First of all, I have to say that the thread I just read about the need to go to NA meetings has actually made me commit to going to my second meeting tonight in a few hours
My first meeting was terrible yet very good. The topic was
principals over personality. Everybody in the meeting was very funny, interesting and inspiring. However at the end of the meeting, no one reached out to me, gave me any reason to come back, etc. I had already went to a 7pm meeting near my house and NOBODY was there and got really frustrated. It took me a good month to get up the guts/motivation to go too. I'm surprised I looked in my little pamphlet and went to the next meeting 20 miles away.
So anyhow, I was really looking forward to someone to even say hi to me outside the meeting. I even stood and waited for the chairman to stop messing with his forms so that I could ask if he could cross off the dead meetings in my pamphlet for 5 minutes and nobody spoke to me
I have a father who is really into AA and he told me to expect an out reach, lol.
So I came home pissed and in tears. I looked in the book my father gave me, a daily reflections book that has a nifty little index in back for passages like newcomers and impatiesciense (I just murdered that word, didn't I?). So first I looked up what everybody was supposed to do with a newcomer and felt better that I was indeed right and they messed up, lol. I then ran into a passage on impatscience (I hate that word) that kinda spoke to me. I was impatescience (I figure if I spell it differently each time I'll get it right eventually) that made me storm out of that room. I then looked up princibles over personality and decided that I need to over come my bad experience and with them and attend again, regardless of how hurt I felt.
Anyhow, all that was just rambling really. I'm ready to recover and excited about it. There is just one little hang up and feel the need for someone to tell me I belong here, that they accept I do have a problem.
My addiction is marijuana. I've been told my entire life that marijuana wasn't addicting and easy to stop. Hell, ever see the movie Half Baked? If you have, Bob Saget is right, I haven't ever sucked dick for pot, lol.
I'm nearing 14 years of addiction and at least 13 years of trying to stop on my own. I come from a long line of addicts on each side of my family and just recently came to realize (after my car got repo'd and my life started to go down the drain) that my addiction is no different than theres. So pot doesn't make me stumble around and make people irritated with me... but I'm addicted to it all the same. Pot is my drug of choice and it could have easily of been something else.
There is so much more I could add to my "story" but I'll spare you all. Perhaps I'll share another day all the details of it all.
I'm just a bit apprehensive of what people will think when I tell people my drug is marijuana. Peoples attitudes about it are very different than mine. Infact, I just told my best friend that I still am smoking pot (we have been friends since 15) and she laughed and said "I just assumed you stopped that a long time ago. Your almost 30, why don't you grow up". It's just not that easy.
Pot is eating my life away. I was "managing" it in the years past but this last year has been a big down hill saga. Like I said, my car got repo'd. I didn't pay my bills due to motivation issues and then spent the money on the $20 every day or two addiction. I've hurt my father and have isolated myself from my family. I've been blaming my anti-depressant use... constantly adjusting my dose, figuring I'm taking too much or too little. It finally hit me like a brick... it's the pot.
What's great is that I think I was somewhat working the steps before I knew them. I figured out what my problem was and accepted that I was powerless over it. Since I admitted my powerlessness (did I just make up a word?), I even admitted to my father my problem. NO ONE in my life had a clue. I've been good at keeping it secret (or maybe I figured out my problem before they did?)
Anyhow, I'm doing some serious rambling. I hope you have a little bit of something to say to me as this is my first "share" within NA. I'm a very shy person and I do worry about what people think of me. I think it will be forever and a day before I EVER speak at a meeting, lol.
Thanks for reading my novel. Glad you made it this far! Please forgive all the grammar and spelling errors
~Jen