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I’m in recovery for drug and alcohol abuse and spent a lot of time with other recovering drug addicts. None of us look down on stoners as “having it easy”.

Addiction and the destruction it can bring to a person’s life is universal. The choice of drug is irrelevant.

The (elevator pitch) point behind addiction is that I, as an addict, have avoided reality by using, rather than actually facing reality as it is.

Paying my bills? F*ck that, I’m rolling a spliff. etc. etc.

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Addiction is not universal at all. Not even close. It’s charitable of you not to look down on them, but they aren’t addicted to weed, and weed isn’t destroying their life. Their own choices are. You cannot even compare this with opiates.

Just to be clear - when I say it is universal, I’m referring to those who suffer from addictions, and what they experience. Not everyone is an addict or will have problems with substance abuse who has/does use substances.

I’m not going to argue that the withdrawal and initial stages of getting clean are different. They are totally different.

But the root causes that are the bedrock of this disease are all very similar across the board. Alcohol, sex addiction, opiates, cocaine, marijuana...

All of them are borne out of similar issues.

All of them cause similar types of destruction in the life of an addict, or persons in any type of vicinity to an addict.

In that sense, the effects are universal. No matter the choice of substance/activity.

I freely admit that my own choices (and some that were not mine) took me down the path I went.

But that’s looking at this from a very shallow perspective.

Because I wasn’t even aware that there’s a totally other side of the coin. A chance to actually live life. That never ever entered into my perception.

All I tried to do, like many addicts, was exist. In a state where I’m not dead, but I’m also not living. Just numbing the pain of my existence because I felt I couldn’t face the problems in my life.

And I couldn’t. Not alone.

Addiction is a disease of the mind.

It also gets a hell of a lot worse the longer it is allowed to fester away.

A great example of this is alcoholism....

If alcohol, by itself, was addictive, society would have eaten itself up a long time ago.

But that hasn’t happened. Only certain people seem to become alcoholics.

So it is universal in how it affects those who suffer from it, regardless of the substances involved.

Here’s a dictionary definition of addiction:

> the fact or condition of being addict to a particular substance or activity