Thank you for reading or listening to Facing Addiction. Though I’ve shared my real experience, this story isn’t about me. It’s about the forces that influence all of us: addictions, limitations, values, self-deception, perspective, fear, desire, accountability…

If my example has gotten in the way at all, please disregard it.

Personal stories can make ideas more interesting and easier to understand. But what matters is what’s true: the experience of your life.

For these final chapters, I’ll be sharing everything I still had to learn about life and addiction as I literally left my addicted state and discovered a new life of freedom and balance.

I wrote this early last year (while high):

A few years ago, the thought came: ‘Straight loser . . . I can only forget.’ Basically, constant addictive weed use had left my mind so fuzzy that I couldn’t really remember or focus on much of anything. I see how far I’ve come since then, and I know I’ll never go back. But I still sneak off to go smoke weed in dirty, unsafe places. I still smoke through pipes made from trash. I’m still broke and estranged from loved ones. I still can’t enjoy fun things the same way. I still feel as though I’m straggling somewhere far behind where I could be.

The next day, I came across some thoughts I’d recorded a few months before even being prescribed medical weed. I was shocked to see how so many of the ideas in this story would have resonated with those forgotten, pre-weed thoughts.

Here are some examples of those lost thoughts, recorded in 2010:

• Why can’t I do what I know I need to do? (5/18/10)
• How can my self-image change so I succeed instead of continuing to fail (since I’ve only failed so far)? (5/27/10)
• Thinking only aggravates the problem, like picking at a wound. (5/27/10)
• I keep failing to change because I keep trying to force myself. I’m both arrogant and insecure. I grasp at chaos with a broken soul and wrestle it to death (mine). An endless and intimidating search for just what to do keeps me paralyzed. (6/4/10)
• I can’t create my destiny or figure out the truth alone, in only my own mind. (6/22/10)
• To-Do lists would be better than schedules. Journals are good for capturing thoughts and feelings as they develop so I can see my life more objectively. (10/23/10)
• I always feel like I need to be or do something; I try to figure out exactly what that is; I come up with a plan real fast; I unconfidently try to follow that plan; I fail; I feel ashamed (and even less confident); I begin the cycle again… This happens over and over. (11/4/10)
• I need to always be open to new ways of making the best use of my time. (11/4/10)
• Who or what I am is a combination of multiple causes. I can change if the causes are changed. Every time I fail, it strengthens my belief that I’ll never succeed. But failure doesn’t really exist. I call doing something that goes against my values failure. But that really just means I’m making less progress than I could be. Since I’m a combination of so many things, what I call failure is really just the experience of a less-than-optimal application of my components. (11/4/10)
• Even just writing all this helps me realize what it means to set realistic goals. Seeing what I write helps me come against unrealistic, negative thinking (which blows everything out of proportion) with realistic, positive thinking. Develop a system of behavioral motivation to reward myself for taking steps toward my goals. (11/9/10)

Again, many of those thoughts could easily be tied to later ideas shared in this story.

So, if I already knew all that back in 2010, why the plunge into my “straight loser” state of addiction only months later, in early 2011?

After rediscovering those thoughts from 2010, I got high and wrote:

Back then, my goals were like tiny, remote flashes washed under deep oceans of blanketing darkness. I had to come to see how all those flashes were really indispensable puzzle pieces that could be fit together to illuminate connected layers.

In 2010, my values were just stabs at hopes I’d long since given up actually believing in. I didn’t see their light as real enough to guide my steps. So, I started getting high. Preparing to share my real experience of the years of addiction that followed was what eventually brought all my disjointed hopes, thoughts, and goals together. In a way, I saw what I was worth.

When I started using weed, I was convinced I should only seek entertainment while high. I was afraid of trying to communicate with certain others and looking dumb. Now I might seek entertainment at times (if there was something I really wanted to see or listen to); but I’d mostly rather be creative, or with friends, or just sitting in silence letting myself imagine. That particular change in perspective marks the end of what I called my Devil’s Lettuce curse—my addiction: wanting more and more (or so I thought) because I could never seem to feel quite high or entertained enough.

Your change in perspective will be built from understanding a dichotomy of values unique to you.

I’ve mentioned having less is more as my goal; but my new perspective is really “less is less.” When I get high compulsively, weed becomes less fun, and I want more of it. But getting high less reverses that dynamic: Less weed leads to less unwanted results, and also to being okay with less stimulation or fulfillment overall.

The same principle applies to all addictions and compulsions. Addiction changes your state. Something you’ve been taking in to benefit from starts taking you in to benefit from you. Values like reaching potential, working toward fun goals, enjoying making better decisions, relaxing, and other lifestyle changes also change your state.

Weed became a major part of my life for years; but I never saw getting high addictively as a permanent solution. I always knew I needed to find new and better ways to relax and enjoy my life. Now I know I’m ready. I’m ready to rediscover my most valuable treasures (my relationships), and to make better use of my time. I’m ready to manage my weed use, and to keep building the life I want most. I’m ready because it’s already happening. I’ve already changed.

The last idea from 2010 I shared above was: “Develop a system of behavioral motivation to reward myself for taking steps toward my goals.” Well, I should have known better than to look for a literal prescription to follow, since I was already aware of how my tendency to seek out perfect systems had always led to apparent failure. Rather, I should have understood that what I’ve really always been looking for is just a way to excel at what I most want to do in life.

A prescription is a rule or schedule taped to a fridge. Knowing what you want and why is a perspective to be lived out.

You know you’re ready to make the leap when you see yourself making it.

Tomorrow: more on seeing yourself making the leap.

P.S. I later got high and wrote:

Though I’ve shared my real experience, this story isn’t about me. Yet here’s the ironic thing about universal ideas, concepts, and truths: You seek out the simplest, most easy-to-follow steps; but you also teach yourself to forget (as quickly as possible) how the logic behind those steps ties to your real life. “Oh well,” you say, “at least I tried. I guess that plan wasn’t quite perfect for me after all. I think I’ll go find a better one tomorrow. Or, maybe the next day…” On the other hand, you never forget the stories you relate to.

It’s ironic that I’ve ended up with twelve self-management steps. It’s not like I’m trying to copy or outdo 12-step programs or anything. But my twelve steps aren’t really steps at all. They’re just pieces of my story like all the rest. The titles don’t matter.

On DAY 1, I wrote, “It just goes back to this feeling I have that recording and sharing my experience will be my first step toward control.” Recording was my first step, though it really wasn’t. Sharing turns out to have been my last. It was between recording and sharing that the real change actually occurred—the change in my perspective.

Now go be you.

Addiction is [secretly?] doing what you tell yourself not to. But what do I mean by “secretly”?

During my years of weed addiction, those closest to me thought I was only getting high on weekends. I was actually using whenever I possibly could, sometimes all day every day. Once I began to successfully manage my weed use, it got to where I was ironically using about as often as I’d been telling everyone.

I wrote this at that time (while high):

I’m actually getting high once a week for real now. It’s funny how it still feels like way too much.

At least I could finally be honest with my loved ones.

But I’ve found it so hard to shake the stubborn notion that searching for balance means trying to figure out some exact amount to allow myself to use at designated times. Despite everything you’ve seen me tell myself about not planning, I never truly realized how deeply caught up I was in the idea of arriving at some perfectly structured prescription to live by forever.

My high thoughts from above continue:

Am I in control? Have I found balance? Almost. There are still times when I use more than I think I should.

If the result of addiction is something else using me, then the result of preparing to share my experience has been seeing I’m a thing too. I’m not just some broken system that weed and other things can infiltrate and use.

Am I this story? I certainly see in what I’ve captured exactly who I want to be and why. I’ve come to love just sitting here, listening to peaceful music, and typing out whatever high daydreams come to mind.

Maybe it’s ironic that Facing Addiction has really been all about learning to face myself.

I don’t believe there’s any other universally applicable way to face and grow beyond whatever holds you back in life.

I asked myself these questions the next day (again high):

Would I want to not use weed at all for a long time, and then get really high? Or, would I rather get a little high more often? But using less is so much better when I use only once in a while, right?

I got high again the next day, felt bad, and wrote:

I wasn’t supposed to do this today.

I feel like I really can’t live like this anymore.

A few days later, I got high again and wrote:

It’s funny how I don’t hear myself. I keep saying I want to use weed less, right? How long have I been saying that? How many similar high thoughts have there been?

You always fail at times because you never have a perfect perspective. It’s not about perfection. Fail less. Keep going.

The truth is always this: I’ll be high again soon enough…

I’ve always been impressed by this particular diet and exercise program that offers an extremely strict routine to carry out all week; but then once a week you get a free day to do and eat whatever you want. Having that free day to look forward to makes the extreme workouts and food rules bearable. It also makes what you eat on your free day taste so much better.

