I relapsed this week and to be honest, I felt it coming. Many in my network saw it coming. The truth is, I relapsed long before I ever picked up. I was engaging in thoughts, attitudes and behaviors that are indicitive of active addiction. I suffered from a general negative outlook and felt like I was on spiritual life support. I turned my back on God. I was calling out to Him with my words, but pushing him away with my actions.
I have a newcomer living with me, and he relapsed as well. However, my relapse has nothing to do with him. I have been sharing for three months that I felt it was coming. He was my excuse to use. I not only hurt myself, but I hurt him, because as a newcomer, he thinks he could have stopped me. Bless his heart. The truth is, no one could stop me. I had my mind made up and I made a conscious decision to pick up. I battled with wanting to use for several months now, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was inevitable.
I started romancing the lifestyle. If the dope won't kill you, the lifestyle will. I was getting attention from all of these young dope boys and that felt good. I liked feeling like I was apathetic and above feeling anything. I liked feeling powerful. That is a drug to me. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to feel alone and I wanted to cover my feelings and I also wanted to feel accepted. I felt disconnected to the people in the rooms because I emotionally and mentally isolated myself from them. I had people in my network who tried to tell me there was a train coming, but I didn't want to hear it. I thought I was more powerful than my disease. I thought I could handle it this time.
The thing is, I got high and didn't enjoy it in anyway. I managed to piss off the person I live with because I was acting so crazy. I felt so paranoid and couldn't even enjoy my high. I knew the whole time my mind was racing that I was doing something wrong. Once you know, you can't unknow.
The person I live with took my car at 3:30 this morning to run to the store and didn't come home until 1:00pm. He was out using all night. I feel guilt, I felt like I should have at least tried to stop him. I went through an array of feelings. I was angry and afraid, disappointed and felt guilt. This man came to me with the intention of me helping him stay focused and stay clean and I feel like I let him down. I was angry with him, but other addicts pointed out to me, that it's really the disease of addiction I am angry with. He is a great guy, but once we put one in, we are no longer in control. It changes us.
We both talked to our sponsors today and made a meeting tonight. We made the white chip walk of shame and shared our relapse with the group. It was a humbling experience to know that I threw away five and a half years of recovery. My sponsor said now that I feel humble, God can use me.
I feel some kind of way about living with an addict new to recovery. It brought back a lot of feelings from when I lived with my ex-husband in active addiction. A few people told me that he doesn't need to be living here. I don't want to hear it. I want him here. We can help each other. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be drug through active addiction again either. We are supposed to be friends who live together, but I am developing feelings for this man and I know that I will have a hard time letting go if it ever comes to that. The bottom line is that I want to stick by him no matter what and maybe he will see that and fall in love with me and see how good I am for him and he will want to get clean and stay clean and never want to leave. I also know, I will let go before I jeopardize my recovery again.
Thank you to my doodlebug who kept my confidence and gave me support and unconditional love when I didn't know where else to turn!!!
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