Can Medical Marijuana Help Combat Alcoholism? Finally A Real Answer To The Problem

 

Medical Marijuana. Can it help in the fight? Read on and judge for yourself.

 

For those of you that don’t know me personally, I’ve dealt with alcoholism for most of my adult life. Like many people who lose their way with the bottle, I didn’t start out with any set plan to be an alcoholic. It just slowly swallowed me up over time, until one day I woke up in an absolute nightmare. Some people like to get rather specific about the whole scene but I don’t really think its necessary. There are thousands of ways to end up an alcoholic or a drug addict, and no matter which path a person takes to get to misery town, to me, the only thing that matters is the day the afflicted decides to make a change.

It’s a personal decision and can only be made by the person suffering. I’m not hear to preach to anyone, I don’t give a shit about moral agendas, the twelve steps, rehab or any of that other shit they peddle in the rehabilitation circuit. Why is that? Because I wasted a lot of time looking for answers in every one of those places and dedicated large amounts of my time chasing after miracles from 2006 until 2013.

I don’t like war stories that much, so obviously AA never really appealed to me. On top of that, I found that talking about being a drunk for an hour a day often times made me want to get hammered. My only other word on the meeting scene? I put it like this: If I was starving, would talking about cooking food help or hurt? Ok, enough of that. I’m not here to trash anyone’s scene, and I think any group or program that is dedicated to helping people get better is admirable. I’m here with something else to say.

For whatever reason, the various programs, live in-rehab centers (short term and long term), meetings, therapy, a host of craving medications, and a galaxy of mood stabilizers did absolutely nothing for me. And when I mean nothing, it’s was exactly that. Nothing I seemed to dabble with changed my thoughts about using, I was in a constant state of unhappiness, my drunk binges became worse and worse, happening more frequent as the years progressed. I went to rehab or emergency hospital stays to dry out at least 27 times over the course of that eight year period.

It got so bad that I was told I couldn’t come back to one of the more “high class” rehab centers south of Genesee County and north of Ann Arbor. I had been there at least five times and since progress was not made, I suppose my presence was detrimental to the appearance of “success” that the first timers often talked themselves into. I don’t blame anyone for my failures, I was there because of my drinking problem and my rather unfortunate desire to literally destroy myself with the booze.

Eventually, my drinking cost me a job that I loved dearly (but probably contributed to my vulnerability with the drink). No matter, it all went away over the course of a couple years. I was able to hang on for a bit, getting similar jobs in the field but it didn’t last. I had never fixed the alcoholism, so I was doomed to lose everyone of those jobs one way or another. I could do well for a time, but the rising tide always came back to drown me at some point. I was in such a bad place I didn’t even care how it was all going to end.

 

I had come to a place where my body had started to develop some health problems, my liver was starting to do weird shit that I didn’t really care for, and above all, I just wanted the mad marathon to end. By 2013, I had given up on a happy ending and was waiting around to bite the bullet. I figured one day I just wouldn’t wake up, from either an overdose of alcohol and sleeping medication, death by car crash, or the nightmare scenario of waking up in jail without knowing what I had done or how things had even happened.

 

And then it happened. Someone said to me “Why don’t you try medical marijuana to see if it helps you? What have you got to lose? I had never really considered Medical Marijuana as an option, but without any other options and a problem that was obviously not going away, I really pondered the question. Why not try it? If all that awaited was death, arrest, or death? What the fuck?

 

I remember as if it were yesterday, I got out of rehab for the final time in 2013 and started looking for a bag “weed”. The medical marijuana program in Michigan at the time was still in the early years and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go all in with the green lady.

 

I decided that I would try the plant before getting official with the State of Michigan. I had a CCW at the time and had concerns about losing it. There were other things that I needed to factor in, but like I said, I wasn’t going to give my life for something until I found out that it worked first. I would also like to remind the people reading this, that I was an extreme case. I wouldn’t recommend getting a medical marijuana card if traditional methods work for them, or at least give them a try first. I couldn’t find anything that seemed to address my extreme needs, or help fight off the intense cravings, and had already lost most of the things in my life except for my family. In the end, it’s another personal decision that I have no business knowing about. I encourage people to educate themselves, do what their own situation calls for or tolerates, but above all else, get to a better place anyway you can.

 

I didn’t know it back in 2013, how unhappy I had really been drinking, until I healed my body and my soul with Medical Marijuana. It literally saved my life and that is not an exaggeration. If you don’t believe me, go ask anyone who ran with me between the years 1998 and 2013…see what they’ll say? I don’t need to ask anyone because I already know. On some nights I thought I was Sid Vicious, or Jim Morrison, perhaps Lou Reed, or even Iggy Pop with my drinking. The other side of that was that I was so sick from drinking that it took me three to seven days to start feeling better after drying out. It was pure hell. I won’t sit here and say every minute of the crazy days were bad, like I said, on nights I was drinking like the big four listed above, there were good times, that often lasted several days. But in the end, the joy was gone and the all that was left was a sick stomach, a body in various states of destruction, and dark empty rooms laced with sadness and regret.

