Tags: “Relapse is part of recovery,” goes the saying. Not that we welcome relapse, but it happens. For myself and for many others, a relapse after a years-long period of sobriety is a very different affair from our initial climb out of the world of substances. At this later point in recovery, the call to use or drink reveals something altogether deeper and more psychological than the biochemical call-and-response of brain cells and alcohol, molly, meth, and more.
In the midst of a relapse, it can be hard to live a “normal” life, let alone come to therapy or go to meetings. Finding our way back to therapists, sponsors, higher powers, and the concern of friends and family, however, will help us find our way back to quitting again. Calling a halt to the relapse and returning to a sober way of life demands not only action but also understanding. It is as if the relapse is not over until we have discovered its prompt and its sought-after reward. What was it that called us back to using that substance again after years of doing without?
To look beneath the behavior of drinking or using, we need to understand its intention and desired reward. What was it about that experience that we wanted to relive or those feelings we wanted to feel again? Typical responses to these questions include: to escape reality, to feel a rush, to really relax, to bond with friends and lovers, to lose inhibitions, to feel sexy, to deaden painful or uncomfortable feelings, to turn off the thinking head for a while, to alleviate boredom, to enhance pleasure, and so on. There are a million more.
As we explore the motives for falling back into an old behavior that we thought we had conquered, nuanced patterns can now emerge that were not so apparent at an earlier stage of our struggle to quit. This is the time to revisit our old answers and update them. Are there new feelings and situations that trigger a desire to escape? a need for a boost? etc. Where did we learn that by ingesting a substance—be it food, drink, smoke, or chemical—we could fix a situation and make ourselves feel better?
In the midst of a relapse, asking these questions opens the door for ending the relapse. In fact, the answers to these questions are not even necessary in order to crack the spell of the relapse. (The answers would be nice, mind you, and certainly will be helpful in the future.) Just asking these questions can force another level of thinking, and possibly guilt, but enough upset to call an end to the relapse. Upset can be a good thing. Ending relapse means the choice for a return to self-control. And self-control leads down the path to self-discipline.
To many people, self-discipline is negative compound word, its two halves seemingly warring with each other. To them, self-discipline implies pain, boredom, and stricture. Self-discipline, however, is only the practice of consistency, with the understanding that making yourself stick to your word to yourself is of immense value in itself. Self-discipline allows you to get the job done. Self-discipline may even include an incentive/disincentive system to keep things functioning. The acceptance of the need to control ourselves at times, to say “no” to ourselves at times and be consistent about it, is one of our earliest childhood teachings.
Self-control is usually taught to children in the context of getting along with others. Some of us, however, misread the lesson and conclude that when we are alone, self-control can be jettisoned. And, of course, the relapse itself proved just the opposite. With the help of others and some self-control, we can rejoin the living and benefit from the practice of a much feared but highly productive behavior, self-discipline
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