If balance and control are your goals—instead of lifelong abstinence—then you always know you’ll be using whatever it is again soon enough. That gives you something to look forward to whenever self-management gets tough.

Don’t be ashamed when you fail to follow your conscience perfectly. Just keep going. Keep sharing your experience. Watch what happens.

Has what you want ever proven to be a lot simpler than you can make it at times?

Tomorrow: Should you try to change everything all at once?

I can so clearly remember the first night I got high after getting my medical marijuana prescription. I’d torn some clumps off of two different strains to try. One was supposed to be more energetic, bright, and cerebral—a Sativa called Permafrost. The other was meant to be more laid back, relaxing, and physical—an Indica named Abusive OG.

After a few puffs of the piney Permafrost, my mind began to race in an extremely raw and jagged way. Peering down at the clumps of Abusive OG on the counter, I decided I was done for the night. The Permafrost felt like it had been more than enough. I remember literally thinking:

‘Man, I forgot how a couple hits of good weed can really kick your ass!’

So that was my official first high thought after getting my weed prescription.

Anyway, fast-forward to one day two years ago when I was smoking a strain very much like Permafrost (called Jack Scout). I felt almost no effects at all, so I smoked the entire gram, mixing in an Indica very much like Abusive OG (called Player OG), as well as some hash, followed up with some homemade edibles. I still felt almost nothing.

Here’s something I wrote that day (while high):

I’m starting to see how badly my addiction is messing me up, especially when I use all day. When I first got my prescription, I had a lot more happening mentally for a good high to take apart. Having my mind thrown sideways like that could sometimes be quite shocking, even overwhelming. Now it feels as though my mind has been completely buzzed-through, burnt-out, and made dull. Old avalanches have been replaced by sad, lifeless little stirrings. The more I use in a day, the more I steadily drift toward feeling tired of everything and everyone.

Although addiction-related tolerance keeps weed from clobbering me the way a tiny bit would have at the beginning, addiction itself kicks my ass in a far more all-encompassing way.

My goal in all of this has been to learn to use weed less so I can enjoy the magic of the experience more. The flipside of “less is more,” though, is I want to minimize the way addiction depletes me over time. I’ve already shared how I’m affected socially, financially, mentally, physically, and in terms of my values (family, art form, stability, etc.).

I was once speaking to a group about the depleting effects of my weed addiction, and someone shot back with details about how using weed all the time had actually helped him in every area. If that’s your experience, great. If getting high or whatever else isn’t holding you back at all, then I don’t see a problem. But I’d still recommend finding ways to share your real experience in time. Held back by addiction or not, sharing your experience helps you gain perspective about where your life as a whole is headed. Nobody’s perfect. We all have room to grow and improve. You might uncover some unexpected limitations as you share about your values.

If using weed all the time doesn’t hold you back at all, I’d particularly like to hear your experience. Maybe it can balance out mine. By no means do I have (or want to have) a monopoly on experience or insight, or on how to interpret those two things.

Yet if you’re disgusted by the damage your addiction has done, tomorrow’s chapter will give you something to consider as you seek the best ways to gain control.

“One day at a time.” It’s the picture of addiction we’re all familiar with—something each of us can relate to on some level: the sketchy addict sitting somewhere, staring at a clock, desperately fighting to make it through another minute, hour, or day without using. Feel the anger, jitteriness, distraction, anxiety, and every other imaginable match of willpower versus discomfort. The addict only sees in that slowly ticking clock a lifetime’s worth of feverish struggle ahead.

I believe the experience of facing addiction can be almost the exact opposite of that. When you can manage yourself, the bleak notion of having to force arbitrary periods of deprivation and unpleasantness is transformed into motivation to give each present moment over to the new you you’re becoming.

It’s taken me a long time to actually start to grasp what I’ve been saying here all along: that if you focus on going public with your real experience, you see your values; then your addictions and limitations basically take care of themselves.

Periods of forced abstinence seem quite unproductive in terms of pursuing passions and values. The desperate addict mentioned above can’t really focus on much else but time as it fails to pass by fast enough. Sitting at opposite ends of an empty room will leave you and your addiction with nothing left to do but stare at each other.

I believe you can actually use the power of your addiction to propel yourself forward into the next phase of your journey. Then you find whatever that phase is becomes so valuable to you that you can no longer allow your addiction to hinder you in that area.

Without forcing yourself at all, simply use what you’re addicted to as a way of making the next steps in your sequence more appealing until the importance of those steps surpasses the pull of the addictive behavior you used to first help you take them.

From there, you can use your addiction to propel yourself forward again.

What am I talking about? How could something addictive motivate you to do something good?

I wrote this while high:

I’ve always felt the need to better manage my time. I now see that facing addiction isn’t about taking things “one day at a time” in the sense of simply getting through a day without giving in, then another day, then another… I want to get the most out of all the time I have, which I know means always learning to better integrate all the various things I want to do and be.

A few days later, I got high again and wrote:

Could weed serve as a reward for successfully starting something new? Once that new activity becomes an established part of my life, maybe it would be so awesome and valuable to me that I’d naturally want to remove weed from it to make it even better…?

The next day, I continued (high) with:

Then I guess my weed use would shift to the next steps in my sequence until those new pursuits also compelled me more than my addiction.

So far, I’ve used my weed addiction to start preparing and sharing my Facing Addiction story, to exercise, to network, to get moving on a whole bunch of other projects, and to incorporate all sorts of other important steps until their value overshadowed the pull of my addiction. Once each new phase was established, my weed use naturally shifted as I saw that there were certain aspects of those new activities I couldn’t do as well while high. My high time then trickled and pooled to other parts of new projects until those too became ingrained.

Could something compulsive ever motivate you to begin something important?

What about those areas in life your addiction doesn’t seem to hinder?

One summer, I used weed as a motivation to start exercising at night. Unlike with my other pursuits, I didn’t see weed hindering my exercise at all. I could have potentially always kept getting high while working out at night.

But then I changed my schedule just a little…

Tomorrow we’ll see how intentionally slight schedule changes can compound the power of self-management.

When I was twenty-eight, I decided to go back to college. I was working full time, so I took just one night class that first semester. My teacher, Ms. Daniels, was amazing. She encouraged me in my writing more than anyone else ever had. Everything about that tiny, tough, eighty-year-old adjunct professor just inspired me.

Four years later, I had another class with Ms. Daniels. By that time, I was fully addicted to medical weed. It was odd to experience Ms. Daniels’ class in such a different mental state the second time. I found I could still string together papers and do most of the work; but I always had the feeling I was letting down my favorite teacher.

The two classes with Ms. Daniels were like bookends marking a total transformation in my life. In four years, I’d gone from being a fired up twentysomething, excited to take on higher learning, to a tired thirty-two-year-old who snuck out of class most nights to go smoke weed in the parking lot.

I started to dread Ms. Daniels’ class. Seeing the effects of my plummet into addiction made it impossible not to imagine how I’d feel when I showed up high, unkempt, lethargic, angry, etc. I actually skipped a whole bunch of weeks leading up to the final exam, barely scraping by to pass.

How important is being able to imagine the consequences of your actions? Could being able to predict how you’ll feel ever empower you to make better choices?

Here’s something I wrote while high:

Tonight I was on my way to a dispensary that closes at 10pm. It was about 9:40, and I realized I was 25¢ short of the $5 needed for a pre-roll joint. I dug around in my car, but only found a foreign coin that was roughly the same size. The coins really didn’t look the same up close.

So, I stormed into the dispensary attempting to forcefully hold eye contact with the girl working the counter as I requested my joint. I handed her the $4 cash first, then the four coins (with the foreign coin in the middle). I was overjoyed when she told me it was Happy Hour and gave me two joints for the price of one.

As soon as I had the joints in my hand, I bolted out, scrambled to my car, and zoomed away. I hope I didn’t get that girl in trouble. Probably not, since I’m sure they’re going through cash all the time. I doubt they tie each sale to a particular rep. Maybe next time I can leave a tip or something.

Anyway, as soon as I’d sped off in my car, puffing away on the first of my two joints, I saw a 25¢ coin lying on the passenger seat. I would have had enough the whole time. So I ended up with two joints tonight for a little less than the price of one. I just smoked one of them. Before tonight, I hadn’t had any weed for about a week. I wish I could imagine, once I’m not high, how awesome it would be if the joint I just smoked could be my last for a while. Then I could save this extra joint until the next time I actually decide to use. It could represent a new beginning, when I’d emerge from addiction in total control of my weed use.

I could smoke this extra joint right now or tomorrow, and feel nothing. Or I could wait until I next decide to use, and it would be magical. If I could just imagine how I’d feel…

Remember how much you want what you want. That’s really all you’ve ever had to do. Learn to remember exactly how you feel when you lose control to your compulsions. Learn to imagine how you’ll feel when you don’t. See it.

