The need to escape the anxiety and loneliness created by being human, at least for a while, is part of the human condition. Whether through the body, say through sports or dancing, or through the mind, as in escapist fiction or music, humans have always needed some escape. Many people will describe favorite movies and TV shows they return to when they need some kind of comforting. They ground themselves with their fictional families—people they grew up with who provided laughter and solace and escape from a painful reality: The Ricardos and the Mertzes. Mary and Rhoda. Danny and Uncle Jesse. Name your favorite fictional family and describe how you feel when you’re spending time with them—safe and sound? These comforting fictions serve their purpose—so long as we don’t get stuck there.

High art has its consolations, too. It used to be a popular convention that loners are driven to become artists and musicians because as social outcasts the only way they could feel a connection to the rest of humanity was through the universal language of art. Art provided the means to escape their loneliness and communicate with and belong to the world. Again, an attempt to escape the cage of solitude and connect with others.

From sitcom families to great art, there are nurturing, grounding, and even ennobling pastimes that help us cope with being human. Physical escapes can often be healthier than mental ones. The runner’s high, the surfer’s rush, the boxer’s Zen, these all achieve a state of relief from everyday worries, although here in Los Angeles we all know a few gym rats who go too far and use physical activities (up to and including sex) to the point of addiction.

For those of us in recovery, the escape from reality in itself became an addiction, and our task is now to cope with reality without those crutches we allowed to take over our life. But it is important to acknowledge that once we are living in the sober world, we must build into our lives the healthy escapes from reality that we will certainly be needing sooner or later. That is our work in therapy, to keep our Recovery Journals filled with attempts to continually make the better choices.

David Bowman LMFT is a licensed psychotherapist based in Los Angeles, California.

Photo credit: Gerome Viavant UNSPLASH

Of course, in the throes of our relapse, it’s hard to keep appointments, let alone come to therapy or meetings. But if we can, hopefully together with our therapists, sponsors, higher powers, and/or the concern of friends and family, we will find our way back to quitting again, or rather, calling a halt to the relapse and returning to the sober way of life of our past few years. Here is where the psychotherapist goes to work: If we assume the cellular addiction in our body and brain chemistry has been extinguished by now, what was it that called us back to using that substance again after years of doing without? What was it about that experience that we wanted to relive?

Typical responses to this prompt include, to get high, to feel a rush, to feel relaxed, 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. You can come up with many more, I’m sure. As we explore these motives for drinking and using, old patterns can now emerge that were possibly not so apparent at an earlier stage of our struggle to quit. Now is the time to ask yourself, are there certain feelings and situations that trigger a desire for escape? Did someone once teach me that by ingesting a substance—be it food, drink, smoke, or chemical—I could fix the situation and make myself feel better? This can be a very old lesson indeed.

Even if none of these seem to apply to you, think about the simple fact that since prehistoric times, humans have always needed to escape reality for a while. Whether they made beer and wine, ingested herbs, danced around a campfire until they fell into a trance, found love and sex with others, created artwork, sang or made music, or just meditated in nature, these were all ways of escaping reality for a time. While the urge to escape is perhaps built into our psyches, the decision for a healthy escape versus a self-destructive escape is another thing. In fact, I’m convinced that for many sober people, the three-year or five-year relapse is due to this very reason: while we have paid attention to getting the substance out of our lives, we have not paid attention to the needs of the prehistoric human inside.

Remember that we can stay sober from our drug of choice and still find ways to get high. So sing, dance, make art, work out, run, meditate, recite poetry, do yoga—whatever is needed to keep your sanity without having to fall back into the trap of dangerous substances again.

David Bowman LMFT is a licensed psychotherapist based in Los Angeles, California.

Photo credit: Xan Griffin UNSPLASH