The Longtimers Meeting at the 13th Marijuana Anonymous World Convention in Concord, CA

All right, little numbers are going

hi everybody, welcome to the 2007 marijuana anonymous convention called Road to Recovery. Welcome. This is the old timers panel and we're going to some of us are going to be up here talking about how our fellowship started here in the East Bay. My name is Kevin and I'm here with Mariska and we're also waiting for John to show up to John was also instrumental in in starting our fellowship. I want

for the for the drummers next door. I think the the hotel thought they could schedule 2 separate events at the same time. So it's just one of those, one of those exercises in, in forgiveness and patience intolerance.

No, I'm, I, I kind of enjoy it. So I guess what I'll do is I'll start since I was, I was around for a little bit of the, the beginning of it.

Marijuana Anonymous

in the Bay Area started in the East Bay and I think, Oh yeah, by the way, my name is Kevin and I'm an addict

and we were Marijuana Addicts Anonymous. So even going back even further than that, I'm, I'm going to go back to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting on I'm speaking. Oh, I'm sorry.

I should know that.

We started a meeting.

We had a meeting. It was a Narcotics Anonymous meeting on Friday night in February of 1987, I think was what was the month. And I was secretary of that meeting. And it was like a million people at that meeting. It was, it was a place to see and be seen. And a guy raised his hand and said I need help.

My drug of choice is marijuana. I'm getting off of it now. I am going freaking crazy

and would somebody talk to me after the meeting? So a bunch of us came up to him afterwards and amongst amongst the the person who raised his hand was Harry H, who lives in Portland.

Amongst the people who came up to talk to Harry were myself and John, who I'm hoping is going to walk through the door any minute now and join us.

He's also one of the, one of the people

keeping, you know, who should earn a lot of credit for a lot of work in preparing this, this convention. So lots and lots and lots of credit to John. Come on up John, we're talking about you.

We, we're. So Harry raises his hand and says I need help. And John and myself and a number of other people came up and said hi and gave him our names and our numbers, and

we talk to each other and got to know each other. One thing led to another and we all kind of looked at each other. And why don't we have our own fellowship? Because a lot of us, you know, we like Alcoholics Anonymous and we like Narcotics Anonymous, but we're potheads. We have things that are kind of unique to us. Sometimes we go to these other meetings.

What's tweaking What's, you know, what's, what's this? What does that mean when you slap your arm like that and get up a vein? Well, I'm never did anything like that. All we did was smoke dope. You know, maybe our recovery is going to be really easy.

So one thing led to another, and we found ourselves, a bunch of us at Harry's house in February of 87 or March of 87, John, February, right after Valentine's Day, we're at a house on Harry's in Harry's house near 38th St. in Oakland.

And

amongst all, and all we were doing was telling our marijuana stories and, and taking what we learned from all the meetings and all the other fellowships that we'd come from. And I think it might even been Harry himself who said, why don't we call ourselves Marijuana Addicts Anonymous? And I think we all kind of looked each other and said, sure, why not? OK, fine.

I got AI asked one of the local meeting places, the House St. Community Center on House St. in Oakland,

to set aside one of their rooms. And they had an opening on a Saturday night. And I said, well, let's start a meeting. We'll put a little money down and and and it was their smallest room. And then our meetings grew to the point where we needed maybe one step up from that. There were enough people who were interested in coming to a meeting, a 12 step anonymous meeting that was about marijuana,

that we started to grow. And there were enough people in the recovery community that they would come across, you know, just word of mouth

finding it on the Mandanas schedule. A lot of our literature we did out of our own typewriters, out of our own Xerox machines. This is before the days of personal computers and laptops. We were doing this. We were doing this very comparatively low tech. One of our members was a was a graphic designer, so she had access to being able to print up nice looking things.

