You’ve probably heard sad stories about people who relapsed. Bob had 2 years and he relapsed. He took one drink went down hard, and fast. He lost everything all over again. And this time he lost his wife for good. We’ve all heard stories of relapse. Maybe it’s even been your story.

Or maybe you heard that a certain person slipped. They had a one night stand with a drink or a drug. But they managed to make their way back into recovery the very next day. It was a slip. That’s all it was.

So it got you to thinking. Maybe you could do that. Maybe you could slip. There’s an occasion coming up when no one would ever have to know. A business trip. Or the wife is going away for a couple days.

There’s no small amount of debate about that word slip. Some people in recovery really dislike that word. They get seriously bothered by it. They say there’s no such thing. A slip to them is nothing short of a relapse. Go get your 24-hour chip or key chain again. Start all over. Debates have their place I suppose. But I’d rather not quibble over words.

It’s true that people on occasion do survive the so-called slip. But famously, many don’t. One drink or drug was all it took to set them back on the path to active personal destruction. Once again they found themselves stuck in the despair of addiction.

Whether you like the word slip or not doesn’t really matter. The reality is simple. Every relapse in history began with a slip. Every trip down to a new bottom started with a single bad decision.

The lottery is a tax on people who are really bad at math. A slip is a gamble and the odds are colossal against anyone who has ever struggled with addiction. A slip is a bit like playing the lottery. With your last dollar. So is a slip worth losing it all, all over again? Think about it. For yourself.

But here’s another very important thing to consider. Maybe you slipped last night. Reading a piece like this could get you thinking, why bother? You feel so demoralized by yesterday’s bad decision that you think it’s a forgone conclusion that you’ll automatically plummet into the abyss.

Hey. While it’s still today, you don’t have to let yesterday’s failure determine today’s success. Or tomorrow’s. Whether you decide to tell someone about it or not, get a new coin or not, know this: YOU CAN GET THROUGH THIS. Just start over. Today.

I’m a fan of telling on myself. I would. I would tell someone. And it’s always better to tell on yourself before any kind of slip. Tell on yourself for even thinking about it. But that’s just me. That’s my philosophy. I know that the power of recovery community is what I need to get through any kind of trouble, large or small, before or after anything ever even happens.

So. Thinking about a slip? Think that slip all the way through. Know where it can take you. But know mostly that you never have to play with that fire in the first place.