4/22/2020: SPRITUAL PORTAL

                                                                          by Tree (written 4/22/2020) 

On 4/22/1986: I walked into my first AA and NA meetings 34 years ago today. I was 27 years old with a small child; living out of my van and camping in redwood groves. I had been a carpenter, a jane of all trades, a feminist and health care activist advocate for women. My attempts and dream of completing college and becoming a nurse Midwife had been abandoned to years of delusional clouds of cannabis smoke. I was a five star cannabis addict. I hated alcohol. 

I was first introduced to Positive Affirmations by Louise Hayes from my Social Worker/Therapist in 1977.  Her mo was ‘we don't should on ourselves.” However, years of positive affirmations and could not alone keep me clean off pot.

Since this spring day in 1986, my life, my mind, my heart and my spirit has and continues to be transformed. The women of AA never told me that I didn’t belong because I was not an alcoholic and a cannabis addict. Instead, they nurtured me, sponsored me and ‘told me to keep coming back.’ They gave me some of my first language for loving myself.

The women of AA said ‘let us love you until you can love yourself.” I certainly did know anything about loving myself, caring for myself and making space in my life for myself as a priority. I was a full time single poor mom and I barely ever had a chance to take a shower alone let alone. I was desperate to change and have new way of living besides being so daily obsessed with getting and smoking cannabis. 

They let me cross out ‘alcohol’ in the 12 and 12 and the Big Book and write ‘pot’ in instead.  They let me cross out ‘God’ and write ‘Goddess’ or ‘Spirit.”  They let me work the steps out of the NA workbook and other innovative self help workbooks. They told me I could reframe the steps such as the word ‘character defects’ and use my own language such as defense mechanisms or survival coping skills. The women of AA were gentle and loving with me, encouraging me to write out my character assets and placing myself first on my amends list. This was amazing to me as I as women was always saying I was sorry or I was more eagerly willing to take responsibility just to keep the peace in relationships. Despite the way the steps are written, I was reminded that I am not defective nor is my character. They said us women have to re write a new language that is self affirming and self empowering. Yet, I would never have a drunk story to tell. While focusing on the solution enabled me to create a positive recovery program for myself I felt alone as a cannabis addict.

         In 1987 (our beloved late) Pj and I (and a few guys ) started our first marijuana addicts anonymous meeting on a wintery rainy night at Caffe Pergolesi in downtown Santa Cruz.

         I can't even count how many people have come and gone in MA in our little beach town.  How much of a high turnover of newcomers and old timers alike here in our sleepy rural beach town; the California genesis of the medical cannabis industry. This is similar to my experience of participating on the MA phone lines for the last 10 years.  So many cannabis addicts come and go and few stay.

         This new Global reset me has given me access to these virtual rooms filled with a Global MA community.  I experience  a beautiful sense of unconditional love and healing that I had not felt a long time. Perhaps since my early days of recovery when our MA fellowship was small and/or at a yearly convention.  I feel supported by my newfound MA community and my sisters in sobriety.

The Women Wake & Embrace Recovery daily (except Sunday) Meetings: now have 5-6 host/secretaries and three other women doing service for the meeting. Our experience, strength and growth over the last 6 weeks has been phenomenal. We have grown from five women up to 31 women; with at least half recently being newcomers. By May 2020, we had up to 50 women on our daily zoom meetings.

        I know how difficult it is for cannabis addicts to get and stay clean and sober. We know how to quit pot; but staying clean in the long term is often a challenge for most of us. Personally, the relapse rate doesn’t bother me so much, as I understand how seductive and insidious this cannabis plant and this disease can be. It’s the fact that most people don’t come back that breaks my heart. The percentage of us staying clean is only 5-10%. There is something so self degrading and about restarting ones day count over after a relapse. Accountability is significant and accumulative recovery is progressive as well.

Through recovery I am given an opportunity to transform spiritually, psychologically and emotionally. I have a life today beyond my wildest dreams; I have peace and a sense of serenity that comes from menopause/crone-hood and long term emotional sobriety and recovery.  Simply because I kept coming back; no matter what. I kept coming back: I kept working the steps over and over again until they were working me every day and in every fiber of my life. Spiritual principles like integrity, honesty, responsibility and loving kindness keep me patient and gentle, humble and teachable.

        “Keep coming back” has been my slogan for 34 years. To tell the truth, I do not have a choice because I have absolutely nowhere else to go but to stay in recovery: relapse to me is not an option today.  Relapse leads only to a life not worth living, a potential divorce from a lovely peaceful and loving marriage, damaged relationships with my adult kids, an amazing career gone up in smoke, and a relapse would eventually lead me to mental deterioration and a life that ravels quickly out of my control. Luckily for me; I have been graced with sobriety, over and over, and year after year. I have no life without my Sobriety: my Sobriety is my life.

         During this time of solitude and uncertainty: this MA service commitment has been a saving grace for my recovery.  When I was unable to work due to COVID my secretary and over all group responsibilities gave me purpose. This is true for many of the members and secretaries of our daily women’s meeting.  I believe helped me recover faster from COVID.

         I am personally experiencing this shelter in place time as a spiritual portal.  I am reprograming this as an opportunity of a personal and a political spiritual retreat. I walk the beach every day or night as outdoors activities are not cancelled. I have a daily practice of yoga and mediation. When I prayer and meditate every day and night: I envision that this Global crises and experience is spiritually  transformational for the earth and all beings. The misuse and abuse of dominant white male power is out in broad day night like never before. I also have plenty of opportunities to process my righteous anger and resentments regarding how the whole pandemic has been handled (and not handled) and how many people are struggling and dyeing as a result. This crisis is a global representation of how we are all one; we are all connected through one Spirit.  I must choice what I put my energy into and where I take action.  I have a choice today to stay in the solution which affords me peace and serenity.

They say blessings or opportunism comes wrapped in disasters and/or in dirty mud

 What  opportunities are in this for you; is this shelter in place your spiritual portal?