And that was the beginning of Marijuana Addicts Anonymous in the East Bay. We had a Saturday night meeting at 6:30 and then we found ourselves wanting to have a second meeting. We started on Wednesday night meeting in Berkeley

and it was 6th St. That's right, it was 6th St. Because what happened was that the recovery community in general was growing so much in the mid 1980s that there were so many people who wanted to go to meetings that they were, they were starved for venues. And so Mandana, that is to say the House St. Community Center, opened it sort of like a branch in Berkeley and they accommodated rooms for all kinds of 12 step meetings. And we said fine, we want to, we want a space. They gave us their best space on a Wednesday night,

15. That's our second oldest meeting and still going. Those two meetings are still going strong. They're our biggest. They have a lot of Alzheimer's and a lot of newcomers coming back. And those are our most popular meetings.

We lasted, we still last. We just, we, we, we were, we were on our own. A San Francisco meeting started shortly after that.

And we all, we really bonded with one another. We all, you know, we were really

in awe of being able to find ourselves, really find ourselves to find. We had been smoking dope for 20 years, for 15 years, for 10 years and we were getting really burned out. And what the heck do we do? I think it was, I think it, it was, it was, it was the right time.

Some of us had done some research before this moment. John, you could probably talk a little bit about how you did some research on seeing if there was another 12 step program for Marijuana Anonymous. I discovered something in the newspaper once calling itself Marijuana Intensive or a Pot Smokers Anonymous and it turned out it was not an Anonymous 12 step 12 tradition group. It was run by a therapist and charged you $150.00 and he cured you.

And I'm, you know, I was skeptical of all that stuff, you know, paying money and, and, and the, and the God word and all that stuff.

Um, but I'd been in, in recovery for a couple of years by that time and, and I, and I wasn't averse to any of that. Anyway, that's how Ma a got started. What I'd like to do is I like to turn it over now to John to fill in whatever gaps I may have, I may have left out and a further history. And then Mariska also, you were, you were around when we were getting started. Your your place was coming.

Hi everybody. I'm John. I'm marijuana addict.

Yeah, we were talking about this,

uh, convention for quite some time, you know, and one of the things that we noticed was it was a 20th anniversary of MAA and East Bay. And so, you know, we thought we should have an old timers panel, you know, and somebody I was talking to today actually said we should call it a long timers panel. You know, some of us, you know, in addition to being long timers, are also, you know, getting a little thinner on top and a little grayer around the edges. So you know,

I'm not sure if we're a long timers or old timers. I think the old timers is a convention, but

it was interesting that one of the presenters today here, Annie, some of you may have been to her forgiveness workshop. She was around a long time ago in a class I was taking, which is, you know, sort of how I see MA got getting started was I was in a class at this university I was going to on recovery and, and addiction. And

our instructor there kind of opened it up and had people talk a little bit about their experience with, with recovery and the disease of addiction and all that. And there's about four or five of us in the class that were potheads and had gotten clean in the other 12 step programs.

And Annie, me and another woman there who we see occasionally in the meetings, talked about forming MA at that time. But the unfortunate thing was as I was working full time and going to school full time and it just didn't happen in spite of our best intentions. And, you know, and then when Harry reached out for help, you know, that was the time when it was meant to happen. And I, and I always find it kind of interesting because the history of Marijuana Anonymous

and Marijuana Smokers Anonymous is all the 12 step meetings

for recovery all started within just a few months of each other. It's just, it must have been time in history for it to happen. And the thing that that I always like to talk about is for me, you know, I was one of these people that was really good at getting clean. But, you know, staying clean, that was a lot harder for me, you know, And it wasn't until MAA got started that I was actually able to stay clean on a consistent basis

up until then, you know, I would go to NA and then I would like be able to rationalize in my brain that, you know, yeah, I shot heroin, but you only did it a few times. And, you know, I did a lot of crank, but you know, I never really got too bad,

except that's just my denial talk. And, you know, but you know, I was able to rationalize this stuff. I mean, I never got locked up. That was one thing, you know, knock on wood, it's it's really good that never happened and, you know, had a lot of other consequences. But you know, that is the thing that is really cool about MA is like, you know, you go to MA and you can relate to other people's recovery. And you know, for me, it was a very special time, the early days of Marijuana Anonymous, Anybody who, you know, when you first get into recovery, you know, you get to know people.

