Relationships in recovery...

This topic is a complex one. The theme in AA is to not make any major decisions in ones first year of recovery, like get into a relationship. Any addictions study program that is worth a damn, will require a minimum of two years of abstinence from alcohol and drugs prior to enrollment. Provided one is admittedly chemically dependent. This is based on the fact that a brain that has been physically changed due to alcoholism/addiction, takes up to two years until cognition is fully restored. It's as good as it will get. Again the AA community and institutes of addiction studies clash in ideas. I have never seen it written in any AA approved literature that says don't get into a relationship during the first year of recovery. The 12 Steps are the suggested program of recovery, so I am going to assume that one reaches recovery upon completion of these steps. With the resulting spiritual awakening. Ongoing maintenance meetings along with the maintenance steps are usually required to maintain sobriety. What causes this dilemma in early recovery is, who says when someone is falling in love or not? Is it true that a person who has less than a year clean and sober cannot fall in love? I have heard it said in AA meetings that "feelings are not facts." So what are they? I have feelings all the time...Are not my feelings factual? Now, looking at how long it takes to recover from alcoholism/addiction, these feelings in early recovery may indeed may not be based on fact, due to deficits in cognition. So as I look at the program of recovery that AA offers, it all begins to make sense. A newcomer in AA, I would venture a guess, will take one to two years to complete the 12 Steps. Completing that time element, completing the 12 Steps, then will produce rational thought processes. Only upon completing these things will we be able to begin to trust our feelings as being most factual. That is my estimate of all of this.

The danger of relationships in early recovery is the obvious distraction from the 12 Steps. I would go as far to say that some of these relationships would be like switching addictions, and the result is an entanglement of irrational thought.Thoughts produce feelings.

This is the dilemma that the single recovering person faces, when psychology tells us that we all cry for love from our very core. I can see that to recover is to suffer. There must be a wonderful payoff when the steps are done...

The song below, Just Like A Pill, by PINK, describes an early recovery relationship to me.