"Relapse Is A Part Of Recovery"

You don't have to be coming around to 12-step rooms long before you hear that relapse is a part of Recovery. I tend to add a little mental note that it doesn't have to be. I have an old-timer friend who thinks it best if this particular slogan isn't broadcast too loudly because it's almost like giving newcomers an excuse to go back out and get loaded. I've heard it said, too, that you can't truly relapse if you haven't worked all the steps. I'm not sure I buy that.

My personal experience is that, no, relapse does not have to be a part of Recovery. I've been in plenty of meetings across the different fellowships where members have talked about how relapse isn't a part of their story. It's not part of mine either, but I don't talk very often about that. For starters, it could become part of my story at any point. For another, just because I haven't relapsed doesn't mean I'm better than anyone else in the program. It doesn't mean I'm less of an addict, or ordained by God, or anything else. It just is.

I have the disease. I'm always going to have it; I am never cured. What I get is a daily reprieve, based solely on how much I work to maintain my spiritual condition. Each day, I get exactly as much Recovery as I need to get through without getting loaded. I work the program one day at a time, staying in the moment as best I can. But I still have the disease, which means (among other things) that I am not supposed to be clean and sober. Everything we know about addiction tells us that addicts can't stop themselves from getting loaded--it's the definition of being addicted. We can't just stop. We can't 'just say no'.

Relapse IS a part of Recovery for many of us. And when we do relapse, it is so tempting to just give up, to say 'fuck it' and to hell with it all. Finding the courage to walk back into the rooms after a relapse is one of the most difficult things in the world. When we do, though, we aren't shunned. No one looks down their noses. We receive the same loving support we got when we first stepped in. A fellow member of my homegroup likes to say that we don't shoot our wounded. When someone relapses and then comes back to meetings, it's a miracle in and of itself because so many don't make it back. Their disease takes over. They fall back into the old patterns with a vengeance. And then they die.

If you've relapsed, it doesn't mean the program can't work for you, it just means that you're still an addict or alcoholic. No more, no less. You're supposed to get loaded. So the disease won for a day? So what? It doesn't mean you can't win today, or tomorrow or the day after that. Relapse doesn't have to be part of Recovery, but it is for a lot of us. We're human beings, perfectly imperfect.

In Recovery, every day is a new day.