Almost Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong

My ex-husband asked me how when we suffer a relapse we are welcomed back into AA with open arms. I turned the question around on him and asked, why wouldn’t I go back to a place that would welcome me back even if I did falter? God knows my family wouldn’t do that. In most cases all they feel for me is anger. In the rooms I’m welcomed back because I’m just as broken as the person sitting next to me.

We are all just one drink or drug away from relapse and ultimately death. That’s what this disease wants to do, it wants to kill me. It wants to scream in my ear all of the bad things I’ve done to make me so covered in guilt and shame that I pour myself into a bottle and die.

A normal person doesn’t think this way. A normal person doesn’t drink this way. And a normal person can not understand the power of surrender in AA. Admitting to this surrender is the only way I can win.