sfgirl

@otterbearcat
I relate to you in that I too had a relapse/slip about 5 weeks in. I drank for one night. I did not change my sober date but still consider it a relapse. However, because my emotional work solidly started on September 26, 2008 that is where my sober date will stay. The reason that I am writing to you though is that when I read that one line it made it sound like you shouldn't have been feeling depressed. That if you had been being "good" in recovery you would have got yourself back to feeling good so you wouldn't have had to medicate with booze. If I can give you a piece of advice it is that depression happens, depressive days happen, especially in early sobriety, and the reality is that trying to shift away from those feelings quickly is a lot the addict in us. I think that a skill we really have to learn is tolerating feeling bad sober. Once we learn that recovery gets so much easier. Easier said than done. But I just don't want you to feel like you aren't supposed to or allowed to feel depressed in recovery because it will happen again. Hopefully, actually certainly the next time you will be able to bear it longer and get through it sober. Good luck.




I think relapse is completely subjective. It is a decision that each person should make for themselves. Recovery and sober time is certainly not a competition.

I think there are slippery things. I think I can easily take a medicine that is prescribed for me that I do not need. I could easily get prescribed a narcotic for actual pain (such as my cramps which are extremely severe due to endometriosis) but do I really need them? No, I personally do not. So I would be taking it within the prescribed use, but would I be being completely honest with myself about being "sober"? I have benzos to be taken as needed. I never take them, if I started taking them tomorrow it might be suspect. I smoked some pot early on in my recovery because frankly I don't like pot and I am not scared of getting addicted. I smoked it because I hadn't really thought about sobriety beyond alcohol. Now that I have reevaluated my recovery and feel different, I definitely would not smoke pot. I could see that changing later; maybe someday I would take a little hit. But there are other ways to escape— I watch a lot of television. I sometimes eat a lot of ice cream. Last week when I was feeling crappy, I found myself taking naps to escape. Where does one draw a line? Do I have to be completely present in my life at all times? The answer is no. I am not perfect. I think people that set up rules and try to adhere to them rigidly become less concerned with their actual recovery and more concerned with adhering to some sort of ideal. For me recovery has been about rejecting the ideal and accepting myself as I am.