and it rears it's ugly head. . .

It's a strange thing addiction, the way it gets into your brain, the way it permeates your thinking and affects everything around you. You can get past it, put it to bed so to speak and suddenly it rears it's ugly head at the least opportune time. Sometimes what triggers you is something completely different from something else. That same thing might not bother you two years down the road, but then something else will. Suddenly those little pills, that drink, those images on the screen will beckon you without warning. You will feel the icy tips of temptation wrap around your heart and beckon you to travel down a road you might not come back from, a road your family might not come back from. What is frightening, really terrifying actually is that part of your mind that says that's okay. It's one thing to be okay with your destruction but there is a part of you that is willing in that moment to sacrifice your family as well. The rational side will jump in immediately and start to go through all the possible consequences, the things you could lose, the people you would hurt, but all you can do is think---yes but for a moment this pain that I am feeling right now will stop. Even if it's just five minutes, this feeling of pain, this failure, this shame will be silenced and that can be irresistible. You think to yourself I can resist tomorrow. You think to yourself I won't slip too far this time, I can step out anytime at all, it won't be as bad as last time because I'm stronger now. My family will forgive me again. These are the lies us addicts tell ourselves, that we can be different, we can overcome, we can control it. The truth is we can't, we never will be able too. We can't even predict or control when the craving hits, and most times, we need help to turn away from it. I am three years three months sober, and today I almost slipped into that world again. The temptation came fast and hard over something silly and stupid, but it came and when it hit I had to do hard battle. Right this minute I am good, but falling into that world is always a breath away, when we think we have won, that's when really we have already slipped up.