Inclemency

 
This week you would be well-advised to skip my commentary and go straight for the banquet-table.  These are the sort of strong articles that influence, even alter the course of addictions treatment.

…

So you ignored my advice.  Very well:

In Washington, D.C. this now-past Sunday, the ASAM leadership had a full day’s session of developing policy and legislative goals for its Board’s consideration.  It was a lovely time, spent with smart and assiduous people who share a common goal of curing addiction.  Then everybody went home.  I am now about 4 miles away from The Mother Ship (ASAM) and stuck in an epic snowstorm, in a business hotel that somehow reminds me of offices that I have had while in the military. Not so bad, just strangely reminiscent.  And with flights canceled.  So, while I’ve plenty of work imported with me to The Beltway, I seem instead to perseverate on…things.  Things that keep an addict staring at the ceiling, looking for patterns in the paint scheme, while searching out faults in his defenses and recalling correspondence unanswered.  Even as I enjoy unearned grace, in the form of a spouse whom I do not properly deserve – but whom I will not give back; in employment – which at one time I believed I would never hold; and in a clean, even sterile, but warm hotel room, sanctuary against the relentless descent of snow. 

 

So I will use Malcolm Gladwell’s flawless line below* as a mantra, with which to chant myself to sleep:  “Permitting pot is one thing; promoting its use is another.”

 
* The New Yorker, “Is Marijuana as Safe as We Think?”

- W. Haning, MD