Her dad was her best friend.
At times, Jae Graham-Anciso tells me, he would play the role of mom and dad at the same time. All the while, he was struggling with alcohol.
Jae says that both her parents suffered from different types of cancer and both had cirrhosis of the liver due to alcohol, but it was her mom who passed first when Jae was a teenager. Jae describes her dad’s struggle with alcohol as a “Jekyll and Hyde situation.” She was the one who knew how to handle him. He was always sweet to her. Even when he hid his alcohol in peanut butter jars, in containers of nails in the garage, he always chose to be honest with Jae. He told her when he had his cravings. He tried to quit many times, but the boredom of retirement had made it difficult. Jae’s parents had been beloved, practically famous, as teachers in California before they retired. “They were like superheroes,” she says. After the move to Texas, their alcoholism got worse.
To this day, Jae tells me that she’s still uncomfortable at a bar. What she saw her mom go through as a female alcoholic was traumatizing. She describes a day in her teenage years around Thanksgiving when the doctors at the hospital where her mom had frequent stays told Jae they were going to stop giving her mom blood because other people needed it more. At that point, her body was breaking down from the alcohol.
Jae took her dad to every rehab center in Central Texas, but nothing seemed to stick. When her dad would make progress, her mom would end up pulling him back in. Jae says, “When you’re an alcoholic, you’ll always be an alcoholic.” After her mom passed, things started to shift. Her dad was falling a lot. Both the cancer and the alcohol were taking their toll. During one of his trips to the hospital, the doctors told Jae’s dad that he didn’t have any more chances. His liver could not sustain the damage anymore. The alcohol was going to kill him. The cancer was getting worse. Jae and her brother, who do not drink at all even to this day, urged their dad to try cannabis. He was resistant at first, but he finally decided to try it.
She tells me in a reverent voice that after the day he picked up cannabis, he never picked up alcohol again.
It was a different kind of buzz, he said. Jae tells me that he never mentioned alcohol after smoking his first joint. In his 70s, his life was completely changed. They had always been close, and Jae and her dad would have great talks when they smoked together. He told her that he didn’t want to act stupid or impulsive anymore, he just wanted to go to Kerbey Lane for a good meal.
Although she abstains from alcohol completely, Jae shares with me that there was a time when she was addicted to pills after an experience of a bad dog bite and being given pain pills to help her function. That experience is what had brought her back to cannabis as an adult, after a firm declaration of “I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs” in response to what she witnessed her parents go through in her younger years. During her struggle with pills, a friend rolled Jae a joint to help with the pain, and it helped her overcome her own dependency.
The week of his passing, Jae’s father told her that he wanted her to share cannabis with the world. With this directive in mind, Jae sold the house her father had left her and everything in it and spent a year traveling with her partner, learning about the cannabis industry: the farmers, the growers, the farms themselves. She said that she needed to meet the people herself and know that the products she was going to sell were clean for her community. She wanted to make sure that she was educated and selling quality products when she came back.
After returning, she opened MaryJae, a cannabis dispensary on South Lamar, in October 2017. CBD wasn’t even legal then. They sold tinctures and gummies from just two or three vendors. The team is very strict about what they put on their shelves, Jae tells me, and had pulled brands off their shelves in the beginning when they learned that the vendors’ process did not align with their values. She wanted to share cannabis with the world, and she wanted to do it right.
Now the shop is flourishing, but Jae tells me that it took a long time for the public to get comfortable shopping for cannabis. It’s beautiful to see the landscape change, Jae says, but she does want to see regulation. People need to be vetted and qualified to sell these products. Many people interested in giving up alcohol frequent Jae’s shop. Sometimes her clients tell her about their progress with alcohol sobriety, and she gets to celebrate with them. She is open and welcoming for people who struggle with alcohol, or with anything, and wants to create a safe space for them to explore other options. It makes her happy to help people like her dad.
“You’re like my best friend when you come through these doors,” she tells me. She wants to hear about people’s struggles, their victories, and to create a safe space for them to feel welcome. “Whether it’s depression or pain, I am you. I understand.” Some people are in pain, some people have anxiety, some people are just looking for a community to belong to. All are welcome at MaryJae.
The inclusivity Jae values in her store starts with the people she employs. She trains her staff on cannabis education, customer service, and products to make sure that they are informed and ready to sell. To be sure, there’s a lot to soak in when you enter MaryJae. Organized by color, it’s stocked with a wide array of artful accessories and innovative products you are not likely to find in your local head shop. The staff at the shop are friendly, knowledgeable, and cultivate a welcoming environment inspired by the precedent Jae sets.
I ask her what she would say to people who believe that marijuana is a dangerous addiction similar to alcohol. “Anything is addictive,” she says. “Cannabis, alcohol, food. Anything is addictive to anybody.” Her dad was a special case, she says. From her personal experience, quitting alcohol for cannabis was a transformative change that had a positive impact on her father’s life, but it’s different for all of us. She tells people that they know themselves best. Anyone can try it and decide that total sobriety is the right path for them. For some people, a simple switch is not enough. You need to know what your body is asking for.
Whether they are looking for alternatives for alcohol, curious to learn, or just here to have fun, Jae is committed to serving the best experience to her community. “We lift them up, and we are a guide on their journey. We give them the education, we give them a safe space to ask questions.”
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This article appears in January 9 • 2026.