“As a recovering addict, I don’t dwell on my past, but when I’m living clean just for today, I must remind myself where I came from. For me, “once an addict, always an addict” is simply my reality. No amount of inspiration, willpower, knowledge, spirituality, support or therapy can overcome that. If I could get to the point where I no longer had to consider myself an addict, then why couldn’t I go have a beer with the guys? Why not share a joint being passed around if I’m officially “over” my addiction? Because I’m an addict, that’s why. I know I cannot partake in these things, because for me, there is no such thing as taking a sociable amount of any mind altering substance. Once I start, I will eventually consume it until it has negative consequences on my life and continue even beyond that point. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been clean. When I use, the drug takes over, 100% of the time. No exceptions. Such is the very nature of being an addict.

I’ve been in recovery for 7 years – long enough to see what happens to people who think they are cured of their addiction. At best, it’s never pretty when you see them back in recovery, having taken another beating from their substance of choice. At the other end of the scale, I’ve attended the funerals of addicts who died prematurely because they relapsed, because they thought that after being clean for so long, they were cured. I’d rather label myself an addict and furthermore, make sure it sticks. But I don’t think it is about labeling. What it is really about is acceptance.

Call it labeling or call it acceptance. I prefer acceptance because it has a less negative connotation. Either way, for me it was actually quite liberating. For years, I wondered what was wrong with me, why I just couldn’t keep my life together, why I seemed to have hard luck, bad relationships, always broke, etc. By accepting myself as an addict and keeping myself in recovery as such, I have managed to get rid of many of my former self-labels like “idiot, loser, victim, poor, inadequate, insane, inept, unloveable” and so on. I’m not any of those terrible labels. I can do anything and be anything that anyone else can, as long as I don’t use or drink. I accept that I cannot use or drink, and I’m perfectly fine with it today. It’s a small price to pay for the turnaround it has made in my life. I cannot describe the positive influence it has had on my self-esteem. But it only works when I accept that I am an addict.

At some point in an addicts usage, they cross an imaginary line between sociable use and addiction. I’m yet to meet a person who has managed to go back once they’ve crossed over. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just highly improbable. For an addict walking the path of recovery to consider themselves as healed from their addiction has to be the most common, self-deluding justification for relapse that exists. A more dangerous thought is probably not possible for the recovering addict. As a recovering addict, I need to be vigilant every day in knowing and accepting that I am an addict. Paradoxically, living as a recovering addict offers me more freedom to live than I ever would have thought possible when I was using and thought I had total freedom.”

– Bill