May

6

One month, 27 days, 15 hours

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Several of my rehab comrades have relapsed since we were in residential. Statistically speaking, this wasn’t just likely, it was practically inevitable. For whatever reason, some people don’t make it 24 hours. Sometimes it seems to happen without warning: one minute someone’s fine, the next minute the drink (or whatever) is in their hand.

During the final weekend of inpatient, we got a lot of education about relapsing. What we were taught is that it never actually does happen out of the blue. There’s a process that starts with a “stuck point” — basically anything that causes unhappy feelings or stress — which can eventually lead to the moment when the addict returns to their substance of choice.

That was sort of an intimidating thing to contemplate. Just don’t experience anxiety, anger, hunger, irritability, sadness, guilt, shame, doubt, fear, grief, complacency, exhaustion, jealousy, worry, self pity, indifference, discouragement, boredom, frustration, or moodiness, guys! Okay, good luck out there!

Of course, the point of the lesson wasn’t to tell us that we were supposed to maintain sobriety by magically avoiding negative feelings for the rest of our lives. It was to teach us to take action when we feel off-kilter. Ask for help, call a sponsor, go to a meeting, pray to a higher power, etc.

Still, I wonder if being stuck is just … an imperfect way we cope sometimes. I know that there were a few weeks when I identified with the line from Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions: “Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore.”

Aren’t there times when we simply have to feel what we feel, because there’s no shortcut to feeling better? Or is that what I tell myself, because I know I didn’t do what I was supposed to do?

Maybe it’s only luck that I haven’t backslid. I want to believe otherwise, though. I want to believe that somewhere in my all second-guessing and foot-dragging and pigheadedness, I’m doing something right.

Apr

30

The gummy is dark and full of terrors

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I used to eye-roll the adult gummy vitamin options. I mean, honestly. Do you want a baby aspirin while you’re at it? Maybe a diaper because the toilet has a loud scary flush? Come on, being a grownup means you occasionally have to do unpleasant things like sign advance health care directives, pollute what would otherwise be a perfectly edible smoothie with a handful of kale, and choke down pills the size of an OB tampon.

Then I tried one of the kids’ vitamins and I was like, heyyyyy, these are pretty good. I probably wouldn’t shake the entire bottle into my mouth and slobber-gnaw my way through it like I would with a bag of Haribo Gold-Bears, but they were sugary and tart and I could imagine this improved user experience affecting my ability to actually commit to a daily vitamin regimen. I pictured my lush and shining hair, enriched by organic compounds. My skin: glowing, dewy. My energy levels: through the roof! Never mind the near-zero evidence regarding nutritional benefit, the newly supplemented me was going to be amazing.

Well, I’m here to tell you that adult gummy vitamins — at least the brand I bought — aren’t anything like the children’s variety. The chewiness factor is completely different, mealy and sort of crumbly as compared to that springy gelatin texture. They’re matte, roundish-squarish, a tragic assortment of brownish-reds and dull yellows that look exactly like cat treats. Then there’s the taste … my god, the taste. You may as well just suck on a “max potency” multi-mineral pill, the giant uncoated flecked kind that knocks you over the instant you unscrew the lid.

Also, the serving size is THREE. One of these unholy globs is bad enough, the second verifies what you learned with the first, and the third forces you to review every questionable life-path you ever took that led you to this specific moment in time.

The sensible thing to do would be to jettison my bottle of Bad Decision Nuggets into the nearest landfill, but reluctant to waste the purchase, I doggedly chew them every morning. As my throat convulses and my eyes water, I reassure myself that anything this awful must be good for me. I’m sure I’ll feel the superhuman effects any day now.

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