Relapse...

I haven’t done it, yet...

I say "yet" because it is always an option.  Alcohol and drugs will never go away.  They will always be there telling me shit that isn’t true...telling me stuff that is designed to get me to pick up, return to a way of life that doesn’t work, but fuck if it is not seductive.

Alcohol was my best friend.  I never went anywhere without him.  Ever.

And now, all these years later, I know he waits for me still.  I know that if I let up on my program of action for just a little while, just a smidge of time, I, too, can be seducted back into the hell that is addiction...

Seems like this always happens...one person relapses, then another, then another.  It stuns me every single time.  And I don’t know why.  Us addicts and alcoholics drink and use, that is what we do.  To remain sober for any length of time is an anomaly.  I know this.  And yet, every single time one of us picks up again, I am shocked to my core.

Perhaps it is the realization that none of us is ever completely safe.  None of us immune to the insane idea winning out. None. Of.  Us.

And I have the same reaction every single time, regardless of who it is that has relapsed...I am sick over it and hurting.  And I feel so much compassion for them.  I mean, one more time they listened to their mind tell them that this time it would be different, one more time that this time they wouldn’t fuck up their life, one more time that drugs and alcohol will be everything they want it to be, without all those pesky consequences...

And one more time, they are delivered to their knees.  Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly...but always, always, always.

Two people I love dearly have relapsed recently.  And they are in their disease.  One reaching out for help, the other lost to me.  All I can do is to pray that their bottom finds them before death does.  So long as they are still breathing there is always another chance to recover.  But we don’t get to choose whether we land in jails, institutions or the morgue.  We do not get to choose.  Our delusion chooses for us.  And we believe that we are in control.  That THIS TIME we will not be so unlucky as to have this relapse take us forever.  And I have seen so very many of us perish in this manner.  One more run, and just like that, they are gone forevermore...

I love these two people so very much.  I pray for them.  I implore their God to spare them this fate.  I have been on my knees, crying, pleading, begging.  But I know, no matter how much I want recovery for them, there is absolutely nothing I can do.  Once we take in the substance, we have placed ourselves beyond human aid...and I shall always be just a mere human.

My heart hurts.  My brain hurts.  My soul is aching for an outcome that is different than what waits them should they persist.  I can’t stop it.  I can’t control it.  I can’t, I can’t, I can’t...

So I pray.  I send good thoughts of recovery and healing.  I pray they are well and cared for and that it is God’s will for them to try again.

Again, still...