It's really a wonderful experience. But for me at two years, and I guess Kevin was about two years that we were the old timers.

And I look at, you know, people two years nowadays and you know, you just think, well, my God, you know, we must been out of our minds, you know, to think we could start a 12 step program. But you know, as our friend Harry would say, you know, all you need is a coffee pot and a resentment and you can start a meeting. And we had both of those. So we were successful

because you know, NA didn't really want us

to to have have a meeting with the marijuana focus, which is what my concept was. You know, the idea of like having our own 12 step program just seemed like way too much for me. But sure enough, you know, I can remember being over at Lynette House, that was the woman that was a printer and we were actually

writing the 12 steps and, you know, we like to who's an addict from NA. So we, you know, came up with who's a marijuana addict. And that was cool for those of us who are mainly in a like Kevin and I, you know, but there were some people that came over from AA and they wanted how it works, you know, because after all, that's what you read in a A is how it works. So we had to come up with how it works. And, you know, the how it works in a A is like, you know, like this. So we had to shrink it down because our attention spans weren't really long enough to

kind of track that much. It's like people be falling asleep and,

you know, wouldn't be able to handle anything too long. So we had to write the the paraphrase version, you know, and I can remember this one part, you know, we were surrender ourselves to a power grading ourselves. We had a big debate because Harry wanted to be abandoned, you know, ourselves. And like, you know, at that time was like when the ACA movement was real popular and this idea of abandoning yourself and being abandoned just seemed like too much for most of us to take to. So we finally settled on surrender ourselves and you know, so the 12 steps

works. Who's a marijuana all that got written in our district, you know, a long time ago, you know, like 20 years ago, basically. Well, not quite 20 years ago now, Of course, the 12 steps that that was a whole nother ball of wax. And those you've been around for a long time are those you do service at the World Service level, kind of know, you know, how much if you change, you know, crossing AT or dot and I how much work that as imagine trying to get

a bunch of potheads.

And, you know, there were those of us who were involved there that were old timers. Like I said, they had two or three years clean and sober. And there's a bunch of other people trying to do service and write the 12 steps who had like three or four months. And they were like, you know, the people were voted as delegates to this convention And and it was like it was just phenomenal. You know, the amount of angst that we went through. There was this one time where this one whole contingent of MA, the original Ma, they had ones that had copyrighted the name and they were going to get up and they were going to walk out of the room if

didn't do it the way they wanted us to. And other people were yelling. And it was just one of those experiences where, you know, you had to kind of be there. You know, Marijuana Anonymous has come a long way since then. Thank God. You know, I think recovery has gotten a lot, much more stable, you know, at the World Service level, which is really, really good to know. And, you know, the fact that we can have these conventions now and have people from all over the place

is, is really a wonderful thing. You know, I'm really

glad that we're able to have this here and all of you are able to be here. You know, some of my recollections are, you know, us, you know, sitting around. I remember, I think it was like Kevin, me, Mary and Harry were all debating whether we wanted to join the rest of the MA groups.

And we had this feeling like, well, you know, we don't want to dilute our version of the 12 steps by getting with these people from Southern California. You know, it's like, Oh my God, those people from Southern California, you know, it's like, you just don't know what those people want to do, you know? So there was a lot of that good old early recovery paranoia that was still going around in our brains because where brains were still pretty fried and saturated with THC, although I suppose it was all out of our brains. But you would never know what the way we were acting, you know. So,

you know, all of us who are addicts and Alcoholics, you know, we had to like, you know, think big picture, which is one of these days, you know, this is going to be a national and an international organization. And those of us who were like going to meetings with four or five people and maybe 10 people was a big meeting. We'd have 10 people there. You know, the idea that it would turn out the way it did today is just something that's that's hard to fathom. But the fellowship we had was just phenomenal. I mean, a lot of you probably enjoy the fellowship now, but out of necessity

days we got really tight and really close with each other because we really needed each other. This was our support system and this is how we helped each other. We'd go out for coffee and dinner and hang out and stay in touch on the phone and all that good stuff. That really, that kind of fellowship that really makes recovery really an awesome experience. So, you know, I think I've rambled long enough. I'm, I probably could say 100 more things, but I want to give.

