Barganing for my life

"i will go to rehab and enter recovery if..."


how many times have we said this? since coming into recovery how many times have we heard others use this excuse? "ifs" are dangerous, manipulative and never work. when you use an "if" you are already placing conditions on your recovery before you even begin. "if" is an excuse, a safety blanket, a bargaining chip many of us used. does it work? almost never and if you do have success using an "if" then when and where is the next "if" coming from? we will get used to placing conditions on our recovery if we are allowed to do so the very first time we come in. there are too many friends and family members, loved ones, out there that are so desperate for some kind of releif for heir addicted that they are willing to accept these conditions we present and they shouldnt. if you have even seen any of the intervention type shows on cable you see these "ifs" being used all the time. sure they show that many of these addicts have success but what they dont show is the failures these same addicts eventually have because their conditions arent being met.

what happens? when we place any condition on our recovery we have already weakened it. what happens if that condition doesnt happen like we want? many of us say "fuck it" and go right back out. we feel either betrayed or shorted and for us thats a good enough reason to give up on recovery. but say our first condition is met. say the wifey stays like we demanded when we entered rehab. we will almost assuredly start making more demands and use our recovery as a weapon to get what we want. "if you dont do 'x' ill relapse..." WE DO THIS. what i tell the concerned people is this... let them relapse. they would have eventually anyway. you cant allow us to use our recovery as a bargaining chip or as a weapon to get what we want. we will run with that shit. then we are doing no work to maintain our recovery because we keep getting what we want anyway. relapse is inevitable anyway. allow us any kind of control and we do more damage before that relapse happens...

when you give us addicts the power to make conditions and bargain with our recovery then you have given up on that addict. sure many of the concerned people want us clean and in their lives but they cant do this with conditions. you cant allow us addicts to have that kind of power and control. anything we place before our recovery we will eventually lose anyway."ifs" are no good, even at the beginning of our journey. if we are allowed to get away wth them then we will keep using them as an excuse and a weapon to get what we want when all along we should be getting what we need instead.







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