Relationship : Addiction can sometimes feel like a stranglehold. It suffocates you and distances you from everything else in the world. You lose track of who you were and do not really understand the person you have become. There are moments when you think back on your past and believe you can get better. Sometimes you try and falter. Relapse sends you in a spiral—sometimes worse off than you were before. Getting better means you need to be mentally fortified and able to fight back.
Turning the Corner
It may not be right away, but there comes a time again when you want to get sober. Drinking or using drugs has made you feel low for too long. You start off strong. You regularly attend 12-Step meetings. You talked with your primary care physician and are now seeing a specialist. You even took their suggestion to admit yourself to an inpatient or outpatient program. You are officially in early recovery—still experiencing highs and lows while adjusting to your new life. Nevertheless, you start gaining a renewed perspective and want to retain it. Life seems like it is finally worth living.
Keeping up day-to-day with sobriety is a struggle. You experience cravings and withdrawal symptoms. You are easily triggered by the temptation of drinking or using. Thoughts of past behaviors try wiggling their way into your mind. Thankfully, you keep them at bay with the strategies you’ve learned and the resources you’ve acquired from the programs you’ve participated in. Then one day, you are caught off guard and taken by surprise. Something unexpected has happened. During your time in recovery, you never thought it possible due to the toxic nature of addiction, but you’ve met someone new. You begin a romantic relationship, and then it all goes wrong. You relapse.
Getting to Know Yourself in Early Recovery
It is not unheard of for new romantic relationships to work during the early recovery period of a person’s struggle with addiction; however, the person recovering will run the risk of relapsing if they aren’t focused on their program. New romantic relationships can be a hindrance to early recovery success due to their performative nature.
A person who is in early recovery and finds himself committing to a new romantic relationship will often have reservations when sharing information about their addiction. There are two kinds of pressure put on the person recovering in this case. One type of pressure is feeling obligated to come clean about addiction. Openness and honesty fuels a healthy relationship. The other side of the coin brings about hypothetical consequences following coming clean regarding your addiction. This leads you to fail, holding away a secret about your past, potentially influencing relapse in the future. Taking this route signals that you have yet to come to accept addiction as a disease fully.
Early recovery is a time when you are rediscovering yourself. Addiction impeded your happiness and every other emotion you could feel by having drowned it out with alcohol or drug use. A new romantic relationship has the potential to act in a similar role, just as how you used drugs or alcohol to cope with your emotions. Your goal is to be capable of understanding and managing your emotions on your own. Turning to an external source, whether that’s a new romantic relationship or a substance, is detrimental to being a fully functioning human being.
Romantic Turbulence
Every long-lasting romantic relationship comes with a honeymoon period. Everything you do together is fun and adventurous. Through rose-tinted glasses, you see no issues with the other person. Unfortunately, the honeymoon period wears off eventually. You are still in the midst of the trial period of your relationship, however. You finally begin to see flaws and attributes about your partner that you just do not like, and vice-versa. Each of you becomes more vocal about these opinions over time, causing relationship turbulence.
What was once a factor in you remaining sober has become a stressor and factor in possible relapse. Since starting recovery, you were supposed to learn other coping methods for stress; however, you spent all this time relying on the other person to ease your cravings, withdrawal symptoms, and triggers. Without the ability to depend on them, you lose it. You face dire consequences—your sobriety is about to be lost. Drugs or alcohol might gain a stranglehold on you once again.
As a relationship deteriorates due to drug and alcohol abuse, anger and violence often emerge as concerns. Frustrations are high—even more so if someone is using a substance known to cause aggression. These situations can become dangerous relatively quickly. If you live with an addict, you’re at greater risk of victimization. You may experience increased frustration that leads you to express anger or act out violently against your partner.
It’s essential that anyone experiencing domestic violence in their relationship contacts a resource like the national domestic violence hotline at (800) 799-SAFE or visit thehotline.org.
Putting Your Partner in Difficult Situations
During early recovery, cravings, triggers, and withdrawal symptoms affect you. If your partner is unaware of your recovery, you put yourself at risk of relapsing. Without being aware of your position, it is not uncommon for a partner to accidentally put you in difficult situations that lead to relapse—for example, bringing you with them to a bar to enjoy a night out.
We must also consider how a relationship that started before your recovery process and has continued through your recovery process will affect your future sobriety. The ideal relationship is a supportive one; however, not every relationship is supportive. Take into account relationships that are not supportive of your recovery process.
