Holding onto Marijuana

Most addicts who use multiple drugs, including marijuana, can usually see the destruction of their main drug of choice, like cocaine or heroin, but they’re reluctant to give up the pot. The addict views marijuana as a harmless vice, something to use recreationally without the consequences of “hard” drugs. Holding onto marijuana as a harmless vice is dangerous for anyone in recovery from addiction.

Pot smokers around the nation are joining together to legalize marijuana. As a treatment provider, I take no stand on the legal status of marijuana, but everyone should know the facts regarding pot before they go forward with the idea marijuana is a natural product that produces no risks. Like with alcohol, 10% of the people who use marijuana will become addicted. Marijuana, like other drugs, affects the brain in harmful ways when it’s used on a regular basis over a long period of time. Marijuana is especially harmful when it’s used starting at an early age. It’s not uncommon for 12 year olds to start using pot and continue on a regular basis for years, even decades.

Facts are facts, and when people in recovery think they can hold to marijuana as their last vice they’re likely setting themselves up for relapse. Several things can happen. Cocaine addicts who still smoke pot find themselves relapsing when they’re high and their judgment is impaired by the pot and then they’re faced by temptation — someone pulls out a bag of cocaine, the “recovering” cocaine addict is high on pot — it seems like a good idea to get the old cocaine high because pot isn’t as satisfying to the cocaine addict. It’s hard enough to recover from drug addiction when you’re clear headed, but if your judgment is impaired it’s almost impossible to deal with the triggers that set off cocaine craving.

Not only is it dangerous for the recovering person to view pot as an exception to abstinence, the pot itself can be damaging, as I’ve written about before.