The Roommate

As I have done in previous blogs, I’m going to present a challenge from the serious game,Bounce Back, a game that can help you learn the skills and the attitudes of resilience. Your job is to list the skills and the attitudes that you would use in dealing with the challenge, and describe how you would respond to the challenge using these skills.

This challenge relates to having a roommate. We have all had difficult roommates and had challenges in dealing with them, I would assume. But this may be particularly difficult if you’re a recovering alcoholic.

So for the challenge I would like for you to assume that you are playing the game and you have been dealt a challenge that describes the situation that you’re in and describes who you are. Let’s assume that you are a recovering alcoholic. Your roommate, who has been sober for four years, relapses and shares that information with you. He tells you he is fine and asks you to keep this secret. What would you do?

For those of you who have never been caught up in an addiction or have little knowledge of addictions, this may be a difficult challenge to respond to. But in many ways, the challenge is not that different from many of the ones that we have presented in this series. This doesn’t mean broadcasting to a recovering community that your roommate is drinking again. It does, however, mean talking with your roommate and with your sponsor or with some other people that you are close to and doing some problem solving, both with yourself and with others. You can support your roommate and try to help your roommate recover from the slip.  But in that process, you need to take care of yourself. 

As with many of the challenges that we have discussed, dealing with your feelings about what is happening and recognizing them and expressing them is key, as is communication with others.  

Those of you who are in recovery many have other ideas about how to deal with this challenge. Maybe some of you have dealt with this. I would encourage you to discuss with others this challenge and to think through how you might deal with this situation or a similar situation. Again, those you talk with may have other ideas.

We will present another challenge in our next blog.