Relapse

Why do so many who receive treatment for an addiction problem relapse? That’s a question I often hear. First, let’s distinguish between relapse and a continuation of the addiction after a short break. Most people who start drinking or using drugs shortly after treatment call this a relapse, but there was really no recovery. There has to be some significant level of recovery in order to say someone relapsed when they return to drinking or using drugs. Those who take a break from using drugs in order to receive treatment for a month or so, perhaps because they were forced by the court or a family member, then continue drinking and using shortly after treatment haven’t relapsed — they just stopped drinking alcohol or using their drug of choice for a short period to get out of trouble for a minute. Alcoholics and drug addicts stop using from time to time for short periods for one reason or another, but this doesn’t mean they’ve recovered from addiction.

So, relapse is when a person has had a significant period of recovery and is actively making changes to remain abstinent and put things back together. People sometimes relapse after a year of recovery, three years, 30 years, although if someone stays sober and clean for a year and is managing a recovery program, the chances of them maintaining long term, permanent recovery is very high. I also need to distinguish between a relapse and a lapse. A relapse is a full return to addiction, while a lapse might be a one time slip that the recovering person quickly does something about and returns to the recovery program.  Those who do relapse usually stop doing the things that got them into recovery to start with. They stop utilizing their support, like AA or NA or a church group if they are part of a church — the family thinks they are cured, and their friends see them as past all that unpleasantness for good. Most often the person takes being clean and sober for granted and thinks they have power over their addiction disorder. Once the recovering person believes they have power over alcohol or some other drug, they might start thinking they can take a drink or smoke a joint periodically without consequences. Their minds start playing tricks.

When the alcoholic or drug addict experiences a period of recovery, they are healthier, think more clearly, have better relationships, are able to hold down a good job, make more money, etc., so they might start thinking they are as capable as anyone else of drinking sociably or using drugs recreationally, especially if they remove themselves from their support structure which served as a reminder of how bad it was before. The pain they experienced years before fades in their memory — they start thinking problem with alcohol or some other drug might have been because they were immature, or it was just a wild period, but now that they’ve put their lives together and have become responsible, it’ll be different. When the recovering alcoholic or addict drifts away from their long term recovery program, they put themselves at risk for relapse, even if they never intended to when they first started drifting.