{"id":22,"date":"2013-12-18T00:04:51","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T00:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nashvillerecovers.org\/wordpress\/?p=22"},"modified":"2013-12-18T00:04:51","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T00:04:51","slug":"romance-in-the-first-year-of-recovery-a-no-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/2013\/12\/18\/romance-in-the-first-year-of-recovery-a-no-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance in the first year of recovery \u2014 a NO-NO?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first sponsor announced it loudly to every new young guy in recovery who talked to girls after the meetings:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cheese in the trap is always free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone would laugh, and most of the guys would go right on hitting on their recovery sisters. Some old-timers would shake their heads because they know from experience \u2013 it\u2019s often not a laughing matter.<\/p>\n

\"Love\"<\/a>The suggestion we always get in recovery: Don\u2019t date in your first year. In fact, don\u2019t make any serious decisions with relationships or money or career or anything, as we are evolving into new people in that first year. But whatever you do, don\u2019t date.<\/p>\n

Lots of folks relapse over failed romantic relationships in that first year, or any other year, for that matter. And some don\u2019t make it back. Beyond that, dating, even when \u201csuccessful\u201d (whatever that means), can lead to stress and obsessions that we\u2019re just not ready for in early recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first year of recovery, you need to give up that and a lot of things. You need to be very focused on what you\u2019re doing,\u201d my first sponsor, John, a Bellevue landscaper, says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we get in uncomfortable situations being sober and being clean, we start to look into things to get into,\u201d he says. \u201cThen we get into that girl and we don\u2019t think about recovery because we\u2019re into her.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are exceptions to every suggestion, right? I mean, John and I know and love a couple who got into a relationship in the first year of recovery. And we were both in that couple\u2019s wedding a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

On the flip side, there\u2019s Tiffany, a young addict who has three years clean\/sober.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started dating a boy when I had 60 days clean; it worked out perfect for the first year or so and then, when it went downhill, I couldn\u2019t leave him because my whole recovery was based on him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t break up with him until I had two years clean. I didn\u2019t know how to stay clean without him. It was like starting over in my recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"broken<\/a>Yikes.<\/p>\n

What made Tiffany stay in that relationship?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be loved because I couldn\u2019t love myself, and he promised to love me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Real.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people in recovery have trauma in their pasts and they want to find that love,\u201d Tiffany adds. \u201cThey\u2019ll take it wherever they can get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not just a young person\u2019s folly. There\u2019s my good friend Preston, a professional dude in his 50s, who jumped into a relationship in his first year of recovery a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Preston heard all the suggestions about staying out of relationships. So why did he do it anyway?<\/p>\n

\u201cFear of being alone,\u201d he says flatly. \u201cDealing with life without drugs and alcohol manifested itself into a need for a relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

That first relationship in recovery was unhealthy, he said. Why?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy obsessions with it \u2014 and the inability to make the relationship about us and not just about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow. Thanks for your honesty, truly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to fill a black hole,\u201d Preston said, \u201ctrying to fulfill an emotional need that really should\u2019ve been filled with the spiritual and not the physical.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair, again, there are those in their first year of recovery who believe they\u2019re in healthy relationships.<\/p>\n

Megan, an East Nashville professional in her 20s, is one.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s trying to be careful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m a crazy woman all the time, so it\u2019s tricky,\u201d she concedes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel like I\u2019ve learned a lot more being with him. I just have to be careful to keep working on myself,\u201d she says. \u201cI have to make sure I don\u2019t get all my self-esteem from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your thoughts? Your experience? Do please leave a comment below! Thanks for reading this today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first sponsor announced it loudly to every new young guy in recovery who talked to girls after the meetings: \u201cThe cheese in the trap is always free.\u201d Everyone would laugh, and most of the guys would go right on hitting on their recovery sisters. Some old-timers would shake their heads because they know from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}