Brothers and Sisters in Recovery 🙏 One of the biggest dangers in both active addiction and recovery is self-sabotage. A lot of us think relapse happens only when life gets bad. But the truth is, for many addicts, relapse can also happen when life starts getting good. Why? Because our brains became conditioned to chaos, pain, destruction, and survival mode. In active addiction, we trained ourselves—over and over again—to live in dysfunction. We got used to crisis. We got used to shame. We got used to tearing things down before life could tear them down for us. That is why self-sabotage is so common in recovery. When things finally begin to improve—when relationships heal, when peace shows up, when hope returns, when bills are getting paid, when we begin feeling proud of ourselves—that unfamiliar peace can actually feel threatening. To a brain that spent years wired for destruction, stability can feel uncomfortable. Safety can feel suspicious. Joy can feel foreign. That old addict...
Brothers and Sisters in Recovery 🙏
Relapse is probably one of the scariest things that still bothers me daily in recovery. It’s not that I’m constantly thinking about using — it’s the fear of going back to that life of active addiction. I fear it enough that I don’t make bold promises about never using again, because for me, that almost feels like tempting fate.
Historically, relapse has been part of my recovery story. I have relapsed ten times in the thirteen years I was seeking recovery, and every one of them ended in rehab or some kind of treatment center. That means I got very experienced at lying to myself. And trust me when I say this — I can lie to myself so well that I can justify destroying everything, even going back to prison, just to get what I need to get high.
That’s why I believe it’s actually healthy to be weary of relapse. Not to live in fear, but to stay grounded. To respect relapse enough to remain humble. Addiction is patient, cunning, and ruthless. The moment we stop respecting it is often the moment we start slipping.
For me, making some huge promise feels like setting myself up for failure. What has worked better is waking up each day with intention and making one decision: I’m not going to use today. And if a whole day feels too big, then narrow it down. Sometimes I’ve had to bring it all the way down to the next hour. Whatever it takes. Recovery doesn’t always happen in giant leaps — sometimes it happens in small, stubborn decisions made over and over again.
And if you have relapsed, hear me clearly: relapse is not the end of your story. It can be a painful lesson, but for some of us, it’s part of what finally teaches us what we need to survive. Shame will keep you sick. Honesty will help set you free. What you learned in that fall may be exactly what another addict needs to hear in order to stay clean another day.
Your scars can become someone else’s survival guide.
So stay alert. Stay humble. Stay honest. Respect the disease, but don’t let it convince you that you’re defeated. We do recover, one day, one hour, one moment at a time.
Just for today. Easy does it. Keep coming back. Progress, not perfection. One day at a time.
With love and gratitude,
Gary G
Comments
Post a Comment