In the desolation of a field. In the darkness of my toilet. In the quiet, alone moments. In the throes of obscene panic attacks. In the desperation to relieve the lingering effects of Covid. In the destitution of another flashback. I wish I had another way to say it, but I don’t. I relapsed. And I relapsed hard.

I’d lived and breathed recovery for 43 days. It was painful, but I was doing it. Then, in a moment of desperation, I picked up the only thing I knew would ease the terrible flashbacks that have plagued me for over a month. The rawness of them has defeated me. They have battered me and left me hollow. Shell-like.

In those moments, alcohol took me away. It transported me to a whole new place. A comfort. A sense of safety unlike anything I’ve felt these last 43 days. And with it came the instant regret.

The pain is crippling. The pain of relapse. The pain of past abuse. The pain of illness. The pain of life. My mind tells me there are no excuses, only choices. That I chose badly and am already paying. I wish I was better. I wish I knew how. I wish I wasn’t so weak. Those are the words I turn on myself when I am already hurting.

And then, for a while, I could breathe. I felt safe in the arms of the poison that held me so tightly. The flashbacks calmed. My body responded to the alcohol. My suffering that night eased, yet the irony was that another kind was only beginning.

In the sober hours after the night before, self-judgement sat in overwhelming abundance. Pain rose, and regrets filled my mind. I’m no good. I keep messing up. The drinking felt so painful because I had lived and breathed recovery. I felt as though I had thrown all that time away.

And then I wanted another drink. To quiet the regret. To take away the anxiety. The thing I regretted became the thing I wanted to reach for to escape that regret. I bought a lager, and I began drinking again. That frightens me, because I know how difficult stopping becomes once I start.

It is hard to admit this. It is harder still to ask for help when needing someone makes me feel like a burden. I don’t find reaching out simple. Sometimes it feels impossible, even when I know I am struggling.

Recovery isn’t always linear. I have to understand that, even when I find it difficult to offer myself any understanding at all. Those 43 days happened. I lived them. I struggled through them. I am trying to understand that drinking again does not make them meaningless.

I’m writing this because I want people to understand, or at least see why. To see the flashbacks, the illness, the panic and the desperate search for respite that came before the drink. Explaining that pain does not remove the consequences. But it matters.

I don’t have a tidy ending. I feel confused and lost at the moment. I still want recovery. I still want relief. And I need to find a way for those two things to exist together.