That’s actually what I’ve been learning to do all along.

Has being able to imagine consequences ever helped you keep to a decision?

Tomorrow: using your addiction to bring yourself to your own next phase.

When I was thirteen, I watched this old Kung Fu movie about an ancient master who had to defeat a sequence of progressively tougher enemies. The master would use the example of each battle to impart sage lessons to a young pupil. One of the enemies kept switching between fighting styles, which gave him an advantage at first. Yet the master held strong, won the fight, and said to his pupil something along the lines of: “His was the error of being moderately skilled at several things while mastering none.” I’ve often considered that.

Through the years, I’ve found it extremely difficult to narrow down my focus to a single passion or goal. I can’t tell you how many times I switched majors in college or jettisoned partially trodden career paths entirely.

It’s been disheartening to see so many friends and loved ones moving forward in life with such a secure sense of themselves and their choices. Yet I’ve gradually come to realize that moving sideways isn’t necessarily less fruitful than charging ahead.

Yesterday: We saw how your art form is a bridge that’s built where what you care about meets what you’re good at—a bridge that takes you from where you’ve fallen short to where you hope to be.

I don’t think you should ever pressure yourself to reduce your art form to a single talent if you believe you see more than one viable option. Rather, I’d recommend staying open to seeing unexpected connections between various pursuits.

It’s been said that the best art exists in the spaces between impossibly disparate worlds.

I’d like to share how two completely different passions—both of which I loved equally and couldn’t seem to choose between—came together in an odd way as I prepared to go public with my experience.

In 2010, I thought I wanted to be a math teacher. That was the direction I was headed in college. Looking back, I think what drew me to math was something about the beauty of finding systems to reduce complexities to their simplest forms. I loved how the theories of geometry and physics seemed so unmistakably fixed in the fabric of our universe. I also loved philosophy for the same reasons I loved math (I’d imagine people love philosophy for different reasons).

Anyway, I have fond memories of sitting for hours at little desks in random college study halls, listening to ambient music as I wrote philosophical poetry after [or instead of] doing math homework. I may have loved the idea of math and science a lot more than I had the capacity for the actual work.

As mentioned, I was quite depressed at the end of 2010; then I started getting high and quickly found myself addicted. I was still studying math and philosophy while using weed most days in early 2011, but I felt like I’d reached some sort of mental limit. All I was learning were more and more ways in which the beauty and order I’d always loved to see could be shown to be ultimately meaningless if philosophical functions meant to represent ideas were reduced to only sets of binary comparisons. The work felt unnecessary, pretentious, ironic, dishonest…

I realized I still had to fill a language requirement to graduate, so I reluctantly signed up to take a literature class in early 2012. That class changed my life. I was shocked by how the rich, transcendent expressions of some of history’s greatest writers and thinkers clicked so deeply with my own experience and motivations, perfectly filling the unnatural space forced open by advanced philosophy.

That semester, I experienced some of my most profound illuminations about the direction my life was going. Looking back, the timing seemed way too perfect to have been coincidental. I’d reached a place in my studies where endless formulaic sets threatened to splay out forever in needlessly highfalutin terms. Other philosophy students seemed to love the exclusivity of their purchased understanding on how to reposition aspects of a language apparently detached from its original intended meaning. Again, I saw tremendous value in all that was left to matter within the great divides cast open by advanced philosophy. For me, that value was art that captured and celebrated real human experiences (since I was becoming convinced our experience is all we can ever really know for sure).

I took more literature and creative writing classes. Being so sad and unstable at the time, the stories I was writing felt incredibly therapeutic. I started to remember all the ways writing had always seemed like such a natural fit for me.

During my years of weed addiction, I learned to recognize worthwhile intuitions as they flashed through my mind like daydreams, most often when I wasn’t paying attention. Rather than taking any intuition and trying to make it into something important, I learned to reduce them all to their simplest forms like a math equation. I started to see where ideas might fit together to connect and cancel out. Preparing and sharing this Facing Addiction story has given me a distaste for self-indulgence, particularly because self-indulgent thinking is inefficient and self-deceiving.

It recently struck me that what I’m doing right now is actually a perfect balance of my two primary passions—call them math and literature; or, maybe the beauty of simplicity and the importance of expression. I could never have chosen to harness both aspects of my personality in what’s turned out to be such a balanced way.

I don’t think balance can ever be forced, and I don’t think it ever has to be.

Here’s something I wrote while high:

Both of my talents and values together became my art form: the mature mathematician who simplifies and connects (while listening to peaceful music); and the dreamer whose inner child at play functions when he’s not even paying attention. The way both come together is so fun and fulfilling for me…

But that’s just two aspects. When I started to see the sequence of all my goals together, I realized how many other factors of my personality have always wanted to come into play as well.

If your interests and abilities seem to pull you every which way, I’d say not to worry. Even if you try to force one of your passions over all the rest, you’ll probably later discover that the others had really always been there for a reason. They’ll resurface when they need to in whatever ways best fit for whichever stage of your journey they’ll be needed for.

Find magic and art between the boundary lines of your own impossibly disconnected worlds.

Who’s just one thing, anyway?

Tomorrow: why art is so much fun.

I used to answer calls when I worked for this huge religious organization. One day, a woman called who sounded completely worn out by life. She said something along the lines of: “I really don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to change how I’m living. I don’t feel like doing any of the things I know I’m supposed to do.”

I’ve thought about that call often. Here’s something I got high and wrote:

The woman who called that day said she thought the leader of the organization would have understood exactly how she felt. Knowing that leader, I’ve come to conclude that I don’t think she was right: I don’t think he would have understood.

I saw that leader filled with zeal and energy. I also saw him running on empty at times. But I never saw him stop or waver in his devotion or sense of purpose.

Each time that leader spoke, his message was always brought back to sheer gratitude—his artful words painting a very relatable picture of freedom, joy, and the experience of having been set right from the uncontrollable messiness of his former life.

Public figures are no longer uniquely empowered to live by what they say.

I think that leader would tell the lady who called that she could definitely find passion for those good things she didn’t feel like doing. He’d probably counsel her to develop a habit of hearing and considering the right words of hope until she experienced those words speaking into her life.

I believe the process I’ve been describing is actually the same beneath the surface. As you record and prepare to share your real experience, you become acutely aware of the specific values your addictions and limitations are keeping you from. The more of those values you come to see, the more passionate for them you get.

I wrote this the next day (while high again):

I mentioned finding good in unlikely places, at unexpected times, and in unusual ways. Looking back, it seems like the religious organization I worked for was the perfect place for me to learn exactly what I needed to learn at the time. I never would have chosen a place like that to be my school; but some sort of attraction was taking place between values flashing themselves into being through me and the tools and resources I was learning to make use of.

Does everything happen for a reason? Fate aside, I’m sure we can all agree that nothing happens for no reason. Every decision you make is between possibilities. You never make decisions completely randomly. Your decisions are affected by influences, pressures, emotional states, levels of maturity, etc. Going public with your real experience makes you passionate enough about your values to make better decisions.

Despite how guilty I feel for using weed more often than I think I should, I see from what I’m preparing to share that everything in my life really isn’t falling apart. Good things I don’t deserve continue to compound and compel me, leading me beyond where I’ve always fallen short in the past.

Will I always be in this position? Yes and no. Yes, because potential is a goal that expands forever outward in many good directions. No, because moving toward potential means always expanding the boundaries of all my limitations.

Imagine your goals or values, themselves, as things desiring to exist. Consider your relationship with each of them. Your present limitations and addictions keep those good things from being able to fulfil their desire to flash themselves more to life through you.

As you prepare to share your experience, you see the progress your goals and values have made already. Seeing that progress is seeing how you’ve already faced yesterday’s limitations in order to reach today’s. Why wouldn’t you keep going?

When you see how far you’ve come, using willpower only to keep an open ear and prepare your experience to share, you find sufficient sustainable passion to keep going.

Seeing your values bring themselves to life through you can spur incredible passion. Those values are all aspects of the life you want, and of the person you want to be. Tomorrow: one of the most important and powerful components of your identity and destiny.

I have lots of reasons for wanting to control my weed addiction. I become aware of those reasons when I see how my addiction causes me to make myself act dumber than I actually am.

My strongest motivation to change is my desire to actively and coherently involve myself in my son’s life. When I sneak off to go get high alone, I can’t help but think of all the important things I should be filling any necessary time away from my son with—productive activities like work or working toward goals. I’m crushed to think he might be feeling neglected while I’m off getting my fix (or giving weed its fix of me…).

Here’s a related thought I once wrote while high:

What would be better for my son than for me to be________ (fill in the blank)?

