Hi Jim1818,
thank you for your post, I remember Murr’s posts it touched me as well, I hope he is doing well now, I didn’t see a post from him for a long time.
your comment is very valuable to me because as you mentioned comes from an outside observer who may see something that I can’t see from within.
I can see the similarity with the 12 steps in your comment about surrendering, but there it is surrendering to a higher power, and to be honest with you I don’t have this option, I am an atheist so I am on my own in this life, which is not a bad thing this makes me really focus on the issue itself without waiting for the solution from any higher power that may or may not help me, as you know “they work in a mysterious way”.
I reached the state of “surrender” a long ago but it is just the first step. all that I am doing now is closing the holes in my strategy each time I relapse, and I have closed many of them I hope it will work this time.
I don’t know why you think “I am rationalizing the relapse”, what I am doing is analyzing it to find the errors in my strategy to fix them.
I know that I can’t do it with willpower “I am powerless against this addiction” so all I am doing is to fix it from the outside and to have enough recovery time to heal from the inside.
thank you again for your reply Jim1818, wish you all the best.