I'll start this by saying I definitely fall into the category of emotional and mental disorders and alcohol was definitely used in self medication on top of being an alcoholic. Even before drinking, so childhood and teen years, I've dealt with undiagnosed anxiety and depression and possibly a sleep disorder. I know that's what's wrong because I just know without getting into specifics, a few addictions counselors from more than one point in my life reccomended that I look into actually seeing a psychiatrist to look into some of my other issues because they thought there could be more going on than just addictive behaviors. My mom was too poor and to religious to be able to afford to send me to a psychiatrist. Then at 19 I joined the Marine Corps and didn't want to get kicked out for mental health issues. So I self medicated with booze until eventually having to get alcohol counseling over some crazy shit I did while drunk on top of being put into a psych ward briefly.

So here it goes. I haven't smoked weed in years and while I was using it for self medication purposes I would have traded what weed would have done to me for what alcohol did to me anyday. I never liked getting super high, and while I did get in trouble for it in high school, I wasn't using it everyday and I would just be able to relax on it when I would get these massive anxiety attacks or shitty depression spells, no real issues aside from the fact that it was an illegal substance and a bit of memory loss. Now, Weed and AA's stance on it is one of the things that actually concerns me about my sobriety from alcohol, which I just started again 40 days ago. I definitely used alcohol because I'm an alcoholic. But I was also using alcohol to self medicate my other issues. I know I should probably see a psychiatrist However if I actually see a psychiatrist, like I probably should, they're probably going to want to put me on medications that have some really bad side effects and cost quite a bit of money and come with their own form of dependency as well that really isn't talked about enough or possibly weed. I think weed might actually be good for me from a medical standpoint. When I was younger and I smoked it was one of the few ways I could relax from my anxiety attacks or my depression spells, I didn't really like being really high, but just a bit for those issues. Granted weed isn't the greatest thing either and it does have its problems that come with it, but at the same time I just feel like I would have a better chance at staying away from alcohol with it than just doing the 12 steps, mainly because of how I used alcohol to self medicate a lot of my own issues with my mental health on top of being an alcoholic, but at the same time I would just be shunned from AA which is helping me to stay sober and probably the only way I won't destroy my life with alcohol, but weed might be the only way I don't lose my mind and relapse into alcohol anyway. Damned if I do damned if I don't. Anyways that's ok my mind right now.

I should also say that neither of those two really led to each other. I used marijuana for a bit before I had my first drink, my first drink was not with weed, I only drank on weed once and it was the worst feeling in my life, when I was smoking weed for the second short lived period of time I wasn't drinking which was after my first experiences abusing alcohol and getting drunk.