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live in a state of irrational fear of an impending relapse, BUT, i do take the necessary steps to keep my recovery strong.
before i get rolling, i will simply state that the terms vigilance and fear of relapse mean so many things to my peers, that as i pound this out, i am certain to offend one or more. that just is what it is, i am one of those who values my recovery and refuses to live in a state of misery. i did not get clean to be miserable, and i do not stay clean to live in abject fear of my next use. relapse, for me, is always a choice and a possibility, as i do not ascribe to the notion that i will “never” use again. i CHOOSE not to use, today and live in a state of grace provided by the strength, or lack thereof, of the program i have implemented in my daily life. the upshot is of that brand of living, is that i GET TO keep my recovery fresh, even when i am building a case against recovery and everyone in the rooms. never is a long FVCKING time and i live in the world JUST FOR TODAY.
welcome to my world. i live in a world where i have stopped dealing in absolutes and understand that good is hardly free of evil and every moment of happiness has a bittersweet element. in my world view there are very few absolutes. the primary absolute is one is either clean or one is not. there is no middle ground. ANYTIME, i CHOOSE to use a substance, legal or illegal, to alter the way i feel, i am no longer clean. i do not allow for much wiggle room and across the course of my recovery i have heard more than one of my peers, try to wiggle through what they see is a crack. i also have seen my peers chastise one and another for using medications that were prescribed by medical professionals. in my opinion, as long as that use is exactly as prescribed and a minimal amount is used for the shortest time possible, a relapse has not occurred. which then opens the door to drug replacement therapy. the argument goes like this, since addiction is a disease ➪ there is a treatment available that ameliorates the symptoms, i.e. socially unacceptable behaviors ➪ therefore the addict during the course of such a therapy, should be considered “clean.”
in my opinion that is a neat piece of sophistry foisted upon the community of addicted people by the well-meaning but misguided treatment community. sure if one can control using, one can go back to work, provide for their families and stay out of legal trouble. one does not commit felonies when one does not need to score on a daily basis. what that simplistic view covers up, is the true nature of addiction. i have come to see addiction as a physical, emotional and spiritual affliction that needs to be treated on all three of those levels. my toxic low self-esteem cannot be medicated away. the emptiness i feel cannot be replaced by a well-meaning shot, after all that is what got me here. treating the symptoms of addiction on a physical level overlooks the real problem, but relieves society of the burdens of active addiction, as one can become once again a self-supporting member of society, even when they have to take a pill or shot to do so. the cost society is lessened, but the cost to the addict is heightened, as they receive no framework for living without their drug replacement therapy. from what i have seen, very few of the DRT clean addicts ever make it into long term recovery and i know that my sample is more than likely skewed, to those who came into the rooms and were open about what they were doing.
which brings me back around to my FEAR of relapse. i spent years in recovery living in FEAR of relapse and that FEAR drove me to build the program of recovery i live today. the daily actions i took in the beginning, became the habits i still practice today. even when my meeting attendance slacks, and it does from time to time, i have enough grace to scrape by, which has happened in the recent past. i run to a meeting, rather than a dispensary and yes i am very picky about which fellowship i run to these days. i have learned that the irrational FEAR i once lived in, was just that irrational,. for me there is no “relapse” boogie-man waiting to jump me in the dark alleys of my mind. the part of me i call addiction is not “doing push-ups in the parking lot;” nor am i apt to pick-up something just for the hell of it. i have learned to live a program of recovery that provides me a foil to the the counter the part of me i call addiction. i live in a state of FAITH, that as long as i keep doing what i have been doing, i will keep getting the means to stay clean and recovery, just for today. that FAITH has replaced the FEAR of relapse and transcends the HOPE of another day clean. on this first day of 2017 i get to look forward to another “Just for Today.” i get to make decisions about my own life and need not delude myself into thinking that those decisions exist in a vacuum. i get to write this, take a shower, watch some football and get to a meeting this evening and not get all nutz and crazy if something comes along to disrupt those plans. i get so much more than another day clean, that the effort i put into being vigilant by doing this gig, shows up in lots of other pl;aces in my life, and in a strange sort of feedback loop, my FAITH grows, because what i do out of FAITH give me rewards beyond my wildest dreams.
before i close this out, one last thought. it is my belief that recovering addicts are most misdiagnosed and over medicated population today. early recovery certainly mimics a whole lot of mental diseases and the quick and most socially acceptable way to treat those symptoms is through medication. if one finds themselves in a place where they started being prescribed medication in early recovery, either for drug replacement or mental health issues, i would suggest that they work with those professionals to see if they truly NEED those medications any longer. more than one of the men i have worked with across the course of my recovery has freed themselves from the well-meaning chemical dependence and just as many have discovered they they really do NEED to stay on the meds. the only way they found out, was to partner with the professionals in their life, so they could get an accurate picture of who they have become, once they found a framework to live, that addresses all three aspects of addiction. for me, this is THE way, but i am su=re that there are other paths one could take. i am of the opinion that if something is working, why fVck with it, and this is certainly still working for me!

∞ DT ∞