Only If We Make It Back

Tonight I want to talk about relapse. Sometimes when you work with other women in recovery you lose one. (Sometimes = often, let’s be real). Relapse is a part of recovery; we are prone to repetition. It is my observation that there are certain never-fails in the relapse department. Of course there’s the trope of “people, places, things”—which to some extent means anyone, anywhere, anything, but more specifically the people, places, and things associated with your drinking and using. But above and beyond that, particularly during the first year of sobriety, this is what takes people out: “relationships”, sobriety anniversaries, the fourth step. The relapse trifecta. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve come across who relapse within inches of their 60 days, their 90 days, their six months, their nine. JUST when they’re getting there or JUST when they’ve gotten there. Damn, that’s gotta hurt. The fourth step, in which people make a “fearless and thorough” inventory of their resentments, fears, and problematic sexual behaviors…well, it’s got a reputation. A lot of people get stuck on it and it can drive you to crazy town because of everything you’re dredging up. The process is not meant to punish you—ultimately it’s meant to free you—but digging into the past with no anesthetic is the kind of surgery not everyone makes it through. Relationships—no explanation necessary, highly destabilizing; the recommendation is that newly sober people don’t enter into romantic relationships for the first year. But who does that? It’s like, what do we have left?

These are the mind-altering substances available to us: caffeine, nicotine, sugar, endorphins, oxytocin. My first year, I didn’t give a fuck about anything I was ingesting that wasn’t drugs or alcohol. As long as it wasn’t THAT, I was good. The point was to get sober, not to become a saint. So I pounded energy drinks (a newly acquired habit) and smoked like the proverbial chimney. I used to have a salty tooth, but in early recovery I lived on chocolate protein shakes, pop-tarts, and gummy worms (Seroquel had a hand in this). I obsessed on muscle cars and jumping out of airplanes and drove fast and laughed loud and got a lot of tattoos. I fucked around: got myself a treatment boyfriend, aaaaand a girl. Discovered Tinder. I did almost all the wrong things. But that’s how I got sober. Well, that’s the condition I was in when I started to put in the WORK: treatment center, PHP (Partial Hospitalization Program) to IOP (Intensive Outpatient Program), sober living, meetings, fellowship, sponsor, Big Book, STEPS. And, in my case, meds. I am what we call Dual Diagnosis, having both substance abuse and mental health issues. There came a time during my recovery when I had to manage my bipolar and my ADHD or I wouldn’t have been able to progress in my program; my sponsor called me out on it during my fourth step, actually. Which took me 9 months and 200+ pages to complete. Which is NOT “NORMAL,” even for a non-normie. I don’t recommend that anybody work their fourth like I did, but what matters is I made it through. I wish we all would. I wish we all could. And I believe we CAN, no matter how many times we relapse. But only if we make it back.