13th Stepping

There’s an unofficial recommendation in recovery to avoid getting into new relationships in your first year of sobriety - getting into a new relationship early on is often called “13th stepping”, so-called because you go straight from the first step to the twelfth step and combine the two, “my life is unmanageable” and “I want to share my experience with you” combining to create “my life is unmanageable and I want to share it with you”.

It’s not just that your emotional life is all over the place in early recovery, it’s that you’re at significant risk of getting fixated on the new relationship as a source of stability and affirmation and then making your recovery all about trying to get that particular relationship to work. If and when that relationship ends it can send you right back into the addiction you were trying to get away from - if sober me is just as unlovable and incapable of healthy relationships as active-addict me, then what the hell is the point?

I was already in a relat…