Recently, I have a heavy heart .... A fellowship of mine has a relapse ....
Hey, isn't it part of Recovery ?? I asked myself ..... I should look after my own recovery and learnt from his experience in his relapse and prevent myself from falling into the same trap, right?
My heavy heart is bcos he may not want to return to the meeting room again ..... I may lose a good fellowship who I could called "Bro" ...
I ask myself, "Why, Why ..... there's alot of people out there suffering who didn't have a chance to hear and understand what recovery is all about ? Why bcos of a relapse, he does not want to come back to the recovery support group ? ...
I then found the answer ... Guilt, Shame, Anxiety, Fear, Ego, Denial .....
Remember I wrote is my last post ...
"Addiction is a powerful, cunning, blaffing and relapse-able disease !!"
These are my own words as I experience it in my own recovery ..... and I though it's timely so share this with those who come across my recovery blog
Powerful
- Bcos the addict will never die. When we stop gambling, he is doing push-up at one corner, keeping himself fit and awaiting to give you the next knock-out punch when you are not aware. It has the power to make you recovery life painful ..... esp when you start working your steps ..
Cunning
- Bcos it uses people, places and things to keep you tempted to go back gambling ... It uses guilt and shame to haunt you and urges you to go back gambling to win it back ... It uses money to lure you to seek the fastest way to your financial freedom ... It trick you into believing it's ok now and you are in control again ....
Blaffing
- Bcos it will always make you lie to yourself and create that reservation behind your head that you can do it again ...... It create that strong denial within you.... Lying and cheating others is a serious matter ... but it's chronic and fatal when one is lying and cheating oneself without even notice it ....
Relapse-able
- Bcos the road to recovery is always under construction and it's a extremely slippery slope as shown in the picture below .... the worst part of it, for that initial moment, the addict enjoys the high, thrill, excitment of going that slope .....
In recovery, I often heard about people saying aboput "relapse" or "slip" .... So what is relapse ..... What is slip ?? Returning back to old ways ??? Returning back to destructive gambling ??? Or returning to place a small bet every now and then ......
To me, the return active destructive gambling is considered a relapse, only if the individual had began their recovery (change) process.... To be honest, I have seen many just stopped gambling and no other changes .... and they thought that by just stopping gambling, I am in recovery .... But in fact they are just resting, waiting for the wound to heal, finding the right time and with availabe new resources, they are planning the next "come-back" .....
In recovery, I have such thoughts too, especially after I made so much progress in recovery and things are getting rosy and at times, when I think I am in control, complacency crepts in, and I let my guards down. I recognise it, accept it, surrender it by being honest my with thoughts to my wife, counselor and my fellowship too. The fightening part of the disease is when I start to do things in the dark, behinds people's back and no one is aware....
Relapse CAN BE part of the recovery process too as we could incorporated into our relapse prevention plan and start building up our safety net, layers after layers to prevent us from the free fall down the slippery slope....
So is Relapse planned ?? Are there warning signs prior to relapse .... hahaha ask any addict this question .... he will tell you the answer ...
From my own experience and strengths, there are signs .. and if you done your step works properly, you can identify the signs and take necessary precaution measure to prevent yourself from going back to destructive gambling ....
Cannot cope with Changes and life on life's term.
- In recovery, I constantly felt the challenges and struggles in family, marriage, job seeking, my children at home, financial situation... being self sufficient .... when there's an outburst at home, I want to go back gambling to forget about everything. In life, many times, money is always thought as my main problem and gambling is my quick fix solution .....
Stress and depression
- To me, stress increases my obsession about returning to gambling. When I met with an crisis in life, my quick fix solution is returning to gambling either to run away from the problem to to rean money to solve the problems. Frustration, despair, embarrassment and feelings of hopelessness all occur when I can't get out of stress and depression.
Extreme Moods.
- these moods or feelings includes depression, elation, irritability or numbnesss ... These moods will occurs to me when I felt the sense of emptiness .... the void that left behind by "gambling" which has yet to be replaced by other activities .... I tried and I am still trying ...
Denial / Reservation
- I still have the reservation .. I still think that I can do it again ... I still think that I can be a social controlled gambler ... I still think that I can do it different .....
When I feel I am in Control.
- I start to take things for granted ... I start to take my recovery for granted. I start to justify my actions and starts to seek immediately gratification. I constantly put myself in thoughts of gamblings, prediction of games and slips seems justifiable. As a result, I start to put myself in High Risk Situations thereby sabotaging my recovery efforts.
I prayed that "my bro" will come back into the meeting room again. In recovery, alone I can't but together, with a Higher Power, WE can .... Let us hold hands and fight this battle together again. We need one another in recovery ......