Rather than having to hit rock bottom, is it possible to see signs of destruction in advance and change?

If you find yourself acting dumber than you are—stuck doing things you should know better than to do—the issue must really be one of maturity, right?

Even with all the best reasons and intentions, I don’t believe addictions can be fought off by force. I’ve sure never been able to will myself to quit compulsive weed use. That’s why this story is about the power of going public to face every detail of your life until your perspective changes.

Again, the goal is maturity. Maturity requires a change in perspective; that’s what maturity is.

Here’s something else I once wrote while high:

There’s opposition to being the person you want to be because you’re not just one thing. You’ll never JUST be your conscience, no matter how loudly that particular voice might yell at you at times.

I want to be taken to my potential. I want to be able to actually enjoy being high. Right now, my addiction keeps me from being the person I want to be. Addiction also keeps me from enjoying or benefiting from weed the way I know I could. What I know I really want is to have fewer, better highs. I believe there are more mature outlets for the desires I currently fill in immature, harmful, unsatisfying ways.

Tomorrow: using music to make myself dumber.

“Why would anyone think of quitting weed? If you see me, ask him.”
— someone high

When I get high all the time, I can’t seem to stay on top of that many things. Even the most carefully plotted schedules end up completely overlooked. I tend to drift through days, weeks, and months, hoping for reminders when important appointments arise or assignments are due.

I guess smartphones help when I make myself dumb; but I still never quite break even.

An old friend and I had agreed to catch up one night. Unfortunately, I got high every night that week and totally forgot. I ended up smoking right before he called. I felt like I was all over the place during our conversation—zany, giggly, nervous, paranoid, dumb…

Have you ever experienced a specific type of paranoia that sets in when you try to engage in certain conversations high?

After talking with my friend that night, I smoked a little more and wrote:

Weed sometimes makes me feel dumb when I have to communicate with certain people.

That’s ironic, though, because addiction usually makes me feel the opposite way: like I can’t think as clearly when I’m straight.

Another time, I got high and wrote:

Being addicted, I feel much dumber when I’m not high.

When I use weed addictively, high ideas seem to snap themselves together on different levels simultaneously like they always do; but then the high goes away, and thinking feels like lugging weights up a hill. I miss being able to think, stay on top of things, talk to people…

Why choose to be dumber than I am?

Can seeing the effects of a series of dumb choices ever motivate smarter ones?

Tomorrow: why even the strongest of motivations might not be enough.

P.S. Here’s another high thought I once wrote down:

Another way addiction causes me to make myself dumber in relationships is I end up putting myself in the most uncomfortable social scenarios imaginable, like being really high at work or around relatives.

Have someone else’s words ever “spoken” directly into to your life?

You could be reading, or maybe listening to someone talk, even fighting to pay attention, but then all of a sudden it’s like a certain line or idea jumps out at you.

It feels as though whatever you heard or saw was somehow meant to catch your attention—as if the whole world stopped to paint you a familiar picture, delivering relevant insight at just the right moment to touch on the current core issues of your being.

I call that illumination.

It happened a lot to me in college. I might have been exhausted after working all day, doing all I could to stay awake through some monotonous lecture; but then something said would cause me to light up on the inside like a neon sign, catching and consuming my attention.

When illumination happens, it feels too perfect to be a coincidence.

One night a couple years ago, I was thinking about how intuition might relate to art and creativity. I happened to hear the episode of Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF, where Marc interviews Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Atoms for Peace. The interview was fascinating enough, but then Thom said something that essentially cast a spotlight on the very themes I’d already been rolling around. He shared that his experience with making art has entirely been a process of learning to follow and trust his intuitions. I got excited.

Later that night, I was reading Seth Godin’s daily blog post. Seth’s point that day—painted as always in the most beautifully touching, simple word pictures—was that relying only on what’s worked before (instead of following intuition) is always a flawed approach to creativity. “This rearview window analysis,” writes Seth, “is anathema to the creative breakthrough that we call art.”

It was as if Thom’s and Seth’s words that night had been fated for me to hear. The timing was just too perfect.

I took Seth’s charge at the end of his post very personally, where readers were encouraged to be “the few that have the guts to put great work into the world instead.”

Later that night, I got high and wrote:

When it seems that something someone says speaks into your life, it’s like an inward confirmation that what you believe about the direction you want to go is correct, even despite circumstances that might make you doubt.

I wouldn’t limit the scope of illumination; I see such connections happening everywhere, in different places for different people.

How does any of this relate to recording and sharing your real experience so you can face and overcome addiction?

Well, you alone don’t see the whole picture. None of us were meant to live, and grow, and chase our dreams in isolation . . . at least not forever.

Even hermit crabs, despite their name, don’t do well alone for long.

Illumination naturally connects you to others who share your values—those already moving (or wanting to move) in the same direction as you.

I believe illumination can be like a signpost that serves to connect you with the specific people, ideas, and pursuits that are right for you to run with.

As for controlling addiction, illumination gives the experience you go public with weight beyond just what you currently know. Illumination is like confirmation that inspires you to trust your intuitions, even when life gives you reasons to doubt.

As you prepare to share your experience, be sure to maintain an outward focus as well as an inward one.

You have to be somewhat outward focused once you actually go public, anyway.

Keep your eyes and ears open at all times. See your intuitions as leads to follow; then read, listen, watch, learn…

Don’t ever think you have the whole picture.

We live at an amazing time when information is fast becoming free. When I began college, you had to be a registered student to access digital copies of academic journals through the school database. Now those resources are available through public library websites and search engines.

One night, after fishing through Wikipedia for references related to a particular idea, I came across the term “self-actualization,” which seemed relevant to what I was working on . . . so I searched for information through several digital academic journals. Even many of the search results that weren’t directly related to my original project seemed to speak perfectly to other ideas and projects I was thinking about. In short, I’d set myself up through a little easy research to be “spoken to.”

If you want to experience more illumination, listen more. Read and hear others’ shared experiences more. Stay open. Connect. Hear every perspective you can.

Illumination gives weight to your hopes about how you think things should or could play out.

When it comes to facing and overcoming your current limitations and addictions, seeing the direction you want to go being attested to by others bolsters your expectation and willingness to commit to your goals.

Have you ever been “spoken to” by something you heard, saw, or read?

Tomorrow: what getting an education might mean today, and how to control for the GIGO factor in terms of your own perspective.

I mentioned the time I frantically smoked hash through a makeshift pipe (a giant lemonade can stabbed with a pen). Well, two days later, I finally sat down at my laptop to start working on my Facing Addiction story.

All my plans for how I’d go public with my experience immediately went out the window.

I had folders and documents stuffed with rough bits and pieces spanning several solid years’ worth of compulsive weed use. Scattered throughout were my thoughts specifically about addiction.

My plan was to read through what I’d recorded every now and then, but basically just to write my story from scratch—to share whatever came to mind whenever I’d sit down to write.

I mean, that’s how people write, right?

So, I clicked to open a new document, and just started typing…

It felt weird right away. I spent about an hour wrestling with wording for an intro story about meeting this girl at a dance party years ago. After that, I clumsily sputtered through what ended up being a crude outline of my relationship with weed so far. I wrote that:

• I’m an addict who wants to find balance so I can keep using weed for the things it helps me with.
• I’ve felt the need for balance and control ever since I got my prescription back in 2011.
• Weed seems to help me find ideas, but then it steals the time and focused brainpower I’d need to develop those ideas.
• Addiction keeps me isolated and broke.
• I’ve tried to quit many times and failed.
• I need to find a new way to relax without weed.
• Going public with my experience feels like an important first step in learning to control my addiction.
• If my quest for balance fails, I’ll admit my need for help.

It took hours, and I felt like I was only circling around everything I wanted to say.

You could probably sit down right now and come up with a quick list of good reasons for every change you want to make in life. But how complete (or honest) would such a list really be?

Have you ever made lists like that before? Did they work to change you in the long run?

Anyway, I finished writing and promptly got high. As I began to slowly, dazedly read back over what I’d written, I realized something important right away: Just typing whatever came to mind and hoping for the best would never result in my real addiction experience being properly captured and shared so I could fully face it. Instead of balance and control, I’d have only ended up more entrenched in hindering thought-patterns and habits.

Why? Well, here are some of the high thoughts I wrote down that night while reading back through my first attempt at sharing my experience:

Trying hard to write something cool that I hope will capture my thoughts feels like the wrong direction for me to go with this. Instead, I just want to let my growing collection of recorded experiences and intuitions connect however they connect to basically show themselves.

But do I really want to spend this time thinking and attaching ideas instead of just writing and sharing freely?

It’s simpler than that, though, right? I’m missing something…?

Writing the way I wrote tonight felt far too self-indulgent.

