What Would Change?

I have seen many relapses in my (relatively) short time in sobriety and have often pondered the consequences or effects of a relapse in my life. What will happen? How will my life change? How will I change? Let’s look at each of these questions and drill into an honest answer.

1.       What will happen if I relapse?

This scenario has truthfully played out in my mind hundreds of times, in passing thoughts or in response to stressful situations. Without fail, it proceeds thusly: somehow I am convinced that I should forget everything I know about the inanity of the first drink for the alcoholic. I’m at no point operating under the false assumption that I’ve learned how to drink like normal folks; I never wanted to drink like a normal person from the very beginning. I am overcome with guilt and shame and begin to punish myself for that first drink with many, many more. I also become a recluse because I cannot face the literally hundreds of people who’ve come to know my sobriety as a fundamental part of who I am.

2.       How will my life change if I relapse?

The first thing is physically I become weak and sick. I go to bed earlier and wake up later and feel like crap in between. The drugs follow shortly after the drink and most likely I end up out of a job within two months (if I am lucky). I also become a recluse because I cannot face the literally hundreds of people who’ve come to know my sobriety as a fundamental part of who I am. I know that I am not out and about nearly as often these days, but I will become a ghost if relapse becomes a part of my story.

3.       How will I change if I relapse?

The positivity is gone. The desire to be of service to others vanishes. The fragile sense of self-worth becomes extinct. My life as I know it is over.

Now, I won’t say that there’s no way I could come back from this or that redemption would then be impossible. I will say that the odds are in favor of me drinking and drugging so hard, so fast that I don’t live longer than 6 months after I pick up again if it ever happens. My guilt would consume me and my shame would hang on my head like a lead weight. The life I would have left would consist of me being alive, but not really living. The good things in my life would melt away and I’d be left in the company of my own self-loathing.

This thought horrifies me. I can honestly, unashamedly say it frightens me to my core. However, it is also not what I choose to use as my reason to stay clean and sober, although fear is indeed a powerful motivator. Today I choose to move forward, drawn by the beauty of my life rather than away from the dark reality of the possibilities if I relapse. I will also freely admit that if in the pivotal moment this fear is all that stands between me and the first drink or drug, I will use it to stay sober for that day. I won’t choose to stay there, because that fear too would consume me eventually and bear the same consequences.

I choose to move towards the light and towards the love today, and I also choose to not lose sight of what relapse would bring.