Empowering My Sober Self

It has been four days today without any weed, and I am feeling good! I still really really want to try this experiment of going six weeks without weed, which is how long it takes to get out of your system. I'd be able to pass a drug test! BUT my cousin in law who is studying to be an addictions counselor says it really takes three months to start noticing the benefits of being free from the green. Still, a six week goal is a start, and then I could evaluate if I want to be clean for longer. If it is working for me.

I'm a little crabby, but that is to be expected. It's something I can shake off.

I've been reading this really good book called Empowering Your Sober Self: The LifeRing Approach to Addiction Recovery, by Martin Nicolaus. It really takes groups like AA/NA to task over how they pathologize people with addictions to make them diseased, powerless, morally deficient, and full of character defects. It also explains how the liquor industry really promoted this idea of alcoholism as a disease that affects a small percentage of the population, whereas this book says ANYONE can become an alcoholic if they drink enough. Or drug addict, I suppose.

If marijuana is not addictive, how come so few people can stop?

But anyway, the book really spoke to me. I went to a couple of AA meetings and one NA meeting and never went back. I didn't like the lord's prayer and I didn't like admitting I was powerless because that seems really self defeating. In this book I am reading it explains that if you do get sober through AA, it is attributed to your higher power, while if you don't get sober it is blamed solely on you! That's so true! And it even has a section on how the powerless model is bad for women and minorities who need to be EMpowered. AND there is no scientific evidence that alcoholism or drug addiction is a disease at all.

I went to the Concurrent Disorders Education Group yesterday and learned about stress and how it works and how to manage it better, without relying on weed and stuff. I also got the schedule for all the topics of the education group from now until January. They are having one group all about marijuana and it's effects on persons with psychiatric illnesses. I wanted to stay for the support group part of it, but two hours is a bit long for me, although I mostly wanted to say I had finally been clean for three days in a row. It's a big achievement!