Marijuana Maintenance Program?
I've heard people talk in meetings about their use of a "marijuana maintenance program." Is that a real thing? Is pot smoking allowed in AA?
Usually when people talk about the "marijuana maintenance program" they are talking about a point in their addiction or recovery when they made a habit of substituting marijuana when the urge to drink became hard to deal with.
Typically this is strongly discouraged as part of AA's culture. Apart from maintaining a desire to quit drinking there are few "rules" in AA, so there is no "rule" about pot smoking. It is simply that we know the experiences of the great many people who have tried it and it rarely seems to work out well. Our recovery is dependent on maintaining a "fit spiritual condition" and most find that hard to do while using drugs as a crutch. For some weed is a bridge between their drug using self and their eventual sober self but for others it is the thing that leads them back to the bottle.
Simply put, many find it much easier to say "yes" to a drink while on drugs - and for that reason alone the idea of combining the herb with sobriety is typically considered to be a bad idea.
In many groups someone proclaiming to be a "sober cannabis user" is someone looking to "stir the pot." For more on the meaning of "sobriety" in AA please see
this link.
Most find a marijuana maintenance program doesn't work.
Others find it useful but typically don't speak of it in meetings.
