#9 She Took Off Her Glasses and Cried

What one woman’s relapse reminded me about shame, courage, and the hard road of recovery.

“It just all got to be too much… and I broke.”

She said this not even two hours ago with tears streaming down her face.

She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with a tissue over and over again. Her angst echoed throughout all nine squares on the Zoom screen.

After three years of sobriety, she drank.

Not because she wanted to. Not because she planned to. But because the pain of living in the moment overpowered her resolve to stay sober.

Pain is why someone drinks. You drink to forget. You drink to lighten up. You drink to be the person you wish you were, even if for a little bit.

“The shame is the worst part,” she told our weekly women’s recovery meeting. “And not being able to forgive myself.”

As someone who has relapsed twice, the shame is the worst part. It’s debilitating. It’s crushing. You can’t breathe. You can’t look anyone in the eye, much less yourself in the mirror. You can’t not cry.

You think about everyone who has bent over backwards to help and how much you’re letting them down. Guilt swells.

And no matter how your body is feeling, regardless of how many more drinks pass your lips, reprieve will never come. Instead, you sink even lower.

The floor becomes the ceiling.

Breathing becomes harder.

Shame pulls you down

down

down.

The social worker who leads the group jumped in. “You’re not a bad person,” she said. “Everything you’ve learned isn’t lost. You just need to pick yourself up and begin again.”

Begin again. But how? She is wading through quicksand, trying desperately to get through the day without another drink.

This isn’t a moral failing. This is a disease. And it’s got its fangs in more people than you realize.

She was brave to come to group. It took an enormous amount of courage to tell the truth. I was in awe of her strength and resolve to get on the other side of this. And she will get to the other side.

I’m also reminded of all that happened to me. But that’s a story for another day.