Why would a partner be unsupportive of your recovery? A partner might be unsupportive because they have not yet come to terms with it; they may struggle with their own alcohol or drug addiction or feel hurt by you. There are even relationships where a partner actively tries to encourage your relapse.
Relationships, Codependency, and Recovery
Codependency in relationships is when partners are emotionally dependent on the other person in all facets of life instead of being the sole processor of their personal feelings. This differs from a healthy type of dependency for the reason that codependency never ceases. A healthy kind of dependency in relationships might be seen as comforting your partner in times of stress or grief. An example of codependency is when one partner puts the needs of their other partner, say who struggles with alcohol addiction, before their own needs.
Codependency exists when a person has a poor relationship with themself. It comes with a feeling of requiring validation or affection from others to feel comfortable with yourself. A relationship that functions off codependency, including associations where one person is going through recovery, promotes unhealthy expectations from both partners.
Although not all relationships function as codependent ones, those that do can result from needing to adapt to the behavior of one partner struggling with addiction.
Dating Others Who Are in Recovery
Starting a relationship with another person who is in recovery can be tumultuous. A relationship between two people in recovery can negatively impact your success in staying sober and even directly impact relapse.
One way dating another person in recovery can directly cause feelings that lead to relapse includes misunderstanding where the other person is in recovery. One partner may be new to recovery and still experiencing many cravings, triggers, or withdrawal symptoms. The other partner may experience greater comfort with these things. When partners are on different recovery spectrum points, the partner with more experience with recovery may inadvertently expose the other partner to triggers.
Another reason you may not want to date another person in recovery is because of the potential for the emotional fallout that will ensue following a break-up. Like the common notion that dating coworkers is a bad idea because of working in the same place even after a break-up, you will find it challenging and near impossible to avoid past partners who also need help with their recovery after a break-up.
Beware of Thirteenth Steppers
To push the point further, regarding dating others in recovery, beware of “thirteenth steppers.” The infamous thirteenth stepping phenomenon is when an experienced member of a 12-Steps group begins a sexual relationship with a newcomer. This type of relationship is heavily looked down upon in the larger 12-Step community because it exploits the newcomers’ feelings of vulnerability.
Newcomers are yet to fully understand the process of the 12-Step program or communities for getting help, and thirteenth stepping effectively taints and actively damages the experience they receive. It is often considered malicious because thirteenth steppers know that newcomers cannot fully make good, healthy decisions for themselves. Instead, newcomers rely on active, responsible support systems, like family, friends, and professionals who have the newcomer’s best interest at heart.
Suppose a newcomer is taken advantage of by a thirteenth stepper, and the relationship ends. In that case, there is a greater chance that the newcomer may go down the path to relapse and not attend 12-Step meetings in the future. Essentially, it is highly recommended that these types of situations be avoided.
Romance Is Possible in Recovery
As much as we have stated that relationships, dating, and romance contribute to negative feelings and thoughts of relapse, they can also encourage a positive outlook for the person struggling with addiction. Whether good or bad, how a relationship affects your recovery is due to its nature. Is it a healthy or unhealthy relationship?
If you struggle with addiction and find yourself needing help, a healthy relationship makes feeling heard possible. Your partner is a person who is there to listen to your emotions about how you are processing recovery. They are somebody to rely upon.
Not every relationship will be a lifelong partnership. Some are meant to be temporary. You and your partner may drift apart, or you may no longer feel in love with them. It will be okay. Understand the role romantic relationships play in your life. Ask yourself what you want out of a relationship and if your current relationship meets your needs.
Find your place in the world by first getting help with your addiction. Feelings of hopelessness and being lost are manageable once you start on your recovery journey. Getting sober can feel like it is impossible. Withdrawal symptoms and cravings impact you with waves of emotions containing many highs and lows, like a roller coaster. It gets easier, but first, you need a proper support system to ensure that.
We at Real Recovery Sober Living will support you. We offer a safe and stable recovery community and environment for men who are seriously committed to achieving long-term sobriety. We believe relapse can be avoided with the right tools, resources, and people in your life. Focus on yourself in this dire time of need. A change of pace is in order — a change of lifestyle is needed. Sobriety breathes strength into you. For more information regarding our recovery process, contact us at (727) 290-9156.
