Episode 179 -- December 30, 2021

Let Your Head Lead Your Heart: The One-Year Relationship Rule

In early recovery, many of us are saying good-bye to bad relationships, ones that might have contributed to our problem with drugs or alcohol. As we become our new selves without drugs and alcohol, we're also probably feeling more optimistic and joyous than we have in a long time. Wouldn't it be great to share that happiness and joy with someone else, we think, especially someone who is also in recovery? We wonder why we're being told to wait on this—to not become romantically involved with someone new.

In their book Now That You're Sober: Week-by-Week Guidance from Your Recovery Coach, Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty provide support, insights, and exercises for people in early recovery. In the following excerpt, we learn about the "one-year rule" and why it is important to wait at least a year in recovery before getting involved in a new romantic relationship.

Whether we're working the Twelve Steps or are following another recovery program, the people who have come before us on this journey recommend prioritizing the work we need to do on ourselves for now and waiting before we commit to a new relationship. The authors explain the wisdom behind this advice and ways to help ourselves be patient.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

Wait at Least a Year
Program wisdom has always advised new (or new again) members not to make any hurried decisions in their lives, especially around relationships. That's no great problem for many of us—unless and until an exciting new relationship appears on the horizon. When that happens, feelings can overtake us. Conventional wisdom about waiting at least a year before making major relationship decisions can quickly go out the window. And more often than not, the results are painful and dangerous to recovery.

As with most things in recovery, no one said this "one-year rule" is easy. (Many recovery sources advise avoiding these decisions for at least two years.) However long the right waiting period before getting involved in an exclusive, committed relationship is, the pull toward one shouldn't be surprising. Relationships are the most powerful force in our world. Relationships aren't part of who we are. They are all of who we are.

As we discussed earlier in the book, the "exact nature" of our problem is not alcohol or drugs. The problem is spiritual bankruptcy, also called the hole in the soul, and isolation is at the heart of the hole. What's the solution? Making connections, of course!

Forming relationships is the answer. When a recovering person gets halfway well and can think and feel again, of course their spirit craves all the intimacy it can get. So, like squeezing an orange for every last drop, many of us gallop into a romantic relationship before we're ready and able to function as a healthy partner.

Often, there's an anguished, angry outcry at this point. "But I'm healed! Don't tell me I'm not ready and able to have a relationship!" And for people in this situation, you might as well throw a ping-pong ball at a brick wall for all the difference that conventional wisdom makes.

Why wait? What's the value of the conventional wisdom? Again, loving is not the same thing as making relationships work. If someone experiences a massive outpouring of emotion fueled by a mad rush to escape loneliness, it does not necessarily mean the person has the skills to make a relationship work. No matter how powerful the emotions that add up to feeling "in love," if the skills and maturity aren't there, the love will die like a flower in the first blast of fall's chill air. Then the person looks around, wondering, "How in the heck did I get here? And how do I ever get out?" To say the least, recovery takes a backseat in these situations. And recovery is a jealous lover. If it isn't first, it gets up and leaves.

Successful, lasting relationships are not simply a matter of being blown away by overwhelming emotions. For sure, the powerful emotions generated by a new relationship are nice. They're wonderful, in fact. The problem is that they don't last unless they're anchored in the necessary skills and abilities that make relationships work.

By far the best form of "relationship insurance" is working your program. It's developing the attitudes that underlie recovery by repeated actions. It's about getting to the "exact nature of our wrongs" so we don't continue to drag our particular brand of character defects into our new relationships like muddy shoes across a new carpet. It's about staying connected to our Higher Power, self, and others as the primary aid in your toolkit to make the relationship lasting and satisfying.

And as you already know, it takes time, effort, and practice to exchange character defects for character assets. No one in recovery becomes un-selfish, un-afraid, un-compulsive, un-angry, or un-ashamed all at once. It takes time to develop one's character. "Moment of clarity" can come in a flash. But the flash doesn't win the day. What wins the day is being honest, open, and willing to keep moving where the God of your understanding is leading you.

So be patient. Give yourself a break. Don't invite failure by jumping into something before you are ready. When you feel the tug of a possible relationship, check it out with your group and sponsor.

Be silent with it. No matter how compelling and overpowering the urge to "hook up" might be— because "this one is different"—use your tools. Stop before you get so far into the relationship that there's no turning back. Let your head lead your heart on this one. The answer will not be no forever. As you continue to gain time in recovery and continue working the program and developing new skills, you will eventually be ready to form a healthy—and lasting—romantic relationship. Your time will indeed come.

About the Author:
Earnie Larsen was a grateful member of the Twelve Step family for more than forty years. In that time, he wrote more than sixty recovery and spirituality books. He authored dozens of DVDs and CD programs that have become a staple of recovery programs around the world. He was a much sought-after speaker who lectured extensively nationally and internationally. Larsen passed away in 2011.

Starting out as a newspaper reporter, Carol Larsen Hegarty went on to educational publishing and worked as a program developer for several companies. She and her brother Earnie collaborated on a number of books, including Days of Joy, Believing in Myself, and Moving from Anger to Forgiveness. She was a grateful member of Al-Anon for more than forty years. Ms. Hegarty passed away in 2019.

© 2010 by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty
All rights reserved