For you? Absolutely!

Well, let me give a bit of background first. I entered the program in 1978 following a very strong suggestion from the court system. I began going daily, with the exception of Saturdays when a carload of us (including my sponsor) would hit seven of them, beginning with a sunrise meeting. I met my sponsor at my first meeting, but didn't actually know he was my sponsor until my second meeting. I began service work after my first meeting cleaning ashtrays.

I attended meetings regularly for five years and stayed sober for seven. The last two years I spent in six different combat zones as a member of the military and chose to numb the pain of many experiences at that time. I stayed out for seven years, the last five of which I was on the streets, living under a bridge and generally dying.

I came back in May of 1992, beaten beyond measure. My heart gave out twice in the DT's, the last time for six minutes - certainly long enough to stay dead, but I did not. I woke about 75 seconds after the doctor called me (dead).

I went to 372 meetings in my first ninety days. It wasn't pretty. I couldn't walk unassisted, couldn't control my bodily functions and would often urinate in my pants sitting in meetings. But I would make my way outside when they locked the doors and sit on the curb waiting for the next one.

The first year back I attended about a thousand meetings. I got a sponsor fairly early on...it was and remained unofficial - she was a woman, and I'm a guy and as a result, she resisted greatly, but I called her five or six times a day and did whatever she told me, so she eventually ignored the suggestion of men with men and women with women.

Off topic a bit, but you might find it interesting. I did my fifth step with her. Contrary to what I had heard in meetings, I didn't feel like a weight was lifted off my shoulders after my fifth step – I felt like crap. She took me outside after we did it and set up a makeshift net, putting me far enough away from the net to make it challenging and dumped twenty soccer balls at my feet. “Kick them into the net,” she said, “one at a time.”

I made twelve and eight balls went wide – either left or right. She had me collect the balls that didn't go into the net and put them in the backseat of her car and took me out to coffee. On the way, she stopped in a shopping center and dropped the eight balls off in a dumpster. She brushed my questions off till we got to the coffee shop and then said simply, “Those balls were defective; they missed the net.”

Personally, I thought she had snapped – maybe she did more drugs than I had or something but I couldn't let it go. “The balls weren't defective,” I said. “I just missed.” The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Her: What do you mean you just missed? Weren't you aiming?
Me: Well, yeah but, I mean...I guess I kicked it a little off center or something.
Her: So let's see if I have this right. You kick the ball – you apply too much force to the left or the right and a perfectly good ball misses the net? You're saying that those balls weren't defective?
Me: Umm..yeah?
Her: So those balls that I just threw away were perfectly good balls?
Me: Yes.
Her: So I must look like an idiot right about now huh?

Before I could answer, she went on, “So how much of an idiot must you be?” She took my look of bewilderment as a sign to continue. “I mean you get kicked around, abused physically, mentally and sexually throughout your childhood – then you go off center and miss becoming a well adjusted member of society. I just threw away eight soccer balls, you tried to throw away your whole f'in life! You reacted like anyone or anything that has had the wrong force applied to it. The ball would have been defective if it had gone straight after you kicked it all cockeyed. And so would you have. There's nothing wrong with you; there never has been! Forget that again and I'll kick your *** for making me throw away eight perfectly good soccer balls to make a point!”

She was something special - or at least the perfect fit for me. Anyway, I attended meetings for three years and then, pretty much just stopped. I didn't stop working the program - but as I have explained to some others, my tools for continued recovery became different, more nuanced perhaps. I have shared that I am an atheist, and I am, but I am also spiritual. I am Buddhist; we do not believe in a Creator, but we have a rich spiritual tradition and I lived that.

Then, almost exactly four years ago, my wife returned home to me after twenty-four years in prison, which is where her alcoholism and addictions took her. She attends meetings and I attend with her. We have spent far too much time apart for me to see her go off without me. So for the last four years I have been attending again, with her.

I had DID, one alter. She is six years old. During my second year in recovery, I helped her do her fourth step and she shared her fifth with me. We have not had dissociative amnesia since that day and so today what I have would be called OSDD or Other specified dissociative disorder. We are continually co-conscious, though one or the other of us may take the lead as our individual talents provide for.

I also suffered from severe PTSD and c-PTSD, but healed from both through my meditation practice. Basically I went back and lived every moment, downloading fragments or puzzle pieces from my right brain to my left. It worked.

As for marijuana... touchy subject. I live in a state in which it is illegal for a doctor to prescribe narcotic pain relief for chronic pain conditions. Amongst other things, three and a half years ago I came down with a rather nasty auto-immune disorder. Besides the deterioration of my nervous system, it also causes debilitating muscle spasms that can last upwards of thirty minutes, or until muscle rips from bone. I've had as many as forty such spasms in a day. As I type this, I have complete tears of both rotary cuffs, both elbows, both biceps are torn, my left hip, right knee and ankle. So, long story short, I am in chronic pain.

Three and a half years ago, my doctor gave me a bottle of ibuprofen 800 and a pitch for trying medical marijuana. I brought my wife into the conversation and we discussed the possible pros and cons. Long story short - I waited another two years before I tried it and the effect was immediate and stunning. I reserved usage for evenings only, so that I could sleep past the pain I gutted through during the day, and insisted on sub-lingual oil so that the 'smoking' aspect was removed. As time went on though, its effectiveness waned and my sleep became progressively worse. A sleep study showed I was not getting any stage three or REM sleep and my doctor referred me to a psychiatrist fearing for my sanity.

The pdoc wrote a recommendation to my primary care physician that I be given pain killers for psychiatric as well as physical reasons and with the coalition, I was able to bypass the legal restraints. I know have prescription painkillers which I reserve for nighttime only, and once a week I ignore directions and don't take them for two days so that I can insure that I am not developing a dependency on them. Incidentally, I quit medical marijuana immediately upon getting this script.

So, I think there is a place for the medicinal use, but one must be vigilant. That's probably more than you wanted but I began typing and didn't know when to stop.