I’ve already been capturing my real experience; now I just want to show it as simply as possible. I don’t want to explain my intentions or philosophies. I hope the pieces I collect can speak for themselves to paint an accurate picture. I feel like my part should be only to tie them together as little as needed.

Let that always be my philosophy: as little as needed.

The next night, I re-wrote what became DAY 1 by simply connecting a few pre-recorded experiences and intuitions together.

But what does any of this have to do with actually facing addiction? What I’m talking about today is the experience you go public with in order to face, control, and overcome your limitations and addictions.

I wouldn’t have realized how dishonest I was being if I hadn’t seen my own words as if through someone else’s eyes.

That’s part of the magic of going public: You’re forced to see yourself more objectively. Going public robs you of the ability to easily lie to yourself about your own state—something addiction both results from and causes, always.

Here are more of my high thoughts from that night:

Self-indulgence weakens the power of your unconscious intuitions, ideas, and desires to naturally connect and bring themselves to life through you. Being self-indulgent puts you in your own way. You end up interpreting your experience through the filter of the very limitations you wish to overcome—seeing your life through the perspective you wish to change.

Basically, sharing self-indulgently could sabotage the whole process of going public with your experience to face and overcome what holds you back.

What do I mean by self-indulgence? How does sharing self-indulgently differ from the type of sharing I’ve been encouraging? My high thoughts from that night continue:

Trying to explain exactly what I’m going through off the top of my head is what I mean by self-indulgence.

Going public is powerful because the experience you share touches and connects various pieces of what’s currently unconscious and intuitive, gradually bringing those deeper truths to light. Going public turns your life into something like the creation of an artwork.

Think of self-indulgent sharing as sharing in an overly intentional way—asking yourself specific questions, and then trying to run with what you think the answers should be.

The type of experience I’m encouraging you to share is more like a connected sequence of what naturally occurs (or stands out) to you over time. Sure, ask yourself questions; but then let them sit. Notice things like how often you ask the same questions. The more connected recurring themes you see, the better.

Of course there’s a balance; you’d miss out on living if you spent forever trying to fill in and connect every detail of your life.

My Facing Addiction story is simply a collection of linked, progressive hunches or daydreams about life, identity, and values.

Recorded unconscious intuitions naturally connect and simplify in time, reducing and cancelling out needless fluff like terms in an equation. Conscious attempts to explain, on the other hand, can forever complicate the equation, keeping you from seeing what you already know deep down.

A marriage counselor might spend months helping a couple reach an eight-second conclusion about what’s really going on behind all the practiced noise and drama. It will be an answer both find they really already knew, yet one that neither had let themselves see for various reasons.

Sharing your real experience should cut through self-indulgent patterns and limitations just like effective counseling. Otherwise, it’s attempting to climb quicksand steps, or to lift yourself up by the seat of your own pants. Cutting through the noise between your thoughts and intentions so you can see your life more objectively is the first step toward maturity and real change. But addictions and personal limitations are especially stubborn and tricky in that regard. That’s why tomorrow we’ll take a much closer look at the relationship between the lies we tend to tell ourselves and our addictions and limitations, citing several examples from psychology.

The philosopher, Descartes, wanted to find if there was anything that could be known for certain.

We believe our experience shows us what’s actually real, but can we ever be sure? Couldn’t our thoughts and perceptions really be the intended result of some elaborate, cosmic trick?

It seems like countless explanations could account for our experience; yet for the experiencing itself—the perceiving, thinking, questioning—to not exist at all makes no sense.

If experience must exist in some way, it would follow that there must at least be a reality.

How could absolutely nothing exist if this question exists?

Descartes would say the certainty of experience proves that we too must exist in some way: “I think (or perceive), therefore I am.”

Yesterday I shared some thoughts about why all my wasted years might not really have been so wasted after all. Recording and putting my experience together to share has shown me the part of me that’s always continued on in every state.

Now, my addictive behaviors didn’t vanish right away when I started putting my experience together to share; but my perspective did begin to shift and widen. I’ve since gained a far clearer sense of myself, and of the person I want to become.

On that note: I’m supposed to be writing about controlling addiction, right? Instead, I’ve been going on about relationships, feelings, identity, dreams, writing, philosophy, and so many other concepts besides just my simple desire to escape the bad consequences of compulsive weed use.

But I don’t think our lives can ever be compartmentalized in reality. We can momentarily consider individual aspects while looking either forward or back. We can examine each of our values and behaviors individually. But what we are is a uniquely integrated series of combinations playing out in time. What we are ties physical experience to reason, self-esteem to opportunities, desires to limitations, memories (or art) to a sense of self, and so many other shifting worlds which all crash together, gel, split, and evolve (or devolve) simultaneously.

Seeing how life’s many parts integrate can be extremely helpful and beautiful. It also makes trying to sell any kind of valid one-size-fits-all solution impossible. Or, it should…

I once wrote this while high and having a conversation with my wife:

Life has many parts. Either every part moves forward together, or one will hold the rest back.

I wrote this another time (high):

Be aware of all your WHYs and which parts of your life they touch.

All I really want is to fully apply myself. I see that I can only reach my potential when addictions are controlled.

For me, a big part of reaching potential has to do with writing, but we all have potential to reach. We all deal with limiting and addictive behaviors that hinder us from being our best selves.

I have many reasons (or “WHYs”) for wanting to control addiction. I’d like to improve my relationships, and to be more effective at pursuing goals. I only have one life to live, and I want to be the most efficient, dynamic me that I can be for the rest of it. I always hope to be moving closer to that ideal, even as the ideal itself shifts and expands with me.

As I record and share my experience, it becomes increasingly impossible to ignore exactly how my addictions and compulsions hold me back from being the person I want to be.

What are your reasons?

Also, what does the thing you’re currently addicted to give you? Do you experience more of that benefit if you do whatever it is in a non-addictive way—only when you choose to, and not compulsively? If addiction is doing what you tell yourself not to, you’d surely get more from the experience if you could wait until you knew it would be right (or better), no? Is that a common balance to strive for regardless of the substance, chemical, or activity?

Less is more, right?

Thinking along Descartes’ lines: I can’t imagine a non-reality in which the questioning or perceiving that we come to take our identity from still occurs somehow.

If such a reality can’t be comprehended (and I see no reason to believe in it), wouldn’t it be safe to assume that your experience is something you can be more certain of than anything else?

What is your real experience . . . who are you?

Whatever you want to do or be, I encourage you: Record and then go public with your experience when you’re ready. Then, as you grow, whatever holds you back must either die off or evolve with every other combined part of you. When that happens, it’s like seeing every aspect of the life you want ganging up on every hindering, limiting force. Your addictions and compulsions don’t stand a chance.

Tomorrow: cutting through your conscious fog.

In the Arrested Development episode, Señoritis, Maeby Fünke repeats her senior year of high school several times in a failed attempt at getting her self-absorbed parents’ attention.

We see Maeby having deep regrets about her life choices when two guys she hasn’t seen in years start explaining their new ventures to her.

Maeby seems lost or dazed as her geeky cousin describes his antipiracy software. The narrator comments: “Maeby tried to hide her jealousy. But as she listened to her cousin discuss computer technology she had no understanding of, she lost that feeling of superiority. And her self-esteem plummeted as she started to question the entirety of what she had done with her life for the last several years.”

Later, as an old colleague shares with Maeby about his new business, we hear the narrator say, “And once again she found herself with someone who had not only moved on with their life, but done so in ways she couldn’t understand.”

I mentioned running into an old friend who had effectively “changed the game,” turning his life around from devastation to success in the face of bitter disappointment and heartache. When I saw him, I was struck by his focused, hungry demeanor. But I never changed the game. Like Maeby, I only got older and more down on myself for having wasted so much time.

I often have this fantasy of being three or four years old again, but with my current understanding and memories, and dedicating my whole life to mastering some cool art form (like music).

The feeling of having wasted my most precious years—of missing important opportunities instead of reaching latent potential—has loomed often in the last decade or so.

I wrote this (while high) about such unbearable feelings:

My fear is that I’ll never accomplish anything. It’s a fear of being frozen forever in inability and wasted potential.

It reminds me of these lyrics from The Unforgiven by Metallica: “What I’ve felt, what I’ve known, never shined through in what I’ve shown. Never be, never see, won’t see what might have been.”

I feel like I’ve somehow lost the ability to do what I most want to. It’s a feeling like lost innocence, or a lost sense of adventure—of being unable to really live in the moment, or to imagine as freely, anymore.

Seven-year-olds can play with toys and make worlds of fun on the edges of their beds after school. They don’t really have to try.

How about a sixteen-year-old? Adolescents seem to emulate a tense, imbalanced mix of the two worlds they’re caught between. I think it’s all supposed to reconfigure and settle properly by adulthood . . . ideally.