Well, I'm going to call her Mary right now.

Mary was somebody who came into recovery, you know, after we've been going for a while, but she was phenomenal. And of course, she's changed her name to Mariska. Now, you all know, where's Mariska? But here we go, Mary and Mariska. All right, Thank you, John. My name is Maurice, and I'm recovering marijuana attic and not and or Yeah, Anyway, formerly Mary P And yesterday we were circling up at the meet and greet and I'm like, and they're going, OK, so introduce yourself, who you are, where you're from. And I'm like, who am I? You know, I was really trying to figure

anyway, there's a couple things that came up for me as these guys were talking, and one of them is that this was pretty typical of what it was like then. It was me and a group of men, you know, and there were, you know, there was Lynn and there was Linda and there was Susan or she had another name back then also. But you know, that was predominantly, you know, two or three meetings, one or two women and a lot of men. And that was one thing. But I think the one thing is that really is significant or symbolic of the beginnings of Marijuana Anonymous were that we used to

our coins out of poker chips. And we had one member who would drill a hole in them and a number of another member who would take nail Polish and put the months on there or the years on the chips. And then I think we ended up with chains or something. And, and so, you know, we did everything by hand and like you said, we were low tech and we had all the stuff that we we had written and, and that sort of thing. Anyway, So that was something that came up now for me, I came on in September. It was fall of 1987.

Like I just occurred to me it was harvest and I managed to get clean

and for me what happened was I had gone to NA and in August my uncle had taken me to an A meeting and they talked about God and I was out the door. I don't want anything to do with it. And then in August my dealer went into treatment

which and his wife came over and made sure he sold me his last 8th so there would be nothing home, nothing at the house when he came home anyway seating. He came by after he got out and took me to my first Marijuana Addicts Anonymous meeting and my world changed,

you know, because for me, it was not being able to understand what they were talking about in the NA meetings. I was able to relate because of course there were other drugs, but I couldn't understand a word they were saying. And I just didn't really fit in. It was so big and I didn't feel safe and there was a lot of things involved and, and anyway, so when I came to MAA at that time,

I was able to get into service and I was able to start doing things. And for me it was, it was being able to do things without getting stoned and people to do them with.

And So what we went to Great Lakes predominantly. We had one or two meetings. And so we had to go to other meetings in between, you know, because they were saying go to a meeting every day. So we would go to a, a meetings and we go to any meetings and, and we'd go to San Jose and, you know, we'd get in the car on a Friday night and drive 50 miles to go to a meeting and support another group. And we just had a lot of fun. And I think that was a big part of it was a lot of fun

in in the other part of that was service. And what happened to me was my first position was at six months and it was a secretary position. And that was the Wednesday night meeting.

And I will go to any lengths to get to that Wednesday night meeting. So whenever I come down to California, I always make sure I fit my schedule on being able to get to that meeting because that was my Home group. And I celebrated my 25th birthday in that meeting. And I'm going to just do some show and tell. This is Mindy. And she was my birthday present to myself. Would you hold her at 25 years old? And, and it was in the secretary of the Wednesday night meeting. And

anyway, so at that point my gift was starting meetings. And so I started the Thursday noon meeting in Albany, another Thursday night candle or Sunday candlelight meeting, meditation meeting that Bob and I started and just went

to start a lot of meetings. And, and, and it started over that resentment because Harry told me that I was new and I couldn't talk

and I told him what for. And we've been buddies ever since. And so I started a lot of meetings as a result of that. And, and one of those was a meeting.

Well, we were at the Monday night meeting and this was during the time of the discussion about whether we were going to get together with MSA and MA down in LA and whether we wanted to have a meeting. And we were negotiating. And I was at about two years sober and I went, we had a business meeting afterwards. And they're like, OK, well, who's going to go? And they're like negotiating, who's going to go? And I'm like, I have to leave right now, but I'm not going.

