Relapse and Recovery
How I saved myself…again
I’ve heard it said; relapse is part of recovery. I’ve also heard in the same place that relapse doesn’t have to be a part of recovery. My last sponsor used to tell me the latter; she was one of the minorities of people in recovery. She got sober in her early 20s and never had a relapse after 25 years. It was intimidating. At the time, I was still counting the days of my sobriety, each day mattered, and I loved watching the time add up. Almost two years. I had almost two fucking years. For the first time in half my life, I stringed together two years, which was an amazing feat. Then I start to remember my secret “cheat days.” My rule I made with my ex-girlfriend. I was allowed to drink as long as we were in a different zip code. Vacations became my exception. And I still told everyone I was sober for almost two years.
I hit my rock bottom in April 2017 and went to inpatient treatment at the end of May 2017 for 30 days. It was one of the best times of my life. For the first time in years, I was surrounded by my fellow gay community. I was genuinely happy and sober. I loved my life. I felt so proud to tell anyone and everyone about my sobriety and my story. And it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. There were dark days filled with sadness, frustration, and a lot of irritability! What kept me grounded and hopeful was being surrounded by so much genuine love from people I barely knew. The number of hugs I received (and gave) was countless. The connections I made were priceless.
That is where I learned and experienced that the opposite of addiction is connection.
My relapse began long before I took that first drink, as the Big Book tells you. I stopped going to meetings, stopped talking to my sponsor. I withdrew from friends and family. I couldn’t stop thinking about driving to the liquor store.
Then I let go. I didn’t care anymore. I can not pinpoint what made me cross the line. I was happy. I was in a sober relationship for almost 8 months with a wonderful, beautiful, fun woman. We were going to 3 meetings a week and loving life. Going out being active. Going into nature and enjoying the world while remembering it all and not even fighting! Then… something changed.
One day I got into one of my funks. I was depressed. Not sad, but in a deep depressive episode. I was sleeping all the time, not wanting to do anything; my room was a mess. Then somehow, my girlfriend and I got into a conversation and started physically crying about how I wanted to drink again. I couldn’t tell anyone … not even myself… why I was crying over wanting to drink again. All I knew was I *needed* to drink again. And like the alcoholics we are… we fucking drank again.
“It was fine.” We didn’t get out of control. Only a few beers, no big deal, right? “We’ll only drink beer,” we said. “Just on the weekends.” The justifications came flooding in, and off we went, rolling down the hill.
It was fucking textbook. I knew it would happen that way and everyone in the program warned us of this scenario. I watched it happen, and I didn’t care. I kept repeating the same lies and justifications over and over to myself. I kept on rolling down the hill faster and faster.
As time went on, drinking became more and more frequent. Only on the weekends became every night. Strictly beer went to beer & airplane shots to bottles of booze. Disagreements led to small arguments to big fights. When the fighting became louder and the words dug deeper, we knew we had to make a drastic change. We were getting way too close to the bottom of the hill.
Big changes were made. My girlfriend made the brave decision to check into an inpatient treatment facility to work on herself in the best way for her. I told myself I would also quit drinking while she was gone. I figured I had it under control, and quitting would be easy. Of course, I was wrong. I didn’t stop. I kept drinking every night, and now I would end up drinking alone in my room and drinking more than before. I started to scare myself, behaving in ways I hadn’t in years, and I didn’t like how I felt waking up every morning. Pounding head, nauseous, embarrassed, and dread to fill in the missing pieces of the night before. I did not like myself.
Luckily, I stopped myself from crashing at the bottom of the hill. As I was falling, I opened my eyes and grabbed onto a tree branch … I found my first Virtual AA meeting. I was ready again, I felt the time was here, and this time it wasn’t the “I can’t drink anymore” mindset; now the mindset was “I can’t live like this anymore, and I know the steps to take to get back to where I was a year ago.”
“I can’t live like this anymore and I know the steps to take to get back to where I was a year ago.”
Sober. Happy. Loving myself.
I grabbed that branch at the right time; my higher power (HP) was watching over me and put that tree branch in my way down the hill at the right time. The time before my life crashed down at rock bottom. My HP guided me to a virtual meeting lookup site, the first one I saw I tried out. “Sober AF” if that isn’t the most appropriate one for me, I don’t know what is!
The first meeting was large, 132 people large. I realize I have overcome a lot of social anxiety now that we are safe behind our computer screens. I happily turned my camera on with my hair that hasn’t been cut since COVID began. It didn’t matter what I looked like on camera; it mattered that I looked at so many smiling faces. I introduced myself as a newcomer (again), and they were so welcoming. I was where I needed to be.
The next day I woke up feeling positive, motivated, and ready to take on the day. I hadn’t felt this way in weeks… probably longer. I took advantage of this mood, and I looked up more virtual meetings. I found an LGBTQ one after work that I decided to check out. It was another HP moment. They put me right where I needed to be again. This time the meeting had 6 people, and that was exactly what I needed. The large meeting was fun and motivating; the second was intimate and connecting. I can’t wait to see my new virtual friends again today!
If you are struggling with addiction, please feel free to reach out to me for support and resources. Connection is the opposite of Addiction. That could not be more true; I can feel it in only 2 days. This isn’t going to be an easy ride — the first 30 days are the hardest — but I have my people again, and I can do this!
One Day at a Time ❤
