edit material that is suitable and relates to the sensitivities of today’s reading audience, both male and female. The fact of the matter is that the basic text of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous has not changed since 1934, which was written during alcohol prohibition, which began January 6th, 1920 (18th Amendment) and ended December 5th, 1933 (21st Amendment). It would certainly be reasonable to believe that anonymity (A.A.’s 11^th Tradition) was a probably a good position to take during prohibition. However, these days talking about alcoholism or addiction openly, without rendering a person “hopeless” and damaged goods, is becoming a far more preferred trend because the public is beginning to see that real help is only for those who can afford it. Therefore, if we are going to help everyone, a more open and honest dialogue about the real causes of addiction is a path we must take.

There is an extremely dictatorial tone within the rooms of 12 Step meetings. Members request, even demand that a newcomer get a sponsor, yet among all the “approved literature” there is only a small pamphlet and no comprehensive book specifically geared towards sponsorship. Sponsorship is a serious responsibility and can be a real liability where freely handing out advice on how a person should manage his or her life is risky business. Too risky for A.A. it seems. Sponsee and sponsor relationships have unwritten mandates, accompanied by absurd rules that conflict with the personal decision making process of rational people who know they want recovery.

I remember falling for this idea in my first year of recovery and ending up getting “advice” from a mentally disturbed women who spoke in riddles and of her collection of angel figurines. She wanted to make pasta formed like angels for us while explaining to me how to live a sober life. She often mentioned how little money she had which made me feel sorry for her and so I even gave her money, something I later found out was against the unwritten rules of which there were many. She kept baiting me in with "more will later be revealed" which was spellbinding. My so-called sponsor also called my residence at seven in the morning, demanding from my then fiancé that I get on the phone because I must be going to a meeting right away. She harassed him right out of my life, telling him he was a negative influence on me and telling me if I stayed with him I would drink again. Me being new and extremely gullible, I believed every word and my engagement ended up in a “War of the Roses” style break up.

The fear and scare tactics of “if you don’t wear your hair up, you’ll drink again. You should not be in a relationship in your first year.” Or “if you don’t clean dirty coffee pots and get a commitment, you won’t stay sober” made little sense to me. But I “took direction” and “abandoned myself” as I was told, did just about everything I was asked to do, abandoning my life, passions, a real job with real responsibilities, all to appease my various sponsors which I eventually all fired.

Then I read the book that made me see things differently. It was written by a guy named Chuck C. and it’s title was “A New Pair of Glasses.” This book was about self-sponsorship and that is what I ended up perusing and it has served me well so far as I have never relapsed. From exploring other areas of self-help, I learned that if I don’t expand my knowledge on recovery beyond the rooms of 12 Steps meetings, I would be stuck forever serving an establishment that offers little hope in a big city like Los Angeles. Rather than spend all my time sitting in wobbly chairs that hurt my back, in dirty rooms, day in and day out, waiting to help someone, I decided to help myself and get a real job, a career, and go back to school to earn an undergraduate degree. It made me realize that my true mission in life is like anyone else’s. To become a dignified, useful member of society and help solve problems by applying valuable skills, while exercising compassion and understanding for my fellow man and woman.

We should be cautious to accelerate anyone into a program of recovery too quickly by making him or her learn faster than they can process the information. Getting toxins out of the body is a very unpleasant experience as it is and the force-feeding of categorical and God forbid unrealistic demands can do more harm than good. It is my true belief that recovery should be governed by the mental health profession because the way community based 12-Step is handled, better compares to inmates running the asylum rather than a place where people can get real help. I do believe that within the 12 Steps, there is a program there somewhere that can work for all people who would like to live by structured principles of recovery. However, for the most part, the 12-Steps need to be brought into the 21^st Century. Some reputable recovery organizations like the Hazelden Foundation have helpful literature taking the 12-Steps to a new, more 21^st Century friendly audience. Hazelden Press has a book on how to be a sponsor that in my view should be in every 12-Step meeting anywhere and anyone who is a sponsor should have at least five to ten years in recovery and be certified, having taken at least one semester in psychology on substance related disorders.