What I learned from relapse....

Well, this is my second business trip in my first three weeks of sobriety.  At least this one didn't include the polar vortex!  I am kind of proud of myself for this, because at least for me, business trips can lend themselves to freewheeling drinking.  Not now.  Tonight's mocktail was iced Vietnamese coffee - enough caffeine for a small country, plus sugary milk thick enough to stand up by itself.  Yum :).

I drove 4 hours for this trip and listened to a couple of Bubble Hour podcasts.  One was on a topic near and dear to my heart - relapse.  Most of the show was devoted to the 11 (eleven!) stages of relapse, ten of which were days/weeks/months before the actual drinking part.  It was a little esoteric to me, a lot of the stages (anxiety, depression, rebellious thinking, impatience) are daily if not hourly events for me, and I don't necessarily agree that experiencing those things is a step to relapse.  But I had a relapse after 2.5 years of sobriety (which they were calling long-term, not sure I think 2.5 years is really 'long-term' either...but everybody has an opinion/some expertise, or at least valuable experience).  And since my relapse lasted a little bit longer than a year, I feel like I learned some things.  I thought it would be good to write them down while I was thinking about them so here they are, in no particular order:

1. It doesn't take long to get back to where you left off when you got sober.  In fact, whatever 'fun party' delusions you had about that drink are just that: delusions, because the 'fun party' part is quite fleeting (if it even occurs) and is quickly replaced by that 'grim determination' kind of drinking that happened at the end when you realized it was not really that much fun at all, but instead was like walking around with a stinking, growling 800 pound gorilla sitting on your back all day every day. 
2. It's worse when you do get there, because knowing how much better it is to be sober (and how hard it is to go through the first few days/weeks of getting sober) makes the remorse/guilt/shame exponentially worse than it was before you ever got sober in the first place.
3. Moderation is a joke.  If you reached a point where you had to decide to stop and stay stopped before, it is because you CAN'T moderate - or at least that was my experience.  Being sober for some extended period doesn't change that.  It may even make it worse.
4.  Your kids will know, and they will be disappointed.  Maybe scared, angry, confused too.  But definitely disappointed.  In you.
5. You know there's a way out, but it's hard (VERY hard) to take that way out.  And it is not as 'fresh' as it was the first time.  There's something almost innocent about being a first timer (sort of like being pregnant with your first child), and you don't get it the second time around.  You just know you have to do it and get on with it (sort of like being pregnant with your second child).  The silver lining is that at least you know it's worth doing the second time around, which was something I didn't really KNOW the first time around.  I'm grateful for that, because now at least I don't have that question.  I do know it's worth doing and I know I don't want to have to start over AGAIN.  I know that better than I did the first time I got sober.
6. It's not worth it.  It took me a year plus to stop again, and I can't get that year back or undo the wrongs that happened during that year.  I can't change it either, but I can use the experience going forward.  
7. Lots of people say they may have another drunk in them, but they don't know if they have another recovery in them.  That question looms large during relapse and doesn't make it easier to quit again.  I am grateful that I have another chance and I don't want to experience that question again.

I guess the other thing I learned is that there is more than one way to skin a cat.  I grew disenchanted with certain aspects of AA after a year or so, and while I learned a lot in the rooms, I didn't want to do that all again.  The blogosphere has given me a great environment of support and opportunities to offer support, and it has also enlightened me to different perspectives on sobriety.  Many of the perspectivves 'fit' me better than the 'one size fits all' dogma that prevails in a lot of AA meetings.  And I like the freedom and 'peer compatibility' that I've found here, something I didn't find in AA.  So I am happy and grateful to be here tonight.  

So what I learned from relapse is that I am better sober and I want to stay that way.  I like being sober and I am NOT suffering by getting and staying that way; I am NOT missing out on anything or being deprived. But I was missing out and being deprived when I was drinking. I was missing out on life.  Ansd when I was doing it 'in relapse', I KNEW I was missing out.  I don't want to miss out on anything else!  So I'll get to wake up sober tomorrow and drive another four hours with no hangover, and maybe even listen to some more Bubble Hour.  But mostly I'll get to be alive and free of the beast. 

I hope  you are as happy with your sobriety as I am tonight.  And if you are flirting with the idea of maybe just one, I hope my list helps you.

Happy Sober Friday.

Hugs,

SR