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Relapse? I don't know.

sparkle123

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Hi all. So I probably relapsed. I have been using an old mj tincture that's been sitting around my house for the past couple years. Never could throw it out. It started when I took one of my husbands tramadols (old script only two left that he wasn't using) for some uti pain I was having. It felt good and I guess I wanted to keep feeling good like that. I didn't tell my sponsor that I've been using the herbal tincture. I haven't really gone to many meetings either. Missed church today. I'm just unsure about it all. The tincture has been fun and relaxing and I don't know if it's the worst thing I could do. It feels like if I admit I shouldn't be doing it and that it is a relapse then I have to face that I'm a pretty crappy person/failed/etc. "I just want to fee good" is going through my mind. Maybe that's the devil! But it does drain me to see "normal" people getting to relax and unwind with mind and mood altering substances and me not be able to. I guess I've been feeling the stress because my diets been limited (no wheat or sugar for the last 3 months!) due to ibs and I'm feeling like I can't indulge in anything anymore. (I know, being a baby, poor me, etc, but it's hard to fight and let's face it most people are indulging themselves all the time with food and drink. It's hard to be outside of all that) Anyway, going to go hike with my dog and thought I'd post about this here since I'm not sure what else to say..
 
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Leon C. Essex

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Hi Sparkle - sorry to read you are having a tough time. Don't know if it will help at all, but I'll offer a few thoughts. First thing I'd say, is that using drugs does not make you a "pretty crappy person". Nor does wanting to feel good, or envying "normal" people. And we don't need the devil to put such ideas in our minds - we are quite capable of thinking like that without external help.

You describe a process only too familiar to many addicts. You took tramadol for what might be considered a legitimate reason, and you liked the feeling. But like so many others before, you also had this little stash, that you were never quite ready to ditch. Personally, I've never known any addict who kept a stash, who didn't end up using it. Consciously or otherwise, that is precisely why they are kept.

The other things you mention - not telling your sponsor and skipping meetings and church - are also part of a common pattern of relapse. Though saying that, I don't believe relapse starts with the first drink or drug. For me, relapse is often a process of mental and spiritual discomfort or disquiet (a growing dissatisfaction with life, if you like) of which using is almost an inevitable consequence. It may last years before someone will actually use again, or the process might be accelerated by a crisis. The point is, being uncomfortably clean and sober will usually be a strictly temporary affair - it is very difficult to keep away from mood-altering chemicals when one's mood needs altering.

I don't know if this will be of any help to you, but I will share a little of my own experience with you, in the hope that it might. The only thing which saved me from chronic alcoholism was to come into a relationship with God, and surrender my life utterly to him. I made no conditions, and reserved no rights - and then I set about living for him. I won't lie to you - I've had some bad experiences since then: even just recently, I was treated for cancer, and I buried my dear father on Friday....but in all the years since committing my life to Christ, I can honestly say I haven't given drinking so much as a passing thought. I am entirely comfortable without alcohol. I hope and pray that you can come to experience that peace, too.
 
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sparkle123

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Thank you Leon. This helped. I threw away the tincture, but have had a few drinks between then and now. I am very appreciative of your prayers and anyone else's who has read. I am ok, just confused inside and I can see how I've fallen into a bad state spiritually. I am amazed at your story and wish I could go without being interested in a drink but I feel like there is a lot of darkness in me that needs sorting out before I can experience that peace. I thought I was turning my life over but I wasn't. I think I've been a bit arrogant and unrealistic. I have a lot to think through and pray on. Thank you for your post, it really has been a blessing for me as you expressed something I felt to be true but was trying to push away.
 
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chilehed

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...It feels like if I admit I shouldn't be doing it and that it is a relapse then I have to face that I'm a pretty crappy person/failed/etc....
That's just your disease talking smack.

Yeah, it's a relapse (but deep down you knew that, right?). So please, allow me to give you a big hug of encouragement and a kick in the rear...

It's good that you threw away the tincture - now get rid of the alcohol and get back into the program. You're right, the way we think that we can do it on our own is arrogant and unrealistic. Addiction is a relational disease, it isolates us from the very thing we need most: the blessing of deep relationships with the people around us, and keeps us in a pattern of sick relationships that reinforce the disease. Recovery involves a refusal to settle for sick relationships, learning how to have healthy ones that reinforce our recovery. To do that, I needed to spend a lot of time in meetings with people who weren't using, who were living the program and who wanted to help me stay clean too.

Relief from the obsession to use comes as a result of working the steps, and that doesn't work unless you first get through the stage of refusing to pick up come hell or high water. It sucks and it's not easy, but we all have to do it in order to get any amount of clean time and you don't have to do it alone. Daily meetings, using the phone, talking honestly about it in group and with your sponsor, step work, prayer... this is the process by which we connect with others, bring light to the dark places, and get rid of the baggage that keeps us sick.

And as that happens, the obsession is lifted. One evening you'll realize that you didn't think of getting high that day, then you'll notice that it's been a couple of weeks, then months... it's been so long since I really wanted to get high that I don't remember when it was. I've been clean nearly 30 years, and I have friends in the program who weren't born the last time I wanted to get high. If there's one thing written in the NA Basic Text that I believe, it's this: ANY addict can stop using, lose the obsession to use, and find a new way to live. And yes, this means you too! So, right now, call your sponsor and tell her what's been going on. Like, RIGHT NOW, no matter WHAT time it is! And then take her suggestions. And stop beating yourself up for being human. *hugs*
 
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