A Lapse in Time

Sitting at work with a fog in my brain, I glanced at the bottle of pills hanging out of my purse. “What’s the harm of four more?”

The four I had already taken blurred the torrent of angry thoughts a little. My head was still too loud. Though my heart screamed at me not to unscrew the orange bottle’s cap again, it was already too late. I felt the little white pills start to melt on their way down my throat.

Relapses aren’t always some big, monumental thing. Sometimes you don’t even see it coming until it’s already slapped you across the face. My most recent relapse was of this type. I rationalized taking these muscle relaxers because I was prescribed them. Three a day, my prescription said. Three at a time for the whole day seemed justifiable. It didn’t take long for the spiral to begin after that.

A lot of change was happening in my life at the time. After two years of treatment hopping, I had lost the most basic life skills. Grocery shopping was a new experience. I didn’t know how to set doctor’s appointments or how to do the dishes. The knowledge was there – the application was not.

Life around me was a form of chaos previously unknown. It was the chaos of growth. I had my first 9-5 job and wasn’t living in treatment or a sober living for the first time in what felt like my entire life. Everything on the outside seemed fine. I was working, I was going to meetings, I was calling my sponsor. My ninth step gathered dust on the shelf, sure, but it seemed unimportant compared to learning how to be an adult.

Life, on every external facet, was going phenomenally, which is exactly why I let my guard down.

The expectations I placed on myself grew exponentially as soon as I was doing well. I was doing better than I ever had, actually. So when work got a little too stressful, and when I grew resentful at everybody for no good reason, I ceased reaching out for help. I “should know better”, I told myself. I shamed myself for “backtracking” emotionally, and in turn robbed myself of an opportunity for even more growth.

All my relapses up to this point had been atomic explosions, the spiritual equivalent of throwing out your life’s work because it wasn’t good enough. It was new for me to experience a relapse where all I had lost was my time. My first inclination after my relapse was to go out “for real”, to relapse on my preferred drugs to “get the most” out of my relapse.

I am grateful I didn’t act on this impulse. Deep down, I knew I was lucky. I still had a roof over my head, I still had my job. These were things I was a professional at losing. And I had come to value their presence in my life.

It took me three weeks of hiding behind ego to finally get honest with my sponsor about my relapse. I battled constantly with accepting it as a “real” relapse at first. It didn’t fit the image of what a relapse should be in my head. Everything in me told me that I was better off forgetting it ever happened.

But by denying this relapse, I was denying a part of myself. I was once again denying myself an opportunity to grow. When I sat my sponsor down to tell the truth, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. That didn’t stop me from trying to sleep the guilt away, however. I stayed in bed for a couple days after this. I was emotionally drained, but I was honest about it.

In turn, my fellowship opened back up. People were calling and texting me with an unconditional love only fellow alcoholics know. They gave me the space to heal that I so desperately needed. Because of their love, I no longer felt the need to hide behind a brave face. The people around me were able to be brave for me. In turn, I am able to be brave for them again.

I took inventory of what medications I was likely to abuse and seriously re-evaluated their role in my life. Some medications are necessary, but not all medications are. I know a great deal of people who have relapsed in this way. With growing distance between me and my higher power, it became easier to blur the line between “need” and “want”.

By putting my ego aside and getting honest, I know this experience can only strengthen my recovery and fellowship. It already has. Hiding my feelings and thoughts only robbed others and myself of a chance to heal together. In my heart, I know someone out there can learn from this too. I’ve already began to find a great deal of others who’ve gone through the same thing and come out stronger on the other side. That’s what makes the pain worth it: witnessing the growth I so desperately sought to escape.