Is there something seven-year-olds have that eventually gets lost?

When I was twenty-two, I fell in love with this girl who lived far away. We messaged and emailed constantly, talking on the phone as much as we could. It’s funny how easy it can be to construct a perfect relationship from across the world. I ended up quitting my job, pawning everything I owned, and moving to where she was, thinking I was being romantic.

Yet we were quickly forced to face the fact that we weren’t actually the people we’d made ourselves out to be. Being as immature as we were, though, our primary focus was on maintaining the illusion at all costs.

Pressing the situation, we started to circle the idea of getting married as a solution to the mounting, unspoken tension.

A month later, she was gone. I was broke and stuck living alone in a strange new place.

That was over ten years ago now. Looking back, I’m so glad we didn’t push the situation far enough to force a marriage. That would have been the most immature reaction possible to the chaos of being unwilling to see our fantasies so coldly struck down by reality. Getting married would have been like doubling down into the roles we were still determined must be the right and only ones to play.

How does that story tie to lost innocence, unbearable feelings, controlling addiction, and going public with experience?

I guess I see now, for the first time, how all the years I spent beating myself up for wasting time weren’t really wasted at all. I see that in the same way I now see I wasn’t ready to get married at twenty-two.

When I was seven, the world was endless. My biggest dream was to be able to fly. In fact, I’d walk around wishing I could fly so much people probably thought I was communicating with the voices in my head or something (maybe…).

Then I grew up and did drugs, sensing something of an old freedom in the way they served to stimulate, slow, and re-open my mind.

But regardless of my state (high, drunk, asleep…), my mind has always continued to do what it’s really always done, and what it’s doing right now as I write.

Recording my experience to share has made me more and more aware of the part of me that doesn’t change. There’s a definite, fixed sense of identity as I see the way my thoughts all connect to float upon a lifelong current of the same daydream pictures, showing me all those simple things I’ve really always wanted and why.

I’m so glad I never stopped recording my high thoughts and experiences along with all the rest.

Maybe weed helps me appreciate my thoughts the same way it helps me appreciate music, food, or whatever else it might enhance.

Here are some related thoughts I once had while high:

I’m so glad I never made it big when I was young. I wouldn’t have been ready.

You can’t ever be hard on yourself. You have to believe it all works together.

I don’t think you ever need to beat yourself up, even if you feel like you’re wasting potential. It’s a beautiful thing to see your worst mistakes, tragedies, loss, and regrets all somehow get woven into a far bigger, richer picture or story.

Another high thought:

When you’re ready, finding the path to your dreams is as natural as a child learning to walk.

And really, you’re not just ready, but you’ve already started.

Do you beat yourself up for wasting time? Did you when you were seven?

Tomorrow: more on seeing your life as a whole.

I mentioned my time working at a giant religious organization. Well, the leader and founder of that organization is about as charismatic and intimidating as they come. He speaks to thousands each week at the headquarters, and then to literally millions worldwide through TV and webcasts.

In person, that leader comes across as extremely genuine and down-to-earth. It’s obvious he cares a lot about people. It’s hard not to respect someone like that—someone many consider important, yet who always gives so freely of himself.

That leader has now been a public figure for decades. He very deeply understands the power of his reputation, often mentioning the value of a good name in his talks. If he were ever caught doing something he speaks against, there’s no telling how many lives, careers, and investments would be negatively impacted.

But I don’t think that leader’s reputation is his primary motivation for maintaining his integrity. Rather, I believe he is empowered by a particular dynamic that goes into effect whenever honest perspective and experience are shared publicly over time.

You might not have millions watching and ready to hold you accountable to whatever you say. Yes, you feel responsible to certain individuals and groups, such as leaders, companies, dependents, or higher powers. You want to do right by those you love and respect. But your reputation and responsibilities really only influence your behavior about as much as fear of getting caught. Such forces seem too indirect and too easy to negotiate with, put off, or ignore, especially when you don’t see the behavior you want to change directly affecting anyone but you.

To put that in perspective: I was pretty much high all the time while working at that religious organization. I felt bad for doing something I’d be ashamed of if everyone knew. But I just didn’t see my weed use directly hindering anyone there. I was never confronted or warned. I never hit rock bottom. I could function well at work and get by.

Here’s something I wrote while high:

Thought leaders are motivated to maintain their integrity by the fact that they’re sharing their thoughts. But there seems to be a disconnect for anyone trying to maintain integrity for the sake of those leaders or anyone else.

Going public with your real experience enables you to tap into the same type (or source) of accountability thought leaders have—the same motivation for maintaining integrity. It’s not accountability to others, but to yourself, and to what you see and hear yourself publicly saying you want and believe.

It might never be that millions of followers withdraw support from me if I smoke weed on a day I’ve said I don’t want to. But going public isn’t really about the power of reputation. Going public draws the logic and reasoning behind your convictions out from the shifting, elusive space of your conscious mind. It makes everything about who you are and what you want more and more obvious to you in time, forcing you to see your life as objectively as possible.

I’ll close with an opinion about organizations like the one I used to work for. This is just a trend, maybe, that’s gone on over the last decade and a half or so.

In an interview with Larry King, Pastor Joel Osteen from Houston, TX, said, “How can we be moving our church into a basketball arena that seats 16,000 people? I mean, people are hungry for hope and encouragement. You look back 10 years ago, there was, you know, not that many churches that had over 1,000 or 5,000 people. It’s a different day today.”

It seems as though the organizations and movements that are naturally growing and thriving today are those where the focus is outward—on equipping attendees to go out and pursue their best lives as secure individuals in society. Other, similar organizations with a more inward-driven focus—on drawing people in and teaching them to be responsible to the leader and to the goals of the organization—are fighting to build forced relevance on credit the way businesses had to a couple decades ago.

That trend could illustrate what I’m saying here: that being responsible to someone else might seem like a good enough motivation; but having your passion ignited to reach your individual potential becomes an inescapable force.

I’m certainly not trying to start yet another organization or movement. I’m not telling you to start one either. That would seem wasteful and unnecessary these days, no?

Tomorrow: being ready to find your path to destiny.

P.S. I later got high, read through what I’d written here, and wrote:

I mentioned how preparing to share my experience made me aware of an ever-widening gap of inactivity—a gap between realizing how much I wanted to change and actually changing. Sadly, a gap like that can stretch as far as you let it. The only way to bridge such a gap is for your perspective to change.

But no rush. Going public isn’t any kind of snap-out plan. It’s not something to jump into like an artificial list of steps to follow. It’s really more about the power of simply becoming your best self publicly, which seems to be a more seasonal, sequential process. It comes about as naturally as a brewing storm. Stages in the process bring themselves into being on their own, when their time is right.

Just keep recording and connecting your intuitions, convictions, plans, and motivations. See each aspect of your own life and heart as many times as you need to, and for as long as it takes.

Now, I’ve been preparing to go public for at least two years. That’s after probably another two of realizing I should.

There are no “Five Quick Steps to Going Public” or anything like that.

It’s all about your story as it feeds perpetually back into itself, eventually changing your perspective as your unique path to becoming who you want to be sparks itself together from pieces of everything you are, as well as all you learn and go through.

In exactly the place where my plans to change have failed, I now find myself moving farther and faster than I could have ever imagined or engineered.

Several years ago, a good friend went through a devastating divorce. We’d meet up all the time to talk about it.

Despite the deep pain and bitterness he felt, my friend decided to refocus his life on the positive. He took advantage of every opportunity to better himself. He called it “changing the game.”

That became our tagline whenever we saw each other: “Change the game!”

As years passed, my friend’s heartache began to dim; but he stayed just as passionate and consistent with all the good activities he’d added to his life. He blogged every day. He went back to school. He was working out constantly.

Our conversations would sometimes shift from his divorce to my burgeoning weed addiction. He was always so encouraging. Being around him made me feel like it might actually be possible to . . . well, to change the game.

But I didn’t change the game. Instead, addiction seemed to weave its hooks ever deeper into my life and psyche. I became increasingly isolated, spending time with most friends less and less.

In 2013, I ran into that same friend again for the first time in over a year. I honestly felt like I was looking at the polar opposite of myself. I can only describe his vibe as hungry. There was a firm look of resolution in his eyes, and he had this peaceful calm about him. It was like seeing a powerful storm being held carefully in check. He looked light on his feet, enthusiastic, managerial…

So. I went home, got high, and wrote:

That’s it. I’m done. I know I need to go public now. I see how messed up things are, and it’s probably so obvious. I’m paranoid, out of control, and distant from all the people I care about. That’s why going public…

I kept writing, only to pencil out yet another foolish, fool-proof plan—another perfect how-to-change to throw on the pile with the rest.

