Resentment: The Silent Relapse

I used to think relapse only happened when someone picked up a drink again.
But I’ve learned there’s a kind of relapse that happens long before that.

The kind that starts in silence.
In the thoughts you don’t say out loud.
In the stories you replay over and over about what someone did to you.
In the anger you rehearse until it becomes the only language you speak inside your own head.

I didn’t need a bottle in my hand to be back in the same place I used to live.
All I needed was resentment.

It gave me something to hold onto
when I didn’t want to feel how hurt I really was.
It gave me a reason to shut people out
so I didn’t have to risk being disappointed again.

It felt like protection.
But it was just another way of abandoning myself.

Resentment didn’t destroy anyone else’s life.
It just kept destroying mine from the inside.

I thought sobriety meant I stopped drinking.
But real sobriety meant I had to stop nursing the pain I wasn’t willing to feel.

Reflection:
What wound are you still feeding because it feels safer than letting it heal?

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