SL Letter of the Day: Reefer Madness

Longtime listener and a reader with a real problem. My dear wife has a very strict no tolerance policy for drug use. Which stems from her sister’s own violent problems with hard drugs like meth/heroine. She watched her family get literally torn apart by her own older sister’s psychotic drug use and actions. Culminating in this sister threatening their mother with death in a meth-fueled rage.

Years later, here I am. I have no hankering for meth or hard drugs, but dammit I’ve had a lot of fun with marijuana (and mild drugs like mushrooms) in my lifetime. I told her very honestly that if marijuana was legal I would probably try it again. She has freaked the fuck out each time. But before we got married, this issue came up and she said—after a day of soul searching—that she would try to be more tolerant of my past and current desires.

Here we are now, married, and the issue has returned, because our state might legalize marijuana. So now she’s freaking the fuck out at myself and our mutual friends for encouraging my return to the devil weed. Our friends haven’t changed mind you—they have ALL smoked weed regularly in their own lives. But when the concept of her husband partaking comes up, my wife shuts me down with rage and the silent treatment.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like she’s being super controlling over something I think is not that big of a deal. Yet I understand where her rage comes from. How do I address this Dan?

Could Have A Smoke In Peace

My response after the jump—and CHASIP’s response to mine, and mine to his—after the jump.

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Does your wife drink? Does she ever have a glass of wine? Does she knock back a cocktail? Does she enjoy the occasional beer?—Dan

Yes, indeed she does, sometimes quite a bit. We go out with friends and drink merrily every couple of weeks.—CHASIP

Tell your wife that has to stop drinking. Right now. Because my grandmother was an alcoholic who drank herself to death. My mother was extremely traumatized by her mother’s drinking growing up—my grandmother was a suicidal, morose, emotionally-abusive drunk—and my grandmother’s death devastated the whole family. Two of my grandmother’s six children were still minors when she died.

If my grandmother’s story—which is true—isn’t enough to convince your wife that she has to stop drinking, CHASIP, surely you have a family member or two who were destroyed by booze. So make a deal with your wife: she can either stop drinking or she can stop with the hypocritical objections to your forthcoming—and legal—pot use.

Or better yet, CHASIP, tell the wife that as she’s irrational on this subject, you don’t intend to debate it further. Reassure that if and when you get high—or when and when you get high—it’ll be in moderation and out of her sight. Then refuse to discuss the matter.—Dan