When I’m concerned about myself, my natural response seems to be to make plans. Though quite comforting to make, my plans have never actually worked to change me.

Here’s more of what I wrote that day (while high) after seeing my friend and realizing I’d failed to change the game:

What happened to me? It’s time to go back. Is it after tomorrow I go back?

My plans always seem to start tomorrow (or soon after).

Tomorrow: a closer look at why those tomorrows never come. When will you do what you most want to?

In the early days of my addiction, I’d often wait for my family to fall asleep before sneaking downstairs to smoke weed and watch TV.

I remember flipping through channels one night after a few covert tokes when I came across a movie that seemed interesting enough; but the notion of giving my “precious high time” over to something I wasn’t absolutely sure about felt far too risky.

I resolved instead to re-watch Arrested Development (AD). Just considering the denseness of the humor and in-jokes packed into every episode, AD seemed like something weed might enhance particularly well. High people seem to love Easter eggs.

Anyway, that became my routine: Each night, I’d sneak a few puffs and watch AD. When all three seasons were done, I dove into another show. That pattern continued for most of 2011: I’d choose shows in advance to then binge-watch by night while high.

While making my way through that first season of AD, I ended up eating all these expensive diet ice creams my wife was saving in the freezer. It was kind of a waste since I wasn’t on a diet. From then on, my wife was kind enough to pick me up boxes of mixed non-diet ice-creams for my secret nightly weed and TV time.

The next two years were punctuated by a slew of failed attempts at controlling what was fast becoming a solidly entrenched addiction.

In 2013, a new season of AD was released on Netflix. I was so excited. I planned to make that new season my final blowout—the last thing I’d binge-watch high before quitting weed until I could start using again later in a more balanced, controlled way. It felt like the perfect way to end a season of my life—the same way it had begun. I also happened to find an identical box of mixed non-diet ice creams in the freezer.

Here’s something I wrote back then (while high) about how I thought things would all come together:

I want to have going public as a new, positive activity I replace my addiction with. It feels like I’m coming full circle—the end of my Devil’s Lettuce cycle. I’ll watch the new season of AD, go through this big box of ice creams, and then go public and start controlling my addiction.

Though circumstances seemed ideal, my perfect plan failed in a very non-spectacular way. I simply smoked right through that new season of AD, and on into whatever show came next, just as I’d been doing.

No matter how perfect any of my plans for controlling addiction were, I never actually successfully stuck with any for very long. I always just ended up ignoring intuitions or whatever else might have threatened my continued compulsive weed use.

But I didn’t see that pattern of perpetual, non-epic failure until I started recording and preparing to share my experience. Then I couldn’t ignore it.

Have you ever made plans to change that failed? Did it matter how perfect the plans were?

Tomorrow: more on feeling addiction’s devastating effects, wishing for control, and yet failing all attempts to change.

After writing today’s chapter, I got high and wrote:

On the Road Runner cartoon, the coyote’s plans never worked. But he never really stuck with any of them. He only tried each plan once. Why? Was it really the plan that failed?

I was half in a band for about six years. We rocked mostly garages and cheap studios.

I felt bad for never being as committed as the other guys. I’d do things like just flakily not show up to practice for months; then I’d appear again on a random Saturday morning all smiley and eager to play.

The others were always way too cool with my lack of dependability.

I showed up once to jam in December 2010, my first appearance in over a year. The others had obviously been working hard. They sounded tight and brilliant. I was rusty but loving the experience of jumping around like a kid again in that tiny, dingy practice studio, being all loud and everything.

We were talking after practice, and one of the guys mentioned how easy it had been to get his medical marijuana prescription.

2010 had felt like a pretty dismal year for me, so the notion of legal weed as a real possibility was definitely appealing.

My friend from the band gave me a gram to hold me over until I could get my prescription. I was so grateful. He actually let me choose between two different strains. The first, he said, was supposed to be more physically calming and loose; the second was known to be more energetic and mentally stimulating.

I chose the second, stimulating strain, called Devil’s Lettuce.

That night, I got high for the first time in years. My plan for the night was simply to collapse to the couch and watch something funny on TV. Instead, I drifted like some reverse specter to my laptop where I typed up a dazed email to a friend, telling him something about as embarrassing as accidentally sexting your boss. I wrote that I wished he and I could learn to better understand each other one day.

I cringed when I realized I’d just pressed ‘Send’.

It seems kind of silly to me now to have gotten so worked up about the whole thing. Perhaps the Devil’s Lettuce was merely amplifying my then naturally paranoid perspective to epic proportions, highlighting its clash with my abiding naïveté and immaturities. Regardless, it didn’t paint a pretty picture.

I frantically tapped out another email, claiming to have sent the first by mistake. I tried to cover with a few lame jokes.

Next, I wrote the following note to myself in hopes of avoiding future embarrassment:

Just do what you set out to do. Have fun.

I was essentially advising myself to only stick with TV and other forms of entertainment while high.

A bunch of other similarly awkward scenarios played out over the next few months. One time, I got high and texted my brother-in-law, telling him he was the brother I’d always wanted. Even if all my high sentiments were true, putting myself out there like that felt incredibly embarrassing, inappropriate, and poorly timed. I felt like an idiot.

I gradually became too afraid to initiate social interactions on weed, especially with non-high people. Instead, per my own instructions, I buried myself in entertainment.

It got to where if I wasn’t being entertained enough, I’d feel like I was wasting my high.

Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with entertainment. I find weed can beautifully enhance TV, movies, music, food, sex, videogames, etc.

My problem was just that my rule about only having fun made me too aware of time passing by. I’d get all anxious and impatient, always feeling like I could be getting more out of the experience than I was. For example, if I was planning to smoke weed, make some popcorn, and watch a movie, the time spent actually making the popcorn would feel unacceptably boring and frustrating.

In those early days, I hated the nagging feeling that a certain high thought or idea might be worth writing down.

The pressure to maximize my high time even kept me from sleep. I’d smoke late at night, watch the beginning of a show, smoke some more, keep watching, have an energy drink, smoke some more, watch another episode…

Here’s something I wrote while high years later:

It’s kind of ironic: In 2010, I felt like I was supposed to be writing but wasn’t. Back then, I’d have seen entertainment as a waste of time. Then I started using medical weed, and everything flipped: I felt like I was wasting my high time if I had to write or do anything other than be entertained.

In both cases, not doing exactly what I thought I should fed into a cycle of anxiety and depression.

Eventually I wouldn’t be able to ignore how many times I’d told myself how crucial it was for me to learn to really relax. I think I gradually came to see just how uptight I was getting about my “relaxation time.”

Are ironies like that often the Xs that mark irrationalities in our lives?

It seems true that time + recording and sharing experience = less opportunities for irrationalities overall.

So, once I smoked through that gram of Devil’s Lettuce, I went to go get my prescription. I had an intense experience the first night I used after that. I’d plucked off a few clumps from a jolting, energetic strain (such strains, like Devil’s Lettuce, are called Sativas). I’d also taken some buds from a smoother, more relaxing strain (these are called Indicas).

I coughed so hard after a few puffs from that first racing Sativa that I never actually made it to the second mellow Indica.

Going against my own advice about avoiding all but entertainment, I wrote down an imagined conversation with a distant friend.

Feeling lost, impatient, sketchy, alone, and desperate, I next wrote:

People from the past are voices in my head. But I could never talk to them now. It’s weird.

Throughout 2011, my chronic need for entertainment only escalated. I isolated myself without realizing, and imagined rejection from everyone. I’d almost convinced myself the reason for all my anxiety was that I’d been cursed for having wrongly chosen the Devil’s Lettuce strain in the first place.

It’s wonderful what a little objective perspective can do.

Have you ever felt cursed? Did it matter whether the curse was real?

How has addiction changed you?

Tomorrow: a cry for help.

P.S. After writing today’s chapter, I got high and wrote:

It seems kind of obvious now: Devil’s Lettuce is a Sativa strain; Sativas might be the opposite of what you’d want to use to “collapse to the couch” and watch TV. No wonder I couldn’t sit still that first night, but instead skittered to my laptop, fired off a heartfelt email, and then got all anxious about it. Sativas are naturally more energetic, warm, and stimulating. But I had no idea back then. Part of the problem—the effects of the “Devil’s Lettuce curse”—could have just been misusing strains early on. It takes time for those who’ve used illegally to get used to being able to choose between specific effects, which is one of the benefits of going to a dispensary.

When I was nineteen, I flunked out of business school. I’m not even sure why I was there apart from just being overly impressionable. All I really wanted to be doing at the time was music. All I actually did was jot down thoughts on life . . . kind of like I’m doing here.

