Yes, shame is a powerful emotion and such an overwhelmingly present one when you navigate the realms of relapse. For a significant time you have experienced how it feels to be clean, to have control over your own addiction, to feel maybe like regaining a sense of ownership over your life as a whole. It feels like being on this ascending road where one brick helps you take the next step, then another one, then another… the vicious cycle slowly becomes a virtuous one. It feels good to finally see light again after having known what real darkness looks like.
But then suddenly reality seems to brutally slap you on the face… an unexpected event, a moment of vulnerability, an emotional trigger activates raw feelings in you, a loss, an unwanted life change… and you find yourself feeling like you’re just back to square one. That somehow all your efforts during all these months would have amounted to nothing. Feels like falling so brutally from top to bottom without any safety net to catch you. At this place, you wonder how you’re going to move up again, or if it’s even worth it to try again…
It’s really hard when it feels like you are battling with forces that seem to have level 10+ strength while you are beginning to build your own muscles. Recovery does feel like taking one step forward and three backwards most of the time. And relapses are such a peak expression of it, making you navigate through this roller-coaster of emotions with a long stop at the “shame” station.
Wishing to bring hope here for you in this place of darkness: there are more stations after this one, and they worth continuing for. The shame that you feel now is absolutely understandable, although it is also through these moments of relapse that healing occurs. That we learn how valuable it train our self-compassion muscle, and to keep on celebrating the actual steps we’re taking, the energy we’re pouring into our own healing too.
My friend: 6 months is such a HUGE milestone, and in no way your relapse would ever erase any of it. You have proven to yourself during these 6 months that you ARE capable of experiencing life without the addiction. You’ve had a firsthand experience of how that feels, and that speaks so much of your own strength and resilience there. This is real experience, real results, real proof of what you can do.
Please don’t let the shame sink too deep. It is an understandable reaction that deserves to be heard and to have space somehow. But you don’t deserve to let it be a destination. You deserve way much more, and so much better. For your journey keeps unfolding. There’s still beautiful adventures for you ahead. And a version of you that will look back to this day while feeling so proud of how much you’ve accomplished.
You.got.this. Someone out there believes in you. ![:heart: :heart:](https://forum.heartsupport.com/images/emoji/apple/heart.png?v=12)
-Micro, Heartsupport Staff