To the Chronic Relapser: Don't quit quitting

*TRIGGER WARNING: this content does contain comments regarding drug use and jokes about drug use.

I think when I say that I’m a chronic relapser, people picture a 41-year-old living in her parent’s basement, in and out of treatment centers, always drunk and stumbling around, slurring her words, or high. Or maybe you picture a homeless person (with a laptop), squatting at different friends’ houses. And although I have been (and done) most of these, that does not describe me now. I wear Patagonia fleeces. I am married and live with my husband in a decent neighborhood. We’ve lived here 7 years. It’s a “hip” (saying that probably makes me the opposite) part of town, and we enjoy it. I have lost jobs over the years, but I have also held jobs for awhile. I hang out with my family. My niece is my world.

I don’t drive drunk and I’ve never wrecked my car (my mom’s car didn’t fare so well, though from the DWI in my 20s). I got a DWI in my 20s, yes, but haven’t driven drunk since. And I have never had any legal trouble except for that. I also don’t have cirrhosis or any drug or alcohol-related illnesses.

And, like I mentioned, although I have relapsed a lot, I have been in recovery, for the most part (or in treatment), from 2007-present day. The longest I went was the California “sober” test that I did last year from about March-December.

This brings me to the California Sober thing. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s when someone in recovery eliminates all drugs and alcohol, except weed and psychedelics (i don’t touch psychedelics, though).

I picked weed back up again this year from March-May. I really didn’t want to let go of it. It was probably the hardest drug to quit. It’s so harmless, right? NO. Not for addicts. It’s truly a gateway drug. Yep, just like they told you in Dare. California sober is the furthest thing from sober for me. The disease of addiction has phases of deterioration, but it is painful at every stage. And maybe I’m not in end stage addiction, someday I will be, if I keep going.

I was in rehab with a guy in the dead of winter. Snow was on the ground and the rehab was in the middle of nowhere (probably to prevent shit like this). There were at least 50 acres around us. The next town was miles away. He took off on foot, without a coat, and hopped the fence. Dude made it to the next town, got drunk, and then got a lift back to the treatment center. Now if that isn’t a testament to the insanity that is at play here, I don’t know what is.

But if that didn’t convince you: he did it AGAIN a week later. No joke. And even though I haven’t had legal trouble since the early 2000s, what he did made SENSE to me. And I hope that with some of the stories and personal experience that I will be sharing here will help it makes sense to you. Recovering from addiction is a long, hard road. That is why so many people relapse. And yes, some do it 100 times, like me. But there is hope.

And that is when one addict helps another. Like, I can tell an addict that I once got high and hallucinated on dramamine and he won’t say “why?”, he’ll say, “how was it?Twelve Step groups have saved my life. Goggle them. You know their names. I’m not supposed to promote them. They don’t like that. Also, if you are physically dependent on alcohol or sedatives, go detox at a hospital and don’t do it at home. You can die that way.

Mmk. To end on a happy note: Many addicts do recover. I know many with 30, 40, 50 years sober. And a lot of them relapsed at first. Let’s do it chronic relapsers. Let’s be the exception! Please subscribe!

*TRIGGER WARNING: this content does contain comments regarding drug use and perhaps, some jokes about drug use.

There’s a song by Carrie Underwood entitled “Wasted”. I was listening to it today, and a particular line stuck out to me. She sang about an alcoholic, who decided to pour his whisky down the drain and thought, “it’s time to be a man and stop living for yesterday, gotta face it.” A common characteristic of addicts (I’m going to be referring to addiction as a whole here, nothing specific), myself included, is that we want to go back in time. We’d like to go back and right all of our wrongs. Fix all of the relationships that we’ve destroyed. We would do the opposite this time.

This is especially true of the group of people referred to as “chronic relapsers”. In recovery circles chronic relapsers are those who continue to relapse, despite periods of sobriety. I belong to that group. It’s not fun. But here’s the thing that I don’t hear mentioned very often: in order to be a chronic relapser one has to have some period of recovery to relapse from. In other words, they come back to recovery after leaving it. I think that takes a lot of guts. Strength. Humility. Courage. Also, when an addict uses, in my experience, a lot of shame is involved. So to come back to a group of recovering peers and admit a relapse takes guts. Good for all my fellow chronic relapsers!

One thing that I am very proud of is that I have never given up on recovery. I have been in recovery since I was 24, and now I am 41. I have worked all 12 steps (several times) in a recovery group, sponsored people, and stuck around for three years sober, at one point. And then two. And one. Then various periods of time. My relapses never last longer than a week. Except I did try a California Sober experiment last year that forced me to hit a huge bottom this year.

We will discuss California “Sober” and bottoms, as well. My thing was always pills. I would get prescribed something for my narcolepsy, anxiety, or ADHD and then I’d be off. And eventually I’d drink. Then, the weed would come into play. See, sobriety is complicated. Now, there are some recovering addicts wouldn’t have touched some of the stuff that I have taken, but it is not for anyone to guess how bad my symptoms were. And I can tell you, all three, at times, can be crippling. But figuring out how to be sober, wean off of addictive substances, and incorporate lifestyle changes is something that I plan to discuss in this blog. I also plan to discuss other challenges that one may come across in recovery. So subscribe and join the ride!