"My Story - Intro"

(This blog is first in a four-part series, "My Story")

INTRO

I'm a marijuana addict; my name is Zach.

Pot isn't the only drug in my story. There are others, including alcohol, but pot was my main drug, my drug of choice. I spent the bulk of my nine year using career high, usually all day long. In all that time, I was never able to quit. I could put a few days together. One time I made it to two weeks. Today, I am clean and sober, thanks to the program. Relapse is not a part of my story.

Let me break this down succinctly: I've been in jail; I've been institutionalized; I have been abused and I have been an abuser. I don't really enjoy telling war stories. The only thing that the tale of the time I stumbled on the Mexican mafia's pot farms proves is that I should be dead. Most of my time high was spent by myself, alone and isolated. I hid from life because I didn't know how to handle it. I hid from myself because I didn't know how to handle me.

I still suffer from the disease of addiction. It is an incurable, fatal illness that I will die from if I don't remain vigilant in working my program. I have three suicide attempts in my history which I survived thanks to the grace of my higher power. I believe this disease develops through excessive use. I also believe that people can be born with it. I am one of the latter. When I look back on my life, my thoughts and my behaviors before I started using, I see the disease all too clearly. It was like a predator waiting for prey to walk into its trap. It is my belief that I was always going to end up addicted to something. It was just a matter of time and to what.

Some people believe predisposition to addiction is genetic. I don't know about all that, and I have no interest in a nature versus nurture debate. I heard someone say once that nature loads the gun and nurture pulls the trigger. Fair enough. In the end, though, what matters most is that I am an addict. I will always be an addict. It is what I am.

Thankfully, it is not who I am.