Many addicts find during the first few months of recovery that they begin to feel welcome relief from the desperation and depression their self-destructive lifestyle had brought them. This is no surprise because after hitting bottom, it seems the only one way to go is up. A period of sustained abstinence from what led us astray can certainly turn us in a more hopeful productive direction.
Once our lives begin to improve, the lessening of dark emotions and self-critical inner dialogues can lead us to a false complacency that we are cured of our wrongdoing. It is only a matter of time until thoughts of the pleasurable experiences that got us hooked in the first place return to tempt us back to our old patterns. Euphoric Recall can lead us to test the waters to prove to ourselves we are no longer addicted to the substances and behaviors that once brought us to our knees. But this is a dangerous trap. As one of my fellow 12-step buddies likes to say, “the circus may not be in town anymore, but the monkey is still on my back.”
I know this through experience. Though I have 18 years of sobriety, it’s been over 22 years since I started attending recovery meetings. I had over 4 years of slips and backslides before I committed to giving up my destructive habits completely. Accepting that I was powerless to control this part of my life (Step 1) was the foundation of how I’ve been able to stay clean. However, there is another factor that has proved to be even more indispensable to my recovery — regularly attending meetings.
Most 12-step groups have a mixture of participants with long-term and short-term abstinence. Both of them are important in making a recovery meeting work. It can be inspiring to hear the shares of former addicts with many years of sobriety leading relatively rewarding lives. However, the shares of people new to recovery and those returning after slipping can be just as moving. For me, each newcomer and returnee takes me back to the painful misguided days and nights when I was acting out regularly. I need to be constantly reminded of what awaits me if I’m ever tempted to test the waters again. A night of misbehavior would undoubtedly send me into an inevitable fall from grace, a downward spiral of hurt and negativity, something I don’t ever want to repeat. This would require yet another walk of shame where I rewind my days of sobriety back to one, an uncomfortable humbling experience.
It is easy to remember the good times we once had in our additive days. I certainly had my share of wild temporary highs. But if I play the tape all the way through, the end result, time after time, was far more painful than pleasurable. Euphoric Recall is essentially selective amnesia. Despite my many years of abstinence, I still need my meetings and fellowship with others in recovery to keep me on track. If this is your situation as well, rather than resent having to go to meetings to stay sober, it is far better to be grateful for the opportunity to do so for your own good and for the benefit you can give to others top stay the course.
DAVID CAT COHEN In Recovery blogs 