The recovery protocol
The slow climb. Non-linear. The metrics that matter. The "it's working" markers most men miss.
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§ Journey
The slow climb. Non-linear. The metrics that matter. The "it's working" markers most men miss.
The week I went back to the gym for the first time in three months, I did 20 minutes on the bike, two sets of light dumbbell rows, and walked out feeling almost as flat as I'd walked in. I almost called it a wash. Three weeks later, I realised I hadn't missed a session in a fortnight. The flat feeling had gone away in a way I couldn't pinpoint.
The picture in your head is probably a graph that goes up and to the right. The actual graph is jagged. Two weeks of climbing, a Tuesday that's worse, four days of treading water, another small climb.
The chaotic surface is normal. Most men misread it as "the protocol isn't working" because they're looking at today versus yesterday instead of this month versus last month.
A simple test. Pick five questions:
Score yourself out of 5 each Sunday.
Recovery markers, in roughly the order they tend to return:
Week 1-2. Nothing feels different. The flatness is still there.
Week 3-4. Sleep starts to return first.
Week 4-6. Appetite returns. Food starts having taste again.
Week 6-8. The "anything is interesting" feeling comes back, in moments. Don't try to make them last; just register them.
Month 3. The future starts to exist again. You catch yourself making a plan for July. Booking a holiday.
Month 4-6. Capacity returns in chunks. You can do a full week of work without it costing you the weekend.
These are not guaranteed timings. The shape of the curve is the same; the speed varies.
The single most common cause of relapse is premature exit.
Around month three, when the future starts to exist again, men feel "back". The temptation is to drop the protocol. Stop the medication. Cancel the psychologist. Get back to drinking.
This is the move that costs most men the next twelve months.
What's actually happening at month three is that the protocol is working. Removing the protocol is removing the structure that holds the recovery.
The right move at month three is the opposite: keep the protocol running long enough to be sure. Standard advice for SSRI medication is six to nine months from the point you feel well, not from the point you started.
Six things to keep running for the duration:
You're sleeping. Eating. Working at something close to full capacity. You can have a normal weekend without it being a project. You're still on medication if you started it, still seeing the psychologist, still keeping the base.
You haven't "beaten" anything. You've built a life on a foundation that didn't exist six months ago.
Hold the line. Trust the lag. Give it the time it actually needs.
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