Relapse occurs as series of events

Relapse, often referred to as “falling off the wagon,” is frequent problem in the complex puzzle of maintaining sobriety and staying “clean” in substance abuse.

A common statement coming from individuals struggling to maintain sobriety is “I can stop drinking, but I just can’t keep from starting again.” Such individuals often tell themselves, “This time it’s going to be different and I really mean it.”

Understanding the relapse problem, including the reasons behind relapse, is often the first step toward maintaining sobriety.

Relapse is not an event that suddenly occurs. Instead, it is a process, a series of events, leading up to an unhealthy escape from pain and suffering through the use of alcohol or drugs.

Following are some of the problems common to relapse:

• A perception that options and choices are absent in one’s life. Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and self-pity are examples. A belief that one’s misfortune is a result of bad luck and being predestined to failure. Frequently, these individuals lapse into self-medication with alcohol or drugs to alleviate their unhappiness.

• Excessive need for control and perfection resulting in a constant, energy-depleting battle that the individual eventually loses. These individuals often feel that anything less than 100 percent success at something is failure. They seek solace from this pain by chemically altering their moods.

• Fatigue. Motivation, commitment, judgment and decision-making skills are often deluded, impaired or even disbanded in a fatigued state. Relapse is an increased risk at this point.

• Loneliness, chronic conflicting power struggles, unmet emotional needs are all examples of relationship difficulties that impair the commitment of recovery.

• Coping skills – such as a sense of humor, being appropriately assertive, being able to relax in a healthy fashion, the ability to set personal limits and boundaries – are assets in maintaining sobriety and avoiding relapse.

• The belief, after a period of time, that one has overcome one’s addiction to alcohol or drugs and can resume the use of mind-altering substances in a nonaddictive pattern. Most substance abuse professional believe the only path to staying in recovery is completely abstaining from the substances to which one is addicted.

Denying that these pitfalls or other problems exist in one’s life underlies relapse. There is seldom just one warning sign present in the buildup toward relapse. Those committed to preventing relapse need to recognize and deal with these risk factors in order for recovery to persist.

Copyright c 1998 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.