 

Marijuana slowly got me healthy and the more I messed with it, the better I felt. Originally I had only ever said “if I get half of my life back, then I’d be totally cool with that” but in no time at all, I would have to say that I was operating at around 65-70%. This was the first time that I ever experienced real results and it was a fucking miracle. And the magic “spiritual experience” didn’t come from talking, blue books, or lightning strikes. No, it was not found in Ann Arbor city, in the never ending “rehab community” they have embedded in town.

 

It was not found on the outskirts off Livingston County, or in the basement churches I frequented for years, retelling my sad tale to strangers who seemed as miserable as me. My SOUL SONIC BOOM came from the Marijuana Plant baby! How about that.

 

I had wasted years in the “rehabilitation” community and within six months of dancing with the flower power, I was a changed man, mostly. Don’t get me wrong, I was as high as a kite or stuck to the couch at various stages and I smelled like Woodstock for about seven years straight. But, the upside was that I immediately lost the desire to go out and get smashed with alcohol every waking minute of my life. Did it vanish completely? Of course not. But for the first time in my life, things had become “manageable” and partially functional again.

 

As the time went on, I continued to grow and improve, to a point where I was actually getting back to some of the things I had lost over the years. I’m an avid lover of books, education, and writing. For the first time in years, I was ready to do something again. I wasn’t sure what, but one of the first things I wanted to do was share my story and the experiences that I had with medical marijuana. I know there are people out there just like me. How you might ask? I spent years going to rehab with them, sharing at tables, and generally failing all together and running into ex-rehabbers at the bar. The message and story was always the same: Nothing fucking works.

 

Well, I’ve got good news my friends…medical marijuana can help, at least that is my personal opinion. Am I medical professional? NOPE. Am I a holier than thou person? Casting down judgements from high places with no experience? NOPE. Am I a twenty seven time loser, relapse row king? I was. Is my life totally fucking perfect, with no fuck ups? No. Are there blips in the road? Yes. Setbacks? Sure, life is full of them.

But….

Is my life better than the one I was living? I would have to say yes and anyone who knows me would agree. Do people like it as an option? People suffering will and so will their families. I doubt people with agendas will find much use for it though. Medical professionals will have a hell of a time finding patients, if people turned to the plant for relief and help with their wide ranging problems. People that like to morally police others will totally be against it, but those people are usually against everything anyway, so who cares what they like? I certainly don’t give a flying disco shit about their feelings.

 

Final Summation:

 

Did I win the lotto because I smoked medical marijuana? No, but it kept me out of rehab, for the better part of eight years. From 2006-2013 I was hospitalized twenty seven times. From 2013 to 2021, I’ve been to the hospital twice for alcohol related issues. Where I once had severe cravings for years on end, now is mostly a bad memory. A few times a year I get the itch, but can normally tamp that down without too much fuss.

I feel like medical marijuana is a real tangible thing, a physical feeling, that is needed to replace that giant hole that alcohol leaves in a person when they stop using (and/or suffer from substance addiction).

 

If you take anything away from this article, please know that medical marijuana has real value in treating substance abuse, at least extreme examples like mine. I hope the word gets out and people can help themselves get to a better place or version of their lives.

 

In 2017, after four years of mending myself and learning to crawl, walk, and run again…I started writing books. The very first book I wrote was called “ENVY WITH GREEN: HOMEGROWN SOBRIETY” and guess what it’s about? Medical Marijuana, my personal trip with the program, from the day I walked out of rehab in 2013, until the day I wrote the book. It is basically a tool for people curious about medical marijuana. The process of getting into the medical marijuana program, and everything that happened to me along the way. If anyone can find value in the words, I’m smiling. I made a podcast with Cough Studios called “Shep in Depth”. We filmed an episode, me and my good friend Harry Areola, about the journey and the book. Check it out in the YouTube video above or on Cough Studio’s channel for more.

 

As always I have to shout out the Genesee County Compassion Club and all the dope ass vendors who work there. Providing good quality medical marijuana for patients like me, making a difference, saving lives, giving back, and providing relief that sometimes is hard to find. Shout out to Will and his wife for amazing services and a passion for helping people. A shout out to “Big Ken” my homie from the Croptoberfest crew in Clio. He also has a great selection of products and always puts a smile on my face. Shout out to my homie Chase Furman, who has the fire, and some of the biggest joints on record. He recently provided me with some pretty big joints for my homies down at Cruisin the Barrio (CRB Radio) and always has the fire. The service at the Genesee County Compassion Club is great and provides patients with a safe location to get their medications and much more. I will be highlighting them in an upcoming article so please keep checking back for that. Shout out to George and his wife. Shout out to Matt and Karen, they also have some very nice products, and Harry provides a friendly atmosphere so that everyone is relaxed and taken care of. Props to Psychocannacompany, The Dabinoes Podcast, and everyone else I missed. As always, thanks to ROX-TV and the readers. Keep coming back for more medical marijuana stories, news, and other interesting shit from the underground.

 

Signing Off,

Mike Shepard

ROX-TV Head Writer

kidvicious810 on Instagram

shepard2909@hotmail.com