I need to remind myself that relapsing will not help anything. Picking up again may bring some immediate comfort in these disorienting, fraught, and perilous times. But that comfort is illusory, a product of the trickster properties of alcohol and other drugs.

There’s nothing that relapse makes better. Drinking again will not make the world a kinder, fairer, and more just place. It will not make me a better or happier person. It will not help me to live my moral and political commitments to make the world a kinder, fairer, and more just place.

I know that my family, friends, neighbors, and communities need me. My dog needs me. I need me. I risk losing everything I love and value if I start drinking again. Yet, there’s still a voice whisper shouting to me, “Go ahead. Have a drink or two or ten.”

Relapses don’t just happen to us; they are........

© Psychology Today