This is for me more than anyone.

It’s hard to know when to step into the life of someone you love sometimes. I know my mother treaded on eggshells on me when I was younger, angrier, and lost. I know that my father wasn’t afraid to tell me what he thought and then make me plaster the holes in the wall. I get into J’s shit all the time and call him out. He usually doesn’t get very defensive about it if he doesn’t want to hear it, he just listens and says ok and keeps doing it if he wants. Most of the time when I let him know what I think about whatever he’s doing to himself that isn’t good for him he’ll come around later and thank me. I’ve got a fucking ego. I don’t like being criticized though I’m getting better at it. I actively ask for advice on things from people in my network who know what they’re talking about, even if I don’t necessarily see why, and this is the important part. I listen, and do it. Sometimes it takes courage for us to speak our truth knowing that it probably won’t make our loved one happy to hear it.

I got scared last night when D told me on the phone last night that she didn’t want to work the AA program because she’s not, “a fucking alcoholic.” I guess coming from the drug culture I came from, I never saw alcohol as any different than any other drug. In fact, alcohol is one of the hardest drugs there is for your body and brain (alcoholism also having the only withdrawal that can kill you). What I’ve learned from my substance abuse counselors, my network, and my own experience is that the drug is merely the expression of the disease. I didn’t think I was an alcoholic either when I came into the program. Alcohol wasn’t my drug of choice, and it wasn’t one that I abused all that much. In fact it was one of the drugs that I was proud of being able to turn down. I bragged when I saw people whose main addictions were either weed or alcohol that those were the ones I could pass on, like that made me cool or something.

When I looked back though, I realized that the first time I got drunk with my friend, at 15 and 130 lbs or so I drank almost two thirds of a fifth of spiced rum, broke into someone’s garage, stole a can of spray paint, and walked around my block spraying smiley faces on the sidewalk. I only remember snap shots of the experience, because I was blacked out. That’s not what normal 15 year olds do.

I was born with this disease. I have always been compulsive and hedonistic, seeking pleasure despite consequences. I used to stay home sick and play video games. I would convince my mother that if I didn’t have the mouse I wouldn’t be able to use the computer. That was a lie. I would con her over and over again to be able to play video games when I stayed home sick. It didn’t matter what I was doing on the computer, I just had to have it. She told me recently about a crackpot psychiatrist that I saw when I was first prescribed psychiatric drugs (Depakote and Ritalin). Numerous times when I was visiting him he would remark that something I was doing was, “addictive behavior,” not that that means anything to a ten year old.

I’ve now been sober long enough to see three very close friends relapse. It’s a very long story, but L was one of the most good hearted people I knew. He still is. At six months in sobriety, after all he taught me about pacifism, the bible, and turning the other cheek, he calls me from jail, and won’t tell me what he did. I hear a few days later from a mutual friend that he started shooting coke again and held up two 7-elevens. I thought back to how it started. First of all, I always knew that he wasn’t very faithful at calling his sponsor. He told me before I left for Denver more than three months ago that he had smoked a bowl. I heard it through the grape vine first, and I understand now why that little thing was worthy of rumor. When I got back a month later, he told me over the phone that he had been drinking really hard for a week or so at a bar from being depressed, but he was “controlling it now.” And then he called me from jail.

I can’t say that this is cause and effect, but there is a very strong correlation here. I won’t say this for everyone, but for addicts like L, myself, and plenty other people I love, it seems that working this program is one of the only ways to stay sober. There was a woman who was in the inpatient program at CATS who abused perkaset, oxycontin, and other opiates for a few years, stopped, starting drinking instead and was back at CATS for alcoholism. It even says in our literature that alcohol is a drug and that a great many of us have relapsed thinking it was different. I’ve never heard a non alcoholic so bitter that they couldn’t drink.

A lot of my fear for her is fear for my self too, and how I would react if she relapsed. It’s an even uglier thought than memories of myself during my using, but while I don’t want to dwell in negative thoughts and let it overshadow the world of love that I live in it’s a possibility that I can’t just invalidate. I would feel more tortured if she relapsed than I think anyone else I know in recovery right now. I don’t know if it would be worse relapsing with her or having to watch her go back to doing what we all do. I have a disease that is currently in remission. While I can stay sober today, it’s not my place to say whether I’ll be sober in a year or even a month. Any of us can relapse any time. It’s the nature of our disease.

This question of powerless puzzles me sometimes. I know that there are many people in my life that have been influenced by me. Does that mean I influenced them? I know that our recovery is completely up to us and no one else can do it for us, but that mean that we’re not supposed to try? And what does that look like? What is powerlessness? It’s hard to help someone with a problem that they don’t see. Tough decisions.

I don’t think this is really as big as I thought it was, so I’m glad I wrote about it to discover that. So I’ll keep on enjoying the hell out of being totally in love with her, and not worry unless I need to.