How I found Marijuana Anonymous

I got the nerve up to talk at my third AA meeting.

After the meeting, a guy came up to me, introduced himself, and chatted with me for a bit.  He told me that listening to my story, it sounded like smoking pot was my big problem.  He also told me that there were meetings geared to marijuana addiction.

Now, I'd never thought of marijuana as being addictive; everything I'd been told is that it might be somewhat habit forming, but was not really addictive.  Of course, I'd been trying for two years straight to get one day off pot, and hadn't even got that much until I started going to AA.  So, I figured that this Marijuana Smokers Anonymous program would be just the ticket.

My new friend told me more about the MSA fellowship, and the program - which was essentially just like AA - and I got more and more excited.  By the time he was done telling me about MSA, I was ready to run off to a meeting right there and then.

So, I asked how to find a meeting.  I was told that there were meetings held Monday and Wednesday at 7:30 at the Fremont Baptist Church, and another at the same time on Friday night at another church in the Ballard neighborhood.

Hearing this, my heart fell.  I literally felt like a balloon that had just lost its air.  There was no way that I could go into a church.  MSA wasn't going to be available to me.  I told the guy that the Monday and Wednesday meetings conflicted with a class I was taking (true enough); that I'd have to try to hit a Friday meeting sometime.  Knowing full well that I had absolutely no intention of darkening the doorway of any church under any circumstance.

That was Saturday, May 28, 1988.

By the following Friday, I was going so crazy for some weed that I'd go to any lengths for some relief.  Even across town to some dumb church.  Which is just what I did.

For the second time, I spoke at a meeting.  I spilled my guts.  I was accepted.
I'd found my home.

For the first time in my life, I could talk about how I felt, and not hold back.  This was a stranger thing than just not smoking pot.  By quite a bit.

Before long, the semester at school ended, and I was free to attend all three meetings of Marijuana Smokers Anonymous in the entire world.

More about that later.