Post by caressa on Mar 4, 2010 0:34:54 GMT -5
"There will be times, however, when we really feel like using. We want to run, and we feel lousy. We need to be reminded of where we came from and that it will be worse this time. This is when we need the program the most."
Basic Text, p. 78
For eight years before I came into the doors of recovery, I could stop, but couldn't stay stopped. When I got here, I was amazed that people were doing what I hadn't been able to do my way, and I embraced the program because going back to where I came from was not an option.
I know that many people have needed to relapse for what ever reason, generally, to eliminate the denial or they come against a wall and the pain is so great, the feel they have no other option. That is what happened when I tried to quit cigarettes. I had quit for six days and I told my sponsor I didn't have another choice. I didn't pick up the phone and call him until after I had that cigarette. Even though the cigarette tasted terrible, I smoked it any way. Today if I picked up a cigarette, it would kill me faster than a drink would.
I made the decision to quit drinking at 41. I ended up substituting prescription drugs and in the end I was doing both. It came to stop the world I want to get off.
I was told that you can't lose what you don't have. So I had a real thirst and tried to absorb everything and two meetings a day for two years. It was like I didn't have room to relapse. Fear kept me here until I could change that fear into faith.
I have also heard that relapse is part of my disease not of my recovery. I know for a fact that my son needed to relapse before he could get to a place where he was willing to get help, even then with reservations. He said, "I suppose I will have to go back to those darn meetings." He said it for several weeks before he made the decision to go to detox. He told me it was different this time around. He felt that I couldn't understand but it isn't about substance it is about feelings and learning to deal with life on life's terms without using.
Just for today, I choose not to use no matter what. I have had a couple of spiritual and emotional bottoms and because of a strong support group, I didn't physically pick up but saw where I had slipped emotionally and spiritually.
Because of my chronic pain and sleeping disorder my doctor(s) put me on medication that put on weight. That is when the stinking thinking came into play and I had to use my program to get me through it. I got where I thought "what is the use, I am fat any way (swelling) and would eat and other times I didn't want to eat. I had to learn to make healthy decsion and look at my diet and lack of exercise. Both could lead to an addiction, and yet both are necessary things and it has been my experience, that I tend to be an all or nothing at all person. It is about finding balance, turning things over to my Higher Power and asking for help.
A memory lapse can lead to physically picking up. I can decide not to think, not to implement my program and end up back using.
That is why this program is one day at a time program and I need it just as much now as I did when I walked into the doors of recovery several 24 hours ago.
. I will be back looking for Lin and others.