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Can We Please Stop Gatekeeping Others’ Sobriety?
No, you’re not doing anyone a favor.
Let’s talk about relapses for a second.
What was going through your head when you saw a post on Instagram about someone relapsing that you needed to talk down to them?
There was a post recently from someone that I follow on Instagram where she mentioned that she had been sober for months. This was indeed after a relapse that had happened a month or two ago but they had chosen to not see it as a full stop, starting the counter at 0 again but as a hiccup in their full time of sobriety. Still present and in their posts and minds but not something that kept them from moving forward with sobriety.
And I loved it. When you start over, that zero looms over you and feels like you’ll never be successful in getting sober, especially when you had a long streak going before. It was refreshing to see that someone chose to keep their sobriety counter going while also moving forward with the knowledge and transparency to their followers that they did indeed have a relapse.
It’s controversial, I know but in the end is she winning something that is keeping others from achieving sobriety in their own way? Was she holding on to “sobriety points” that would give her something that others might not get since they chose to restart completely…