And the next thing I know, I'm in a car on my way to Morro Bay. And it was myself and John and Robin

and Joshua. And we ended up in a hotel room in Morro Bay with a group in Seattle pissed off at us because they weren't there, and New York, who wasn't there. And, and we didn't call him because we were too busy sparring in the room, you know. Anyway, so we had that going on. And then we had like, these three contingents. One was on the bed, one was at the table, and the other was with their chairs turned backwards, kind of glaring at us, you know,

and, you know, and, and we were talking about whether we were going to be Maa or MA or whatever.

It was the accountant who said, look, all the paperworks been filed for Marijuana Anonymous. It's too much money and too much effort and time to change it. So we gave in and said, OK, you know, there were just some logistics that sort of led the way. And for me, what was really going on

as we proceeded to start to get together, because shortly after that we went down to Orange County. And I don't like to fly. So we had a member from Santa Cruz who gave me a bear to take with me on the plane because I didn't want to fly. And this is Cinnamon. And by the way, Cinnamon has been to many conventions and many conferences, and she'll be auctioned off at the Morro Bay Convention in 2009,

right? Yeah, 2009. I'm going to, I'm going to donate her. So anyway,

it was just a lot of camaraderie and a lot of stuff like that. And it was really a trip because we'd get off the plane and there'd be these people with scientists at MA, you know, or, or North Bay or something like that. And we'd find them and, and they'd pick us up and they take us to their house and we, they put us up and then we'd have these meetings at people's houses. And it was really phenomenal because it was hometown, it was grassroots and,

and, and it was big. We had a lot of work to do and fortunately we were insane enough to show up and be willing to do it, you know, and I, and for me, I think the hardest part was recovering from my behavior in it. You know, I think years later, it took me a while to get over that. But anyway,

the other, I think the other thing that was really important was, was, you know, for me personally, the reason I went to such lengths and my first three years of recovery to help build the foundation for Marijuana Anonymous, because I didn't want any of you to suffer like I did. And I wanted you to have a place to go. And I was just up in that women's meeting and I don't know, there were fifty women in the room, you know, and, and

I can't tell you what it means to me when I come to these conventions and I see 3 or 400 people from the from worldwide. And we've got the online groups and, and

the UK and New Zealand and Georgia and just, you know, Humboldt County for God's sakes, you know, I mean, so I, I just didn't, I want to do all, to have a place to go. And that's why I did whatever it took. And I managed to stay sober as a result of it because I built one heck of a foundation by showing up and doing service for Marijuana Anonymous. And

I think the other thing John touched on was the relationships. The bonding that happened was unreal. And I feel really blessed and honored to be a part of the group of people who are still sober today because we went and founded a fellowship because our resentment wasn't big enough, you know,

I mean, you know, and to see the few people that are still around from that time is just heart wrenching. You know, it's just, it's it, there's nothing like it anyway. So I want to give Jay a chance to talk and maybe open it up for a couple questions. But I wanted to say that, you know, it's been 20 years. In September 30th, 1987, I'll be 20 years clean and sober. And I am just blown away

because the person that walked into these rooms is not the person you you see or talk to or look at today.

Umm, I was skin and bone. They told me that my skin was green. I hated the world. It was all your fault and, and I didn't want to live, you know? And today I'll go to any lengths to to enjoy my life and to be here with you all. And so Tigger is my mascot today and that's all I have to say. There you go.

My name is Jay. I'm a pothead. Hi, Jay.

I'm not sure I belong up here, John. John put his arm around my shoulder a couple hours ago and asked me, you know, how many years I had. And I know he knew and, and,

and I said, well, he said, well that qualifies you. So be here at 3:00.

