Freedom from within

BS”D Normally, I do not drink alcohol, wine or spirits, other than kiddush and havdala and sometimes a drink during a Shabbat or Yom Tov meal. And it has been quite a while since I last smoked marijuana. But today in honor of Hod of Malchut and the three days of Sephira prior to Shavuot and hearing Hashem say the words of the Ten Commandments, I took a glass of wine and made a l’chaim in the afternoon and it led to two more glassfuls which made me shicker. After it wore off three or four hours later, I realized the difference between an alcoholic and a pot head: alcoholics drink because they want to stop being who they are, and potheads smoke because they want to enhance who they are. Alcoholics, basically, dislike themselves and potheads are frustrated by their inability to fulfill their potential. Both are addictions of different natures, but nonetheless addictions. Of the two, alcoholism is worse by far, physically and spiritually, alcoholism being explicitly forbidden by the Torah. May Hashem liberate us from every kind of slavery, including those from within, as He did on Mount Sinai when He said: “I am Hashem your G-d Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” 

P.S. Drinking wine and booze and smoking weed are only two of a great variety of addictions, overeating and bad eating may be worse than both of them put together.