"I Don't Believe in Relapse"

Yesterday, at the first AA meeting I had been to in a very long time, someone said that they don't believe in relapse. Try as I might, I couldn't hear that without responding to it. I rambled, when I spoke: incoherent, messy use of metaphor and allegory, not quite comprehensible.

What I should have said was this:

"It doesn't matter whether you believe in relapse or not, because relapse believes in you.

Saying that you don't believe in alcoholic relapse is like saying that you have hayfever but don't believe in sneezing, or you believe in whooping cough but don't believe in coughing, or you believe in polio but you don't believe in paralysis. It's ridiculous. I have a disease, according to the American Medical Association, and the primary feature of that disease is chronic relapse.

If you mean 'I don't believe in letting myself relapse,' meaning that you'll do everything in your power to prevent such an eventuality, that's great - but it's not your call. If it were within your power to prevent a relapse, you wouldn't be here, sitting in a church basement with a bunch of strangers. You're here precisely because it isn't within your power to prevent a relapse; you're here because you need the help of somebody or something else for that.

I don't remember why I relapsed this last time. I don't remember the chain of events that led me to taking pills, and from the pills to the booze, and from both to the hospital. But then again, I don't need to know the chain of events: it's all rather simple. I did it because I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict; I did it because relapsing is what alcoholics and drug addicts do best. And every time I do it, I get more efficient, I get better at eliminating steps from the first drink or pill to the hospital, jail, or death.

This thing we've got, this peculiar mental twist, is like coming upon something coiled on the ground in the night. It could be a deadly snake, waiting to strike, or it could be just a length of rope. You can't be sure what it is, but you know that if you want to get home, you've got to walk past it.

If you make up your mind that it's a snake and that you'll be killed if you try to get past it, you'll avoid it and you'll never get home. You'll turn around and try to walk the other way. If you make up your mind it's a coil of rope, you'll try to walk past it but not without doubts, fears that you are wrong. So you'll try to get past it, but the fear of dying will mean you can't get around it, you'll get unnerved and give up your plan.

But there is a solution.

You can wait until dawn, and the light."