Tinder Is Really Bad For My Recovery

So, it's no secret that I've been making leaps and bounds with living my life, in recovery, out loud. Something that I've just recently gone public with is that I am a single man, looking for a relationship. I've never dated in recovery before, and just like all my other recovery "firsts"(getting a car, getting a job, life after IOP's, finding a counselor, etc), dating while in recovery terrifies me. I feel like a whole new person, than when I dated last, and don't even know where to start the conversation.

Now, I was in a dumpster fire of a relationship when I started my recovery journey, but that inevitably ended and I spent the last year+ really trying to heal and become a person that would be healthy in a relationship(in all actuality, life in general). This seemed like a good place to start for me. Step 1, make myself a safe place for myself. Step 2, make myself a safe place for another person. Step 3, uhh...what goes here? That's where I was standing. I have no idea what to do next. But I did come to the conclusion that where I was in my journey through spirituality, mindfulness, and healing...I was going to take the step into meeting people.

"So..Umm..the tinder date went well" -New Parent

What does that look like you might ask? Well, instead of digging through the little black book of repeated dating practice cycles, I decided to just be open and let the Universe decide what to do. Turns out, that the Universe expects effort on your part, past the healing I mentioned earlier. So, stepping in a direction from the past, I decided that maybe a dating site might be a good way to meet people, and they definitely know why you're there, so there's that part taken care of already. Now, which one do I use? After the paranormal date dot com experience, or something weird like that, didn't pan out..I decided to give Tinder a shot. I figure it's one I've never used so let's see what kind of trouble I can get into there.

But what did I just do? You guessed it. I jumped on something that was familiar to me from my past, a repeated cycle even. "Ugh, Mitchell...We told ourselves we weren't going to do that again!!". One thing I am acutely aware of is that repeating cycles isn't going to affect my recovery, or anything attached to it(everything), in a positive way. Now if I could just start being aware of things like this BEFORE I put my decisions into action...I think I'd be getting somewhere in that whole healing first situation I started this publication off with.

Plus, 90% of the women on that site list some sort of drug or alcohol use right on their profiles...Not something I really want/need in my life right now(or ever). On the other hand, it does really help to -weed- out the ones I'm not looking for. Heh heh...see what I did there??

I'll catch you on the next episode of this live autobiography.