I’m now on day 9 of sobriety since my relapse, but over the past few days, I’ve been feeling really under the weather. At first, I found myself obsessively trying to self-diagnose, searching for an explanation for how I was feeling. I couldn’t stop until I either found what it might be—or more often—what it wasn’t.
A couple of nights ago, I called my sponsor to talk about everything. That conversation made me realize just how powerless I am over these drugs. It’s frighteningly easy for me to relapse. But something clicked during that call, and I thanked my sponsor for it. I finally understood: I use drugs to change the way I feel, think, and act. Once I start, I can’t stop. Drugs make me feel confident, awake, and energized for hours or even days. My sex drive spikes, I’m hyper-focused, and I obsess over sex. Sleep doesn’t matter anymore, and it’s not about romance—just compulsion. It’s a cycle I can’t break. I’ll work from home or come up with excuses to leave work early, all to feed the addiction. But after relapsing, I learned one hard truth: I use drugs to change how I feel. And when I do, I lose myself in that lie, because the person I am on drugs isn’t even me.
Learning to observe my thoughts, feelings, and emotions has become such an important and powerful tool—and it’s really working. For the first time in my life, I can step back and notice how different things change the way I feel. For example, thinking about a situation with my mum makes me feel hot and tense, while planning to get drugs during my relapse filled me with euphoria and joy. But I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want a happy life without drugs. I’m trying my best, taking each day as it comes, and this new awareness is helping me more than I ever thought it could.
Tonight, I went to an LGBT 12-step meeting. It was my second time with this group. I’m finding it hard to warm up to some of the people, especially since a few of them are individuals I’ve crossed paths with outside the room. I struggle to let go of grudges. But we all leave our baggage at the door because we’re there for the same reason: we’re addicts. And this is an illness.
