Submitted by Sidney
Relapse happens. It is a detour on the recovery journey, but it is not the end of the road. Heroes keep trying. They may fail time and time again, but they continue to try and persist in recovery.
Here are some words from my “chronic relapser” friend.
I guess you could call me a chronic relapser. I’ve only been institutionalized eight times, to jail twice, and to the hospital for overdose reversal twice—all because of my substance abuse problem. To a rational thinker, any one of the above mentioned instances would be enough to make a person step back and reevaluate the way s/he were doing things. To be fair, I did step back and reevaluate my life at all of those pit-stops, just like I did when I lost my wife, arrangements to see and talk to my daughter, my professional license . . . the list goes on ad nauseum—and then I went to score. Yes, I got high, not because I didn’t care about the wonderful things in my life, but simply because I am an addict. I had conditioned the pathways in my brain to accept nothing other than heroin and its opioid and opiate cousins. All of my problems were consolidated so that the answer to any problem became: “Get more smack.”
If I were to put an end to the spiral death trap of addiction, I knew I would need some help, because that’s what we’re told, right? I got out of each rehab with a fresh foundation. I did what I was told and went to an endless succession of 12-Step meetings, got a sponsor, started working steps, and then decided it was all bullsh*t and started using again. This was a cycle for me, just like addiction. But these days I tend to see these attempts as attempts and not failures. I learned a little more about myself every time I tried quitting and did not succeed. As time went on, I had to fine tune my recovery so that I could live with myself without shame.
The first thing that had to change was that I had to quit for myself, because I valued myself, and not so that I could get lost things (relationships, money, etc.) back. This can be reframed as “put your recovery first and all else will follow.” After I realized that I had to put my recovery first, I began to see that a solid support system was necessary. In the past, I tried to rely on 12-Step programs, but the fatal flaw of this reliance was that I didn’t buy in to the philosophy they put forth, so I was always doomed to fail from the get-go. If I were to succeed at personal recovery this time, I knew there would be work to do, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I live in Memphis, and there isn’t much more than 12-Step and other faith-based programs of recovery. What I have finally found to work for me is a collage of recovery ideas. I still go to 12-Step meetings, but I prefer to work a program based on the ideas of Albert Ellis and Stanton Peele. I go to meetings to connect with other sober folks. While networking with them, I may choose whether or not to disclose my ideas about Ellis’ rational emotive therapy or Peele’s life process program. In other words, if the 12 steps are working for someone, I keep my mouth shut, because it is better to see someone clean and sober than to get an ego boost from adequately defending my position regarding recovery. If, however, I meet someone who is struggling with some of the tenets of 12-Step recovery because of his or her own personal philosophy, I feel I can be of service to that person, because I can offer real alternatives instead of trying to hit them on the head with a one-size-fits-all solution that clearly isn’t for everybody.
Sidney says:
I met my friend, the “chronic relapser,” soon after I returned home from residential treatment. We attended IOP together. That was two and a half years ago. He’s a person I enjoyed being around. I wanted to listen when he spoke. He was a free spirit and a beautiful soul. He possessed the very thing I feared was gone from my life via sobriety, and that was excitement. He sort of be-bopped into IOP, usually late with a bedhead and a cup of coffee. He was comfortable sharing his feelings, and it seemed like he “got it,” and I needed to “get it.” I liked the way I felt around him. The fact that I had not allowed myself to feel anything for almost two decades played a huge part, but I didn’t think that far. I found him fascinating. My thought was, “If this is what recovery feels like, then I’m in!” It took a few months, but I discovered the one thing he had that made him “exciting and funny and engaging,” and that was heroin. He was still using. And I was oblivious. I had given up my risky inappropriate behavior with drugs, but I still got to experience the thrill through his drug use. In the past two years, I have supplied him money for heroin. I’ve taken him to buy heroin. I have watched him shoot heroin. Even though I stayed clean, I was living the life of an addict. I watched him lie and steal and manipulate and use people. I realized I was on the other side of addiction and in the most pain I have ever known. I saw what I was like as an addict. I was him, and he was me, and I knew at that point I would never give up on him. He and I spent a lot of time looking for a way he could live without drugs. With every relapse, we found things that worked and things that didn’t. My faith was renewed every time he was brave enough to try again.
The courage to keep trying despite all the obstacles is heroic and essential to true recovery. And those who never give up on chronic relapsers are heroes, too.