This is a guest post from The Discovering Alcoholic, who writes a top rated recovery blog, www.discoveringalcoholic.com, covering alcoholism, substance abuse, treatment and recovery issues.
Don’t get me wrong, sober some of the time is a whole lot better than drunk and high all the time. It is amazing though how we alcoholics and addicts somehow rationalize and conveniently forget that small substance free gaps in our otherwise besotted lives or switch hitting poisons does not merit the definition of recovery.
I can remember when people first started noticing my dependence on alcohol; it scared (embarrassed) me enough that I decided to do something about it. Xanax. It cured my shakes and anxiety, allowed me to circulate socially without the glass in my hand. Then it was obvious at least to me I didn’t have that big of a problem and started to drink non-alcoholic beer of course only to fit in and not be tempted by an empty hand 
. It wasn’t to long though before I was drinking Vodouls, my special vodka enhanced near beer. My “recovery” had become something exponentially worse as I began to try to find the perfect mix between benzo’s and alcohol so that I could look and act normal
It’s in the playbook, almost all addicts and alcoholics act in this manner. So don’t fool yourself into thinking everything is alright because you went a week sober. Don’t say you’ve been sober for two years discounting the eleven relapses and twenty-two “slips”- you’re only hurting yourself. And never-ever think that by switching to a new improved chemical for abuse that this will somehow make things better, it’s a bad bet.
