No one wants to hear that a friend or family member relapsed. The questions that come to mind are “Why did it happen? what triggered it? Is there something we could have done to prevent it?”
When we hear “What happened” it’s always brought up in a negative context. “What happened were you depressed, were you anxious, triggered. Did you get in a fight with someone at work”? All of these are relevant and good questions but many times it’s actually the opposite of what we may think. Many relapses are not triggered by negative events but by positive ones.
I have had a few major relapses during my recovery. My two biggest relapses can be directly traced back to times when things were going well.
Why Do Addicts Relapse When Things Are Good?
Relapses that happen when things are going well can often be attributed to boredom, complacency, and self-sabotage. As a person continues their journey in recovery it’s natural for both themselves and their support to become lax about habits and routines that were necessary at the beginning of recovery. When things begin to get better in our lives it becomes easier to put our recovery on the back burner. Work, kids, leisure, and life, in general, are getting back to normal and we get complacent about our recovery. The person may have recently completed their intensive recovery programs and now they have more time on their hands. The combination of boredom and easing up on recovery are a perfect storm for choosing to “Just have one”.
Throughout active addiction, addicts do many things they are ashamed of and feel immense guilt over. When we get into recovery and begin to rebuild our lives we often have the feeling that things are going too well and that we don’t deserve happiness and success. When these thoughts began to creep in, many people in recovery will subconsciously begin to self-sabotage their recovery. Self-sabotage can be directly attributed to FEAR. Fear of good things, fear of success, fear of more responsibility, and even fear of happiness.
Boredom Leading To A Relapse
“Idle hands are the devils workshop”
-The Living Bible
Although that quote is attributed to religious text it’s accurate for many people, especially people in recovery. Throughout our addiction, we lived in a constant state of chaos. We live minute-to-minute trying to figure out how to get high, get money, avoid the police, and analyze everyone around us for ulterior motives. Although most addicts are grateful to be out of that chaotic lifestyle when they get into recovery, subconsciously many of us were and still are addicted to the chaos. The chaos gave us a distraction, it gave us something to spend our time and energy on, it allowed us to avoid looking in the mirror and facing our problems.
A person in recovery may choose to pick up a drink or drug simply because they’re bored. Our brains will tell us: “Everything is better when your drunk and high, you’re never bored when you’re high”. Boredom can lead to complacency and complacency is a major cause of many relapses. The person may believe that they can safely get high just once and go right back to a normal life.
In recovery, we can often become bored and think that life is dull. Understanding that recovery is a process that takes time is essential to overcome boredom. We spent years in addiction, it’s going to take time to rebuild a healthy lifestyle in recovery. To overcome this boredom it’s good to create a positive sober support system. Friends or family we can call when we are bored and alone. Getting out of our comfort zones and trying new and different things. New hobbies, new activities, meeting new people. Finding things that can help keep our mind occupied is essential especially in the first year of recovery. Number 10 on the list of 10 Common Habits of People With A Healthy Recovery Program is – They know how to stay busy and have fun.
Staying busy in recovery doesn’t mean we avoid time alone or avoid self-care. It means we find a healthy balance of self-care, recovery, leisure, career, and family time.
Complacency Leading To A Relapse
A person might be 6 months sober and recently completed rehab, things are going well. Both the person and their support may be easing up because things are on the up and up. It’s easy to put work, kids, leisure, etc. before our recovery when everything is running smoothly. This complacency may cause us to slowly put recovery on the back burner and when the opportunity arises we give in.
Complacency was a huge factor in my first relapse. I was almost a year sober and was getting too comfortable. I thought I had recovery figured out. This mindset is detrimental to people in recovery. When we think we have our addiction beat, we are in trouble.
“I can drink normally” or “I can go buy some heroin and coke and just get high this weekend”. Typically this complacency is a progression. Over weeks, months, even years we began to think we have it beat, and then when those thoughts come in we give in. The vast majority of addicts and alcoholics don’t have a stop button once they get started. There is no such thing as just having a few beers or just doing some coke this weekend and going back to normal on Monday.
Once that drink or drug gets into our system, our mindset is altered and we start to think differently. Monday comes and we need more drugs to get through the day. Maybe some minor hangover or withdrawal symptoms are making us feel sick. We began to justify our relapse “well I’ll do some more today to get rid of the hangover and withdrawal, but that’s it”. This is how it starts and before long we are back in the misery of addiction.
Self-Sabotage Leading To A Relapse
Self-esteem, self-worth, and self-love, are concepts many people in recovery struggle with daily. Many of us (myself included) had self-esteem issues before addiction. When I found drugs and alcohol, this low self-worth was like fuel on the fire of my addiction.
The 2nd part of this situation is all the bad and negative things we addicts did during our addiction. During addiction we lie, steal, cheat, manipulate and damage ourselves and our loved ones. When a person is living this way it cripples their self-esteem.
When we get into recovery it can take months if not years to rebuild our self-esteem and self-love. Many addicts subconsciously self-sabotage their success because they believe they don’t deserve it. They look at all the people they hurt during their active drug/alcohol use and think “I don’t deserve these good things that are happening in recovery”.
Combating self-sabotage is essential to a happy, healthy, long-term recovery. To combat it, we need to surround ourselves with loving and supporting people. There is a saying in 12-Step Programs I love. I needed to hear this constantly at the beginning of my recovery.
“We will love you until you learn to love yourself”
The other aspect to remember when it comes to self-sabotage is fear. Fear controls our lives in so many ways, including fear of good things. We fear success, responsibility, accountability, and financial success. As we rebuild our lives in recovery, our lives are going to get better in every aspect, but that also means more responsibility and pressure. It’s essential to have positive tools to cope with this increasing responsibility of life.
- Continued Treatment (outpatient, 12-step meetings, Etc)
- Meditation
- Exercise
- Family Time
- Leisure
- Therapy
The main key to overcoming self-sabotage is to face our past, make amends or apologies to those we hurt, and not dwell on it. We can use our past as a tool but we shouldn’t use it as a paddle to constantly beat ourselves up.
Survivors Guilt
Within the self-sabotage, category is survivors’ guilt. This is particularly true for opioid addicts. Any addict who has been using for an extended period of time has lost a friend due to addiction and overdose. We often think “Why did they die and not me?” and “Why did I get a second chance?”. These thoughts can lead us directly down the spiral of depression and self-sabotage. Often we don’t know why we were the ones spared. The best way to honor someone we lost is to live a happy life in recovery and spread the message.
I try not to question why the universe gave me a second chance. It happened and I’m going to do the best I can to give the gift back to someone else who is struggling.
Avoiding Relapse
The majority of relapses happen long before the person actually picks up a drink or drug. It doesn’t matter if things are going well or terrible, we can almost always trace back a relapse and see the signs leading up to it. We need to keep our recovery at the front of our lives when things are tough as well as when things are going great.
Relapse Warning Signs-What to look for.
