Addiction relapse is common. Studies imply roughly half of all individuals who try to get sober- be that with eating, drinking, drug abuse, sex - will return to a period of relapse, with 70-90% experiencing at least one mild-moderate episode. So basically, it's the detoxing from your object of addiction which is the easiest part, however to try and change behaviours which drive an addict to use is much harder.
The Rainbow- A 'good' day
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| Donut's for breakfast at 11am in Brighton- just because |
Whether you're recovering mentally from depression, anxiety, OCD, an eating disorder, a break up or a divorce, alcoholism, the loss of someone dear to you, bipolar disorder, self-harm, you will have days where the black hole in your mind that once consumed your every cell occupies nothing more than a little dusty corner of your brain. You can roll out of bed in the morning without wanting, or even thinking, to crawl straight back into it. You can have leftover pizza for breakfast and have 3 sugars in your tea and smile whilst you do so, without the sudden paralyzing panic of how you're going to get rid of those calories. You can walk past the coffee shop he used to take you to on Sunday mornings without your heart beating so hard it could crack your ribs, and you can go to the pub with the 'lads' and order a pint of coke without even thinking about the froth of a beer or the lemon with a tequila shot.
The point is, a good day in recovery isn't always getting a bonus at work or winning the lottery, it's something as simple as finding the motivation to move, or eating chips for the first time, or washing your hands only 3 times instead of 48. It's the feeling of normality.
The Rain- A 'bad' day
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| Acknowledge your bad day's- suppressing them only prolongs them. |
Contrary to conventional ideas, it is not one single event that triggers a relapse, but a series of progressive events. Everyone experiences relapse differently, for example a relapse for me is like a water balloon; you can fill the balloon up with stress, arguments, work, an injury, an illness, an irrational panic at dinner, but it takes one tiny needle in the balloon to trigger my relapse. It can be something as small as not being able to find a shoe, or misreading a text, thinking someone is annoyed at me, or my laptop not working, or getting my statistics question wrong. This balloon just gets fuller and fuller until the needle comes, and in that instant I can find myself standing in the bathroom staring at the toilet for half an hour trying desperately to crawl out of the black hole that has come out from it's dusty corner in my brain. This is my bad day.
People suffering with forms of addiction such as substance abuse or alcoholism or smoking typically experience relapse a little differently. This is an anonymous person we'll name Mitch:
"I'll be pushing myself. I'll be going to work functions, out for dinner with my wife, not once having a drop of alcohol on my tongue. And I'll keep pushing. And pushing. And nothing bad happens to me. Why does nothing bad happen? I'm doing all these things I found impossible to do 9 months ago, why am I still alright?"
THAT is where relapse often begins to evolve. Because Mitch has been steadily improving, bettering himself and his relationship with his wife, he subconsciously sabotages his progress and his achievements because it is a new, uncomfortable feeling of normality that he is not used to, and may not think he deserves.
He begins to distrust how far he's realistically come, catastrophising events in his head relating to his marriage or family or work, refusing to believe that his new lifestyle can really be so simple and so easy to maintain. He drives past places he used to go drinking alone, feeling an invisible rope pulling him into the car park. He's spent years living and breathing an addiction to alcohol, and as they say old habits do die hard. The intentionally sweet comments such as "You're doing so well, keep it up" become a boulder on his back to carry. This boulder gets heavier and heavier until it crushes him, and he finds himself standing at a bar with a tenner in his hand about to ask the barman for a whiskey. This is his bad day.
Why relapse does NOT make you a failure- Because it's biological
You leave the upstairs bathtub running and depart for the weekend. The water overflows and runs into the hall. Like a waterfall it splashes down the stairs and into the living room. When you return, you find that the walls are soaked, mold is forming, and the wood floors are warped and peeling. Your original problem was that the water wasn’t turned off, but now the floor needs to be ripped up and the walls torn out. Turning off the faucet (detoxing) doesn’t undo the damage caused by the water (alcohol) to the rest of your house (brain).
The rain is coming...
Numerous studies illustrate that the first 90 days of recovery are when the largest number of relapses occur, due to the rewiring of the brain from e.g drug abuse. The urge to drink, or use will worsen before the wiring of the brain can be overcome, therefore unfortunately the longer the duration of being 'clean', the higher the receptiveness to cues in the environment associated with the addiction.
I want to emphasise here how important it is that if you are recovering from some form of addiction, be it medically diagnosed or not, recognize your triggers. This is because you'll have to overcome them more than once, twice, twenty-five times. I know my triggers, such as certain places I've been, certain foods, certain people even, being full, conversations concerning restrictive diets.
It is 10x harder to prevent a relapse if it's coming from a trigger you're not aware of. Once you're aware of your major triggers, you can work on reducing their impact on your life. For example when I would unintentionally notice the calorie content on the box of something I've eaten I would become extremely panicky, so for the first couple of months or so I would use scissors to cut out the nutrition content on boxes of food. Then, if I ever had a burning desire to know how many calories was in 70grams of cereal, I would know there was a problem and would in turn be able to actively deal with this.
So just make sure you use your umbrella
In the same way some people in recovery have a person they will call, talk to, text, visit if they feel a craving or an urge. This person dissipates the anxiety and the stress over a trigger for a relapse by rationalising your thoughts for you, explaining an alternative solution logically, they are your umbrella in the rain, they lift the boulder off your back. They become a trigger for recovery. I was lucky enough that before my boyfriend was actually my boyfriend, he was that person for me whilst I was struggling with my recovery at the start of university, picking me up when I couldn't do it myself, which I will be forever grateful to him for. Eventually, subconsciously the trigger for relapse is dissociated with the feeling of reward and instead it becomes associated with a new reward: recovery.
Many of us like to believe we are strong, independent, capable of dealing with our own problems. But PLEASE, if there is someone there who can help you, even if it's just to go and sit in their room on the floor so you're not alone, use them. They're there because they want to help you recover.
People don't walk in the pouring rain dragging their umbrella on the floor, so why should you?
