"Why do people have so much trouble staying in recovery, they ask?
Their theories of why are often unflattering at best and cruel at the worst. People get that recovery isn’t easy, but they drastically underestimate how hard it is.
Recovery is progress is rationed out as single sips of water to someone who is desperately thirsty. It’s a slow drip and impatience won’t get your thirst quenched. Waiting isn’t just hard. It is desperate. Time stretches out into eternity. You feel like you could die before your thirst is quenched.
That’s why it is so tempting to wander off into the desert and drink from an alkali hole (resort to maladaptive coping skills). You want to drink your fill now, but if you try to do so it will only make you sick. And sometimes you don’t care if it is good and bad for you as long as it relieves the feeling that feels like it is trying to kill you."