I also did a lot of drugs. Memories from that time are a youth-enriched blur of seedy houses, spaces under overpasses, crazy faces, trees rushing by, falling…

I might have even scraped by that semester if not for a random drug dealer at a bus stop the night before my first final exam. I asked if he had any acid. I’m pretty sure I caught a faint twinkle in his eye as he sold me a gram of weed and muttered something along the lines of: “Trust me…”

Now, when I’m high, I sometimes see these racing, shifting, oddly familiar images in my mind. I see them more when I use less often. If I’m high all day, every day, the images will burn out to nothing before they can really begin. Well, that first night with the bus-stop weed, those beautifully complex images were all I could see.

The weed must have been spiked or laced with something else. The experience wasn’t unpleasant, but it was definitely all-consuming. I was locked away in an inward world for about twelve hours.

The next morning, during my exam, I felt twisted and totally unable to focus.

So, I failed the exam, went home, and smoked some more of the bus stop weed.

That became my pattern for the week. There was a different final exam each morning, and I failed all of them.

I now see that week as a sort of foreshadowing, almost comical illustration of the detachment and self-sabotage that would later re-emerge and culminate in full-blown addiction.

One night that week, I remember sitting in this big chair at my parents’ house, incredibly high. I forget exactly what I was thinking about, but I clearly recall the sensation of my normal, conscious thoughts slowing and spreading to where it was like I could literally see in-between them. Details I’d never noticed about my everyday world suddenly seemed so obvious. Reasons for my own conclusions and reactions became inescapable.

What I wrote down that night (super high, about fifteen years ago) was:

This is the shit BETWEEN the shit!

Perhaps weed just helps me appreciate my regular thoughts more. It certainly seems to help me imagine and daydream more freely.

Yesterday I brought up The Test. During the weekend of The Test, I wrote the following while high after having not had weed for days:

It’s funny: This was supposed to be my big moment of truth; but I hadn’t even considered so many important factors: like the weed could have been weak.

The Test was to see how a little weed would affect me after a break. But once I was high again, I realized I’d been so fixated on the details of my plan that I hadn’t even considered how my mood that day, the specifics of the strain I’d be using, and so many other variables might have affected the results. It all seemed so obvious once I was high again.

I took out a 3-by-5 card and wrote something that touched all the way back to my experience with the bus-stop weed all those years ago:

The thing I hate [love] about getting high is you immediately see all the flaws in [underlying reasons for] your normal, non-high conclusions.

Writing that thought felt like a turning point for me. It was when I first had the sense that the high thoughts and intuitions I’d been recording all along might actually prove useful.

On the other side of that 3-by-5 card, I wrote:

I’m ready. I’ve trained (see the quote on the reverse of this card).

“Trained” might be a little overdramatic. I’m imagining some sort of smoky montage showing bong hits, thoughtful stoned looks, and progressively cooler scribbles on paper—all backed, of course, by enthusiastic ‘80s music.

I was just excited about the idea that my high experience might be a valuable part of my story to share. It was like seeing a potential conversation take place—a conversation with another version of myself.

Now, my aim is not to hold my high thoughts up as some sort of authority. They’re not like arguments in a debate . . . quite the opposite.

Recording your convictions and intuitions over time can be like seeing sets of paintings in ever closer detail. Being aware of the overarching “shit between the shit” just keeps the current confines of your conscious mind from distorting your vision.

Why do you get high or do whatever you’re addicted to? When you record your experience with the intent to share, you can’t hide from the fact that only by doing whatever it is in a non-addictive way will your initial reasons ever be satisfied. To put that more simply: When you see objectively how your addiction experience plays out in time, you know on every level that you’ll never find what you’re looking for in whatever you’re using if you keep using addictively.

Preparing to share your experience forces you to be honest with yourself. It eventually makes all your own “whys” impossible to ignore. Tomorrow: why I got addicted to medical marijuana in the first place.

I was wandering around the garage one Saturday morning when I came face-to-face with this tiny spider, still and barely noticeable, on the daintiest of webs. It was right in the spot where I’d usually get high.

As I began puffing away on a joint, I started to feel for the little creature. I decided to send some smoke its way.

I hope that’s not animal cruelty.

I got hungry a little later, and assumed the spider had the munchies too; but I couldn’t see how it would ever catch anything in its spindly little web in the corner of our dark garage.

Getting a fly into that web became my mission for the weekend.

Actually, I’m glad my wife was away, because I basically left the garage door open and the lights on for two full days and nights.

I’m not sure if the spider ever ate. It had disappeared by Sunday night.

My weekend with the spider happened to be the culmination of something I called The Test. My idea for The Test had been simple: I’d choose a random week to go from Monday through Friday without using any weed; then I’d get high again that weekend and record my experience.

That first day and night, Monday, was excruciating. I hadn’t gone a day without using in probably a year. I only slept about two hours that night. I remember having this vivid, chaotic dream about driving frantically back and forth between all these nearby dispensaries. In the dream, they were all closed.

Others have described well the jolting discomforts of sudden sobriety, and my experience was no different. I had insomnia for days. I couldn’t settle down. I felt like I was being annoyingly hyper at work.

As mentioned, weed seems to weave itself into every fabric of my life. When I’m not using, just knowing I won’t be able to enjoy my normal activities the same way leaves me feeling glum and sluggish. Sure, I could watch TV, drive to work, take a shower, laugh with people, or do whatever else I might normally do high; I just don’t look forward to any of it the same way.

Sobriety feels like being away from a close, fun friend—kind of like the aftermath of a sudden, unfortunate breakup.

Here’s something I wrote while high:

Do you ever feel trapped in a condition where you can’t think or function the same way without what you’re addicted to?

During the week of The Test, I found it almost impossible to string together even the most basic thoughts and words. I remember thinking it would be awesome if my mind could just always do what it seems to do so freely whenever weed comes into play. My hope was that finding a way to control my addiction would allow my mind to adjust, restoring its ability to reason and imagine without needing outside stimulation.

By that Saturday, I was broken. I had all these weird aches and pains. Muscles were cramping. I couldn’t get warm enough.

So I went in the garage, met my spider friend, and smoked…

Moments later, I wrote this:

The experiment was a success. I feel great. It’s been less than a week off of weed, and I’m super high.

I was glad to see a few days sober had reversed some of the massive tolerance I’d built up. I also felt good about myself for having kept my addiction under control all week.

Whenever I use weed compulsively, I feel guilty right away. The guilt starts to prod at my conscience as soon as the high sets in. Afterwards, the fuzz of sobriety dims the subtle light of my convictions. Everything gets hazy and unpleasant again until I’m pulled back out of that mental fog by my old “fun” friend.

I feel great about myself whenever I don’t use for any length of time; but once I start up again, I seem to slip so easily back out of control. That’s what happened after The Test and so many other times, before and since.

Here’s a summary of The Test: In May, two years ago, I didn’t use weed at all for five days. I had a really good high when I smoked again. Then my addiction pulled me back (as always) and I continued using compulsively as before.

Was The Test a success?

When you tried to suddenly quit something, how did you feel? What happened next? Tomorrow: a high thought from the weekend of The Test that led directly to writing this whole 70-day story.

I love hanging out at guitar stores. I might spend hours jumping between all the acoustic basses and wooden six-strings.

Unbridled musical toy shopping can actually be an easy way for me to get myself in trouble.

I was surprised one day to find a good-looking nylon-string guitar online for only about $20. I ordered it, not expecting much; truthfully, I’ve never found an instrument that sounds as beautiful or peaceful to me. It’s also my most comfortable to play.

How does my love for guitars relate to controlling addiction? Well, we’ll come back to the massive financial costs of an addiction like mine later. For now, another story…

About two years ago, I somehow managed to make it through a few days without any weed. Then I discovered some shake I must have left (or hidden) in my car.

Shake is just the thin, sparse leaves and stems from marijuana plants. It’s not as potent as the buds people usually use.

Since I hadn’t smoked in a few days, I was blown away by how high I got from just that little bit of shake. It was the same magical feeling I mentioned yesterday.

I wrote this about the experience (while still high):

My best time with weed could really be like my best guitar: simple and cheap. It just seems like less can definitely be more—like what you’re compelled to do can be so much more beneficial if you wait for the right time for it. It reminds me of that MGMT song.

I was talking about the MGMT song, Kids, where the chorus goes: “Control yourself; take only what you need from it.” I don’t know what Kids is really about, but that line sure stuck with me. I like the idea of having self-control so I can get more out of whatever I enjoy or use.

Even the Bible says, “One who is full despises honey, but to one who is hungry, even bitter food tastes sweet.”

Are certain experiences better or more special when you can have them less often?

Tomorrow: a “darker” weed experience.

P.S. After writing today’s chapter, I promptly got high and wrote:

Well, weed isn’t “bitter” like the food in that Bible quote. Oh well.