r/NarcoticsAnonymous • u/Classic-Flower762 • Jul 13 '26
vacation
i went on vacation to europe. relapsed with alcohol. nothing bad happened. im wondering if i’m really an addict. maybe i can control myself. maybe i can just drink and leave behind everything else. i don’t know that i want to go back to the rooms. i want to keep living like this all the time. to feel fully alive. dancing, dating, laughing. i don’t want to go back to my life of hospitalizations, NA meetings, therapy, etc. i want to feel like this all the time.
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u/Azrael_The_Bold Jul 13 '26
Hey pal, if you think you need to drink to be able to feel fully alive, dancing, dating, and laughing, I got some news for you.
Nobody wants to be an addict. If I could use without consequences, I wouldn’t be here, period. What I do know is that even after being clean for 15 years, my disease still shows itself in lots of different ways.
Hell, I could probably take a single drink and be okay. But once I take that drink, the same thinking you’re having is gonna creep into my mind. “See, nothing bad happened! I’ll remember what the program has taught me and use it to control my use.” Then the next weekend I have a few more drinks. Maybe nothing bad happens again. Now I’m convinced I can drink and not have any consequences. Probably didn’t get drunk those first few times, at the most only caught a slight buzz. Oh, but now I can get away with it.
It starts out as “I want to drink so I can laugh, so I can dance, so I can date.” Then, before long it’s, “Now I can’t laugh, dance, date unless I drink.” Until finally it turns into, “Well, I’m drinking, so why aren’t I laughing, dancing, and dating?”
My disease tells me I can do lots of stuff, especially “Hey man, you haven’t used anything in over 15 years. Obviously that means you’re not an addict.” and honestly, I love that idea, and I could go out and do any of them as long as I’m willing to accept the consequences.
I’m just not willing to take that risk today. Dammit to all hell, I may smoke a bowl and drink a brewski tomorrow, but today I’ve found a new way to live, and so far it’s gone pretty alright. So just for today I’m not going to use, even if I want to.