Endangered Species

Endangered Species

Last week I had a temporary cap put on a tooth and the dentist was going back and forth about wether I should have a root canal or not.  When I got in my car to drive home from work last night, the temporary cap fell out.  It hurt a lot but I thought it would subside in a few minutes...  I lasted ten minutes before I was on the phone to the dentist begging to come in.  It is shockingly painful to have an exposed nerve.  They can't take me till 2 pm today and I cannot adequately explain how my mouth feels right now and how I long for 2 o'clock.  But I am grateful this morning because Though I woke up in pain I quickly realized that I am actually more afraid that the dentist will accidentally give me something for the pain that, being in recovery, will put my sobriety at risk.
I have mentioned before that the rates of relapse for addicts of all sorts are egregiously high and not even close to being accurate.  Some addicts have even more dismal rates, heroin addicts and meth addicts among them.
Since I left Caron Foundation in March I know of one person who has relapsed and one who has died.  I don't know more because I have not been in touch with many people from the relapse unit.  The one relapse I know of is a man who is a father and a husband.  He has been struggling with addiction of multiple kinds for literally years.  He called a friend I saw from a Caron gratitude breakfast and told her he was desperate and then stopped answering her texts and calls.  I hope he is well and finds peace soon.  The man who died was a gentle soul, and the loss of his life haunts me.  He was in his fifties and so hopeful about his future and his life.  He was found dead in his house.  I can't tell you how sad I am that this lovely person died so tragically and so alone.
Since leaving the recovery house I was staying in until June there have been so many relapses and frightening brushes with disaster that I am almost unable to process the facts.  The house has a nine woman capacity and I know of seven relapses of women who stayed there.  Now there was overlap as people came and went on their own recovery schedules but that is pretty high.
Two women moved into an apartment together and "went out" together as they say in twelve step groups.  Their collective relapse ruined their friendship and while one is doing relatively well right now, the other is back in rehab.  Three of the women relapsed in the hose itself.  One brought vodka in a water bottle and proceeded to get drunk.  She is actually doing quite well now and did not need to return to rehab.  The other is a good friend of mine who relapsed on huffing which is such a dangerous and scary substance.  She is also thankfully doing quite well and has moved out on her own.  One left to move to another city and start her life anew only to succumb to alcohol within a few weeks.  She nearly died but managed to get herself to a detox center before going back to rehab.  She had just celebrated a year of sobriety when this happened and her family is at their wits end with her as she had been in institutions for that entire year.  Another ran away from the recovery house and fell of the face of the earth for several days before surfacing in a hotel room.  She did not remember how she had gotten there nor with whom.  She awoke to find all her possessions gone and called for help.  She also went back to rehab.  She is in an apartment now but I suspect she is using again based on information I got from a mutual friend.  The last relapsed on cold medication and also went back to rehab.  She was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder while there. She told me the other day that she woke up not too long ago and realized that her mind had cleared after her new medication had had a chance to kick in.  She said she thought to herself, that she finally felt normal.
The fact that I am more afraid of relapse than I am of this near unbearable pain says so much to me this morning.  Though I am greatly uncomfortable this morning, I would rather remove all my teeth than lose my mind again.  I don't want to be a part of the grim statistics surrounding relapse.  I want to be part of the inspiring statistics that I hope will grow in number as we find a way out of the abyss of addiction.
I DO NOT want to trip the neurotransmitters in my chaotic mind and go back to the base of the mountain I have been climbing.  So now I am going to do some research on laughing gas and the like so I can go in armed with knowledge this afternoon.