Maintaining sobriety can be a slippery slope to say the least.
When I was in treatment for the first time, one of the counselors told me “Look around this room.
Only one in ten of you will get this and remain sober for an extended period or for life.”
A very sobering statistic (pun intended) but a great indication of how difficult of a journey sobriety is.
I was one of the ones who didn’t make it the first time.
I took treatment seriously and absorbed everything presented to me but, once I left the shelter of the treatment facility, the pressures of life were too much, and I relapsed.
In retrospect, I know that I was over-confident and didn’t realize I was still very fragile and vulnerable mentally.
There’s a mantra in treatment circles, progress not perfection, that I also did not practice and that also helped to so me in.
Quickly, my one-day relapse became months long because I couldn’t achieve perfection and the anger and frustration set in and the cycle began all over again.
I re-entered treatment eight months after leaving the first time, more broken mentally and emotionally than ever.
Again, I took the program seriously and worked hard with my counselors to stop beating myself up and realize that perfection is not possible when you’re an alcoholic.
I left treatment the second time armed with new skills and some new friends I met who vowed to help support each other on our journeys.
I also enrolled in an outpatient program to help me stay on track and this helped immensely.
This program was not twelve-step based like the other program I was in and getting a different perspective gave me even more tools to help me on my journey.
Once I completed the outpatient program, I returned to work and tried to continue with my life.
I was also going through a divorce during all this and ended up having to sell my house and temporarily move back in with my parents until I could find a new place.
This situation was exceedingly stressful coupled with the fact that it was also during the Christmas holiday season.
Instead of reaching out to my support system or using my coping skills, I went back to my stress reliever of choice and relapsed again.
I entered treatment for the third and final time in January of 2022.
This time I was determined to get it right.
And eventually I did. With the help of a therapist, I was able to finally address the underlying issues that were contributing to my addiction.
I did have a couple bumps along the way, but instead of letting them derail me as in the past, I followed the “progress not perfection” mantra and used the tools I learned to quickly get back on track.
Everyone’s recovery journey is different.
It is a deeply personal one and, unfortunately, sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get it right.
I’m just here to say don’t get discouraged, seek help and find what works for you and your chances for success will increase exponentially.