Did You Relapse Again? Oh, Fiddlesticks

Relapsing Is Not The End of The World!

Let me tell you something: when I say that I am the King of Relapses, I am not exaggerating. And using the word king does not imply I wear the moniker with pride. I use it as a means to emphasize the fact that I could not go two or three days without a drink, after solemnly swearing it off, for roughly 7 years. It was friggin insane, dude! I would take this dramatic vow every few days, the oath of my life, and then break it in an instant. And not give a you know what about it. At all, man.

It took me years, with multiple tools of therapy from several of those wonderfully amazing professionals I've mentioned before, to steer me out of this behavior. That's not what I'd like to address in this post, however. The motivation and desire that kept me running back to the bottle is another matter entirely. What I want to address with this post is the icky, tortured, pungent feeling of relapse after relapse. 

Listen, I understand that relapse is a part of recovery for most of us. Is it ideal? No, not at all. Is it a reality? Yes, most certainly. I respect the school of thought rejecting my notion, claiming that recovery can be attained the first time out of the gate, but in all my travels I believe I've only truly witnessed this once. Yes, it can and does happen, but I've found it's more common for most of us to experience relapse. Perhaps not as common as the number of times I played the game, but hey. You win some, you lose a lot.

I spent years waking up in a self-imposed, self-created glass bottle prison. I hated that I loved it. I hated that it was easier for me to awake and run to the freezer for vodka than it was to confront my life. I hated that I was weak and lazy. I hated that my stomach felt like lava and my head was split in two. I hated that I had no friends and rarely spoke to my family. But boy did I love drinking my voodkila, chugging and sipping all night long while surfing YouTube. I loved taking shots and smoking cigarettes. I loved pounding some vodka and chasing it with pickle juice and a bowl of weed. I loved being altered.

So that was a real bag of mixed emotions I dealt with during each relapse. I felt stupid, gross, lonely, and angry. I felt sad and wasted, and not because of the booze. I was wasting my life away in a bottle and it hurt. In order to alleviate my troubles, I would drink until a blackout, so that I did not have to deal with such nonsense. Sounds like a great cycle, huh?

It's soul-crushing, isn't it? It takes and takes until you're left broken and bruised, but still asking for more. If you're in it right now, I am so sorry for you. I love you (I hope that's not weird, I just figured you'd need to hear it). I hope you're able to keep coping until you find your sunshine. I hope you're able to be easy on yourself, to be forgiving of your transgressions. Don't beat yourself up. Give yourself a hug. Tell yourself that it's okay. Say "I forgive you.” Tell yourself "I love you.” It's not cheesy, it's not lame. It's life-saving and absolutely crucial.

If you've made it through to the other side and are reading this with some time away from drugs and alcohol, I am so proud of you! That was some crazy shizz, huh? Like, hella cray-cray. But we did it, and that's so important to recognize. We persevered. Because that's all you can do if you have trouble with relapsing. It's all I could do. Relapse, then get back up and keep trying. Get back on the horse a million times if you have to. Just get back up without standing in judgment of yourself. All that self-loathing and angst leads you straight back to the sauce, man. Take it from me, a little patience and grace with yourself can go a long way. Like, a really, really long way.

As usual, have fun until we chat again!