Colonel Panic wrote:It took me several months to get back on track with my recovery, but to this day I have no explanation for why the funeral of a friend who died of OD had triggered me to start using again.

Probably because you knew it would check you out of real life.

Nerves are pretty raw when people first get off drugs or booze. Not used to feeling stuff.

Definitely.

I also acknowledge that at that time I still identified myself as a junkie, even though I was in treatment and was doing really well. My reaction to the funeral, the guilt about lying to cover up my own and others' drug use and everything else was: "I'm still stuck in this way of life, so fuck it. May as well get wasted. With any luck I'll end up just like [my friend] and be through with this rotten life altogether."

That mode of thinking is so steeped in negativity that making sense of it is sometimes very difficult. Sometimes I see it as a subconscious determination to fail, to avoid having to take responsibility for myself.

But no matter how hard I try to reason it through, I'm never quite satisfied with the answers I get.

dontfeartheringo wrote:One very short and SPECTACULAR drug binge later, even she was strongly encouraging me to climb back up on the wagon, for her own safety and mine. Eventually, I did.

I can so relate to this.