Relapse

There's always a lot of talk about recovery, but never much on relapse. How do you get back on the wagon?

She fights just like a woman, but she breaks like a little girl.

When I get back on the wagon I say to myself that I have to try using more healthier coping skills. When I have the urge I do everything in my power to not cut. Sometimes I throw the razors out. I tell myself that tomorrow is a new day. You can always start over.

I look at relapse as part of the recovery process. The whole 2 steps forward 1 step back garbage that is so annoying. Relapse is another thing to learn from and use to move forward. I guess it goes with my belief that all of life is a process. I don't believe that we reach a magical point where we are suddenly RECOVERED. Rather it is more soft and beautiful then that, more fluid. Because of the fluidity of life "relapse" is just another rock in the stream that we flow over...of course I haven't been SI free long enough to lay claim to a relapse so this whole post is a bunch of existential hooey.
Carrie

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft