I don’t know the best way to word this… but let’s try. I had a support team and while they did their best to help me stay sober over the years, I was always miserable. I wanted to make them proud and get like I was doing this all for them. I relapsed after some conflict which created more conflict and burning of bridges. But ever since being separated from them, I feel so much better. I feel happy and like I’m living for myself again. Granted I am drinking again, but rarely do I ever have more than 1 drink. I never think about alcohol during the day anymore, I don’t get drunk and I don’t drink daily. That’s not the point as who knows what’ll happen in the future, but my question is, is it possible that my addiction or cycle was perpetuated/made worse by feeling like I was some broken soul around them? They didn’t make me feel that way on purpose… they were just there for support and love. But it’s like I was unintentionally using them as a crutch and it kept me in this weird cycle of relapse and sobriety.
It’s hard to make an educated statement on this without better understanding the relationship dynamics and history there. Though I’m happy to hear you’ve gotten yourself out of what sounds like a negative situation. It also could have been that you weren’t truly ready to get sober and their presence/support made you feel anxious and guilty? As important as a support network is, at the end of the day you have to get sober for you. You have to want it for yourself.
I think that’s a pretty powerful insight, especially noting it was surely not intentional on their part.
What you say speaks to the reminder that we have to want it for ourselves. Whenever I tried to get better for someone else it didn’t stick.
Somehow there was something selfish in trying to please others rather than quietly doing the right thing just because it was right. It created a lot of expectations that weren’t realistic and led me back to drinking.
And as we improve because we realize it is right, that we feel better and our motivation changes. There’s a more robust sense of peace then, within myself and in the relationships of those around me. Just trust.
A lot of the time I didn’t want to be sober but did it because I knew I needed to because I was a complete wreck. I do know that some of the time I did it for them because I wanted them to be proud of me. Some of the time I really did want to be sober. I also felt like when I was there and around them, that they saw me as “the addict” and I maybe subconsciously played that roll and stayed in this cycle of “I’m broken”, sober and using. When I would leave them, I wasn’t around anyone who I felt saw me that way and so I didn’t think of myself that way and therefore didn’t feel like this fragile little being.
Idk. The brain is a weird f-er haha!
