Relapse and Stopping Again
I Learned A Lesson From Every Relapse
Just As My Sponsors Told Me … and My Last Led to Weed
“Trading judgment for freedom/ Found something new to believe in/ Something inside of me screaming/ ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’”
— Demi Lovato, “California Sober”
A word to the newly stopped: DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED. I relapsed so many times from 2009 to 2018; I lost count. But I kept trying to stop. Now it’s been nearly four years since my last drink. The slogan “keep coming back” is sound advice backed by experience. Do not be embarrassed. There is always another meeting where people do not even know you. In the “zoom meeting” era, you can go to meetings in another country. Do not get hung up on absolutes. Every day you do not take your poison is an improvement over the “bad old days.”
On October 31, 2009, I hit rock bottom in New Orleans with a .386 blood-alcohol level that did not kill me because I was a “real alcoholic.” When I finally made it back to Florida in a Greyhound bus looking like a nightmare, I found out that my best friend had been calling hospitals, jails, and morgues looking for me, and he called my mother, who was worried. That news, even more than my blood alcohol, inspired me to stop drinking. My psychiatrist prescribed me a month worth of Antabuse at my request (I was already on Klonopin for my bipolar I disorder), sent me a list of meetings, and tricked me into going.
I first entered the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) on November 9, 2009, and like a miracle, I stopped drinking. I was still smoking pot, so on the advice of my sponsor, I “took a white chip” and restarted my clean time again after I threw out all my pot. That period of sobriety lasted from early January until July 1, 2009, when I drank on an airplane while permanently moving to Israel. My lesson was that “airline flights were a trigger,” or perhaps the stress of the move was a “trigger.” Within a few days, I found the closest meeting of Narcotics Anonymous (NA), and there was no AA in Be’er Sheva, Israel, at the time.
Again, I made it six months before having a drink and figuring this time was because I was triggered by feeling alone in a crowd. The relapses came more frequently, and the lessons learned became bolder. In late 2010, I joined an outpatient half-day program. When I relapsed, I went to an inpatient 30 day followed by a six-month outpatient. When I resumed drinking again, I went to an inpatient 30 day followed by an inpatient for two years (of which I survived ten months before climbing the fence). This extensive professional treatment led to my most extended period without a drink or anything, two years, and four months — my primary motivator was not to have to return to any more rehabs. Having survived dozens of short relapses and then a long relapse after that period of sobriety, I ended up experimenting with every possible way to treat my alcoholism.
In 2010, learning from a relapse, I added “psychotherapy” by professional psychologists and social workers to my tool kit. I still see a psychotherapist today and find it very helpful. Most recently, we have been investigating my traumas better to understand the sources of my misuse of substances. Dr. Gabor Maté has written several books on the subject, at least bringing the Big Book up to date scientifically.
On the day of my most multiple relapses in 2015, I applied all my previous “lessons.” I prayed that morning and read my daily meditation from NA’s Just for Today. I went to a meeting early and talked with my fellow clean addicts. On the way back from my meeting, I told my sponsor that I was dying to use. He tried his best to talk me out of it. I ended up going to a nice restaurant, ordering a nice steak, and drinking two lovely glasses of red wine with my meal.
I went home, and I did not have a hangover. I tried Moderation Management, and that did not work. I tried the Sinclair Method with acamprosate (Campral) and managed to drink hard while on it. Fortunately, it did not make me sick. I tried EMDR therapy to help process my PTSD. It did not work for me.
The Twelve Steps alone were not doing it for me. I questioned whether I was immune to all treatment and was the “chronic relapser” everybody talked about in the “recovery community,” of which I am no longer a member. I developed a skepticism toward AA, and more particularly, the slogans that I still have. Nevertheless, my two-year-long relapse continued. I was blacking out again. I chipped my teeth on the curb. Meanwhile, I had to take care of my mom, who was entering an assisted living facility.
I went to AA, and the first speaker I heard (on day two of this round) was John, someone twenty years my junior who had been in AA for a dozen years, almost half his life. I relapsed on alcohol after 90 days but then came back on January 4, 2018. After some 90 days, when we were working Step 5, I decided to come clean with John, and I told him I was using medical marijuana. I told him it was for my anxiety and PTSD, that my psychiatrist considered it an over-the-counter med. I now use it to cut out cravings for alcohol or the need for benzodiazepines to treat my anxiety.
Thank my Higher Power (the Divine Wind), I finally found the sponsor I needed and wanted. John took psych meds. John understood AA history, including founder Bill Wilson’s use of LSD, documented in the AA publication, Pass It On. He read the official AA pamphlet on medications. I know the hypocrisy of people in AA who “tsk-tsk” weed but take much stronger pills, justifying it because a doctor prescribed it. My doctor recommended and is undoubtedly aware of my use of cannabis. There is no excuse for AAers “contempt before investigation” when it comes to medical marijuana, and AAers shun pot smokers, which is utterly contrary to AA’s Third Tradition: “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop DRINKING.” Nobody “drinks” pot. So, as John sees it, medical marijuana is an “outside issue” for me to discuss with my doctor and my Higher Power. Still, it was not an issue in Alcoholics Anonymous. He took me through the Twelve Steps, and I certainly owe my sobriety to them.
But I would not be sober on the Twelve Steps alone. It took me nine years to convince myself of that. Two dabs on the above futuristic device, take away the urge to drink every time. If you call weed a “crutch,” are you the type of person who walks up to someone on physical crutches and yanks them away? I know I am a better person on weed than on alcohol. My wife, who has seen both, absolutely agrees with me. Doesn’t weed make me crave other highs? No, it does not. Whether to use medical marijuana in support of your sobriety must be your call. Are there marijuana addicts who use weed to escape their traumas and emotions? I have heard many people claim this, and I must accept that as accurate. Is medical marijuana for everyone? Of course not. I have met plenty of people who do not like the way they feel about “weed.” Unfortunately, many of those views were cemented during the “Hippy Era,” when none of us knew about terpenes and strains. Science has created a brave new world when it comes to medical marijuana.
I have not had a drink since January 4, 2018, three years and nine months ago. If I did not use weed, I would not be sober this long. The evidence is in for me, and I have found a path.
