Your timeline is not mine.

I often wonder, as an alcoholic or addict, whether we exist along a different timeline from the average person. I don't mean necessarily a truly different timeline, but rather one that only we can see, and that doesn't make much sense to someone who doesn't suffer from our disorders.

Take, for example, the fact that I last posted here in August of this year. Yet it feels like yesterday, and even now, posting seems incredibly unimportant. Looking back, I wonder where the time went and why I didn't find the time to write.

But in that time, I've done something pretty incredible.

I've rediscovered passion and motivation for things I thought were lost to me for good. I've found joy in simple things, like practicing my cello or doing chores around the house. I'm currently planning to build a shed for my mom, and the project is making both of us happy. I'm also, very tentatively, beginning to reach out to other members of my family and my circle of friends, letting them know that I'm still here, still keeping things positive, and moving forward in a direction I find fulfilling.

These may seem like small things to someone looking in from the outside.

To me, they're enormous.

As someone who suffers from addictive disorders, I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to accomplish things, to meet goals, and to hit milestones I've outlined for myself. I find this is a common theme among people in the early stages of recovery.

And in this day and age, it seems we've all developed a rather profound lack of patience. Perhaps it's because we've surrounded ourselves with digital interfaces that give us things to consume almost instantaneously. Perhaps our perception of what constitutes "normal" has shifted. Whatever the reason, I think many of us who struggle with addiction feel an overwhelming need to be recovered, to be better, and to do it quickly.

Or, more importantly, to do it on somebody else's timeline.

For me, the most important person in my life is my mother.

She is the only person on this planet who ever followed me, in a caring way, as I descended into a maelstrom of madness. One by one, everyone I cared about, or who cared about me, dropped off the ride.

The only rider who kept going was my mom.

Yet now, as I recover, I see the impatience in her eyes. I feel it when I'm around her.

There are days when I simply cannot get off the couch, yet she wants me up and moving.

On those days, I want to SCREAM at her:

"I'm doing everything I can just to sit here and not run out and buy a bottle or a bag!"

And when I voice that frustration, she does seem to retreat a little. But I can tell she wants me moving forward much faster than I can.

I think this is a pretty normal relationship problem, whether the person struggling with addiction is your parent, your child, your partner, or someone else you love.

And I think I understand why it happens.

We've told you this before, haven't we?

"I'm stopping this time. I'm not going to pick up again."

And then we do.

Time, and time, and time again.

So when we actually begin making progress, there is a distinct lack of trust that starts to rear its head.

This can manifest in many ways, but I think one of the most common is that we, as addicts, perceive a desire from our loved ones to see tangible proof that we're progressing, even when that progress isn't readily apparent.

And that creates tremendous tension, because we have very different pictures in our heads of what progress even means.

To someone watching from the outside, a day spent sitting on the couch might look like another wasted day.

To someone fighting an addiction, that same day might represent an extraordinary victory.

Two people. The same day. Two entirely different experiences of time.

When I originally started this website, Utopidy, I thought a good portion of my audience would be alcoholics and addicts. But as I go through these changes myself, I'm realizing I don't have much desire or motivation to speak directly to other people who suffer from my disorder.

There are several reasons for this, but at the top of the list is simply that I don't care enough.

It isn't that I don't care. I do.

But I care much more about the people who are desperately trying to get someone they love, someone suffering from addiction, to get better.

I don't feel a great deal of sympathy for people who are, or have been, in my boat. This likely stems from the fact that I had to figure out for myself how to escape an incredibly difficult situation, and I don't feel particularly inclined to help someone else do the same.

That's my own ego and narcissism talking.

But it's more than that.

Addiction is an incredibly individual disorder. What works for me may or may not work for you. What worked for my brother's father-in-law will almost certainly not work for me.

The reasons behind addiction are extraordinarily complex and diverse. I'm sharp enough to recognize this, and I know there is very, very little I can do to convince an addict to seek help, much less actually get better.

Not to mention, there's no shortage of people online and on social media sharing their experiences and offering support. I genuinely love what they're doing, and I hope their efforts succeed in helping even ONE addict get better.

If they do, their entire effort will have been worth more than any price we could put on it.

But what interests me far more is how loved ones perceive us, and how we can interact with them in a positive way as we try to figure all of this out.

Because while addiction is intensely individual, I believe the reactions of the people who love us have much more in common.

Fear. Frustration. Anger. Exhaustion. Hope.

And perhaps most painfully, the inability to know whether this time will actually be different.

I believe I can help those people better understand what they're experiencing, whether their loved one is just beginning to develop an addiction, is in the throes of full-blown addiction, or is struggling through early recovery.

When I look at the resources available to those people, I find Al-Anon.

And not much more than that.

Which, in some ways, makes sense. Even though loved ones can suffer nearly as much as, or sometimes more than, the addicted person, their suffering doesn't fit neatly into the systems we've created to treat addiction. It isn't necessarily covered by insurance, and it often isn't even recognized as a legitimate form of psychological suffering in its own right.

Yet it is.

I know firsthand how incredibly painful it can be for family members and friends to watch someone they love spiral out of control.

And speaking of control, you have none.

There is absolutely nothing you can do to simply stop that descent.

So what is out there for you?

A support group known as Al-Anon.

I'm not here to knock that organization. Any group dedicated to supporting people who are watching someone they love disappear into addiction deserves serious consideration and respect.

Yet I have my doubts.

Much of the advice I associate with Al-Anon revolves around boundaries. Hard stops. Cutoffs. Protecting your own sanity. Learning to detach from the destructive behavior of someone you love.

And I understand why.

I understand the necessity of protecting yourself from someone whose addiction has the potential to destroy not only their own life, but yours as well.

But I also find myself thinking about my mother.

The one person who didn't get off the ride.

And I wonder whether, somewhere in the conversation about protecting ourselves from addiction, we've lost sight of another equally important question.

What does the person who stays actually need to understand about the person they're staying for?

And perhaps, just as importantly, what does the person struggling with addiction need to understand about the person who stayed?

Because while I've been living through my recovery on my own peculiar timeline, my mother has been living through it on hers.

And those two timelines don't always agree.

I don't have the answers. This is a topic that, even as I write these words, is evolving within my own personal support structure.

What I do know is that it's important. In some ways, understanding and repairing these relationships is every bit as important as getting better in the first place.

Because inevitably, as you find your way out of addiction, you'll discover another hurdle you must clear.

The people who love you have been on a journey of their own. And while you've been fighting to reclaim your life, they've been fighting to understand what happened to it.

Those journeys don't necessarily end at the same place, or at the same time.

But don't let that set you back.

Recovery from addiction happens on YOUR timeline. Nobody else's. It cannot happen any other way.

And to those of you who love someone struggling with addiction, I ask that you remember something: what looks like standing still may actually be someone fighting harder than they ever have in their life.

I don't have all the answers. I'm still figuring this out myself.

But I promise you this.

Whether you're the person struggling with addiction, or the person who loves them, I WILL do my best to help you understand one another. To bridge the distance between those two timelines. To make the journey a little less painful, a little less lonely, and perhaps a little more hopeful.

Because nobody should have to find their way out of a dystopian darkness entirely alone.