It has been a really, really long time since I wrote anything. I’m not really sure where to start. I relapsed ten months ago and my use culminated in a DUI on my motorcycle two weeks ago. This is my third DUI since the first in 2012. The second occurred in October 2015 and oddly enough, I feel more at peace this time despite the potential consequences ratcheting up.

After quitting the part-time weekend restaurant / bar manager position in July of 2017, the idea was that free weekends would allow me to connect with people and do all the things I couldn’t do by working those long shifts on Friday and Saturday nights. I sat back and waited for the phone to ring but without established relationships with friends, that never happened. I wouldn’t allow myself to be proactive in putting in the work to turn acquaintances into real friends and sober weekends were spent at home alone, watching Netflix.

My roommate has been sober for 37 years. I moved here in September of 2016 after his wife passed away from cancer that July. Prior to the move I requested that any narcotic medication be taken out of the house completely and he agreed. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and during a period of depression last fall, the idea came into my head that perhaps I should make sure that they had been removed. Going through his room, I found Ritalin, Valium, Vicodin, Morphine, and marijuana.

If I was going to be home alone watching TV, it was better to be high. Or so I thought… After two weeks I told my roommate that I had rifled through his cabinets and all the substances were then disposed of. But by that time the seed was planted and it was easy to find pot. What started as dabbling quickly progressed to daily use by the time 2018 rolled around. Upon waking, I would immediately smoke. Before leaving for work, I would smoke again. At lunch, before appointments, on my way to the gym, and back at home, I would get high.

Despite being high all the time, I could still function. My relationships with anyone in recovery completely deteriorated. Interaction with all family members dwindled. I’ve never been one that could easily be dishonest so it was easier to avoid people than to lie or pretend. The isolation felt before relapse became ever more pronounced but it didn’t bother me much because it was easy to medicate those negative feelings away.

In December of 2017 I drank for the first time in over two years. In hindsight those early experiences with drinking should have scared the hell out of me. The third time I drank was at a going away party for one of the servers at the restaurant I used to work at. Shame prevented me from wanting anyone to know about the relapse so a pint of 100 proof vodka was kept in the truck and I went out twice within an hour to drink the entire bottle. I got drunk to the point that I couldn’t talk and still not wanting anyone to know,(apparently they all thought I was on drugs given how quickly I went from normal to incapacitated) I got the hell out of there and drove 45 minutes to get home. It should have been the warning shot that foreshadowed the inevitability of what was to come.

I’ve been in treatment 9 times since I was a teenager and am about to start number 10 at the age of 47. All the previous treatments were 12-Step based and number 10 is not. I’ve never had trouble getting sober but staying sober has been a different matter. Will trying a different approach to treatment provide new tools that will be more useful? I’ll be honest and say that I’m scared it will not…

The great paradox of my life is that I crave human connection but it is also the thing I fear the most. Rejection, abandonment, and humiliation are possible when dealing with irrational human beings and all have been experienced throughout my life, no more so than when I was young. Those experiences are hardwired into my brain and I’ve sought to avoid reliving those at any expense, with the greatest cost being a life of successes being voided by the failures that relapse have caused. My defense mechanisms tell me that being alone is the easiest way to prevent the excruciating sense of not being good enough from asserting itself once again.

I completed my intake and treatment plan last week and it was encouraging in several respects. The plan is unique to me and I have concrete goals to accomplish that center on reaching out to other people and opening myself up through acting in an authentic way. One of these authentic-centric goals that I set for myself is to write here. This is an anonymous blog and for me to be completely honest, this is how it needs to be. At least for now.

I’m glad I took the time to come back here. As I end this post, a sense of modest accomplishment washes over me. My words may not be pretty or completely accepted by others but they are still my words. I am sober and present in this moment. I am grateful. I am alive.