I don't go back this far. And so I'm going to tell a slightly different story because I came into these rooms

after this footwork had been laid in the East Bay. And I was

more than grateful that there was a place to land as a recovering pothead of 27 years use facing all of what I was facing in my life at the time that was falling apart by no great graces of my own doing. And and here this program was

for me. I want to talk about service because that LinkedIn right away for me and what I feel like,

even though these people are, you know, we're about the same age and just as Gray and I'm not taking offense that old timers doesn't mean how I feel when I get out of bed in the morning. But

these people had kind of like started the ball rolling along with many others in other areas of the country that were now connected well by the time I walked into the rooms. And what was clear to me was how two things, how important it was to me,

how important it was to keep it going and what role that I might small role that I might have in, in helping that along. And in retrospect, what I think I've seen in my own recovery is what I believe they were going through as well. I think there, there comes a time

where as much as you believe in what's being done, you get a little bit burnt out on the process of what has to be done to keep it going and grow it. And I think I stepped into the program, fell into the program and into my recovery right about that time that some of the people who we've already heard from had been doing it for that four or five, six year period. It seems that's about where it is,

four or five, six years. And then it's like, wow, this is great. I'm so burnt out, I can't do this anymore. And that was the impression that I had. And as grateful as I was for what I was seeing and hearing and what it meant to me in my own recovery on a day-to-day basis, I knew that it was important

for me. It was important for the program. It was important for those who were feeling burnt out that there was new energy,

that there was new

vitality and that there were people ready to step up

in their ignorance, in their addiction, in their egos and all the rest of it put together, but who were willing to to kind of take the baton and keep running around the track. And that's kind of where I felt feel like I fell into in terms of this East Bay district. And I couldn't be more grateful now for the opportunities that presented

to me, for that to

help continue what was going

and at the same time help myself. Because I cannot say it to any of the newcomers or newer comers in the room, I can't say this more cleanly and clearly. But service is what saved my ass.

I, if it weren't for the opportunities to accomplish something outside of myself, feel better about myself, have somebody actually thank me for something I had done, none of which was a part of my life as an addict.

I, I, I'm certain that I couldn't have stuck out the road because there weren't enough rewards early on in the process from just what I was doing internally. And so the opportunities to do that now, you know,

and I went through the same thing at a certain period in time where I was really grateful as well.

I can remember the Monday night meeting when I, that Bob H and I started, I was early in my recovery. It was a meeting, I guess there had been a Monday night meeting in the district, but kind of faltered and fell away. And it was at Kaiser and I was, I was had gone through that program in conjunction with my recovery and my therapy.

And I remember, well, what I most remember was somebody coming in and as I was setting up and saying, oh, yeah, this is great. It's a good MA meeting. It's Jay's meeting. And I remember thinking, no, no, no, no, this has been going on way too long. And yes, it sometimes took that kind of effort because there weren't a whole lot of people as newcomers in that meeting willing to step up to the service plate as it was needed so that I could back away from it. But that happened. Now I let go of it,

glad to that happened. I, I know what it feels like and I know that

people like Mariska and John, they got re motivated

in their recovery and in their commitment to the program. A service program, a service oriented orientated program by people like myself and others who picked up the baton, picked up about whatever came in, did what needed to be done in the midst of growth and change and service on all different levels that I was involved in. And I can't say how grateful I am for those of you,

you know, I don't know, make sure there's people in the room here with three or four or five years who are kind of cutting your teeth on that same kind of thing. And I can't say how grateful I am that this continues to be here for me when I come back because of the work of everybody, really. And I would encourage you, if you haven't participated in that part of the program,

get yourself a sponsor because you're responsible certainly tell you that you need to do that part.

But I'm telling you as well, there's much, much to be had from participating and carrying it on and a lot of rewards to be seen. Then when you come back to the rooms, when you come back to the conferences, when you come back to the conventions and see how it's growing, who's still there, who's come back? Because it happens that way too. And they don't always come back because they've gone out and burn out and gone out and experimented some more and come back to the room. Sometimes that too. Sometimes they've simply

burnt out and then come back and that's great to see as well.

It encourages me certainly to keep coming back. So as a second generation maybe

baton carrier, I'm certainly glad to be here.