One of the biggest misconceptions for anyone who is suffering from an addiction of any sort is that life will always be smooth sailing if they could just find permanent sobriety from their disease. What they don’t know is that although life, minus the active addiction, will become more manageable, there still will be many ups and downs. Unfortunately, there is this period of time that occurs somewhere between their first day of sobriety and their first major difficulty, that makes this initial misconception seem even more believable and it’s commonly referred to in the 12 Step community as the “pink clouds”.
I’ve never seen anyone come to their first recovery meeting from any addiction being happy, joyous, and free. More often than not, that person is instead broken and confused. But once the detox phase passes and they haven’t engaged in their addiction actively for a series of days or weeks, the person begins to experience acceptance of their addiction. They become exited about their recovery and see how great their life feels during that period, as compared to how it was only a short time ago. Some begin to feel invincible and think they have grasped what it takes to maintain quality recovery. Through all their various addiction treatment centers, self-help groups, therapists, and 12 Step meetings they’ve attended, they start to feel a reprieve from the oppression that their addictions once put them in. Quick moments of joy and a false sense of over confidence usually results, which last for different lengths of time for each person. But feelings and emotions come and go in life, and for each of these people who are experiencing those “pink cloud” days, one will arrive when it all seems to come crashing down.
Sometimes that crash happens when a person leaves their addiction treatment programs after weeks and weeks of being secluded in the security blanket from them. They emerge into the world and see the mess all over again that they left behind. Or for those like myself who never went into any type of addiction treatment programs, and instead just attended recovery meetings, the day comes where all the dominos seem to fall over and one thing after another appears to go wrong. In both cases, it’s on that day where the risk for relapse becomes greater as the person starts to doubt the quality of their recovery. This is when all those pink clouds quickly depart and instead are replaced by dark and ominous ones. Things such as anxiety attacks and spirals into depression, along with thoughts reappearing of wanting to act out again in their addiction, become commonplace. For the lucky ones who decide to push through these feelings and keep a determined course to doing what’s necessary to stay sober from their addiction, moments of those “pink clouds” will reappear intermittently for the rest of their lives. For those that don’t, the result is usually, and quite sadly, a serious relapse.
It took me 16 years of sobriety from alcohol and drugs and a few teachings from Buddhism, to fully grasp the absolute truth behind this “pink cloud” phenomena. The bottom line is that nothing ever remains the same in this world. Life is constantly shifting. And positive feelings will come and go as much as the negative ones. By removing myself out of the repetitive cycle of all addictions, I have been able to see that many “pink clouds” come and go just like the ones we all see in the sky everyday. The more committed I keep myself to God, to my spirituality, and to a life free from all addictions, the easier it has been to be like a tree standing firm in the ground as the positive and negative winds blow past me day after day after day. The less I’ve committed myself over the years to any of those things, the weaker my root structure becomes and the more those negative winds have ripped my roots out of the ground and carried me with them for great lengths of time.
It’s really this simple. Life will always be filled with many ups and downs. In active addiction, each of them can become severely high and low for a person. But in recovery, they can become much more manageable. “Pink clouds” will be present on and off throughout one’s entire lifetime of sobriety, as much as other types of clouds. Appreciate and be grateful to God for those moments of serenity that come during those “pink cloud” days and do whatever is necessary to strengthen your own spiritual tree’s root system in that time as well. For you’ll surely need them when those negative winds come blow those “pink clouds” away, just as much as they’ll hold you strong to get to the next time they return…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson