A note on relapse

Among my friends in recovery, and among some of the young people I mentor, there seems to be a small epidemic of “relapsing” going on. A “relapse” or a “slip” refers to a return to old, addictive or self-destructive behavior after a period of sobriety, abstinence, or healthier decision-making.

I’ve worked to give up many things in my life, behaviors or habits which were hurting me or those around me. Alcohol, drugs, self-injury, sexual acting-out — I’ve had years away from these, and have a considerable amount of what in Twelve Step circles is called “time” away from these. One day at a time, as they say, I work to keep my spiritual foundation strong and my boundaries in the places that they should be. I don’t struggle with a lot of temptation anymore around alcohol, drugs, or sex — though I’m not vain enough to believe that I’m incapable of a future slip in any of these areas. Continued growth, as they say, is contingent on regular (daily) spiritual and psychological maintenance.

I do have habits I have a harder time letting go of. Though I don’t smoke regularly any more, I’ve had the occasional cigarette a time or nine over the years, though none since Heloise was born. I’ve given up diet sodas again and again, and then gone back to them — my compulsive consumption of caffeinated aspartame is something I fight against on a daily basis, usually losing the struggle. And though veganism has been an easy lifestyle to adopt, it has by no means ended some of the binge/purge behaviors that have characterized my relationship with food and my body since puberty. (I don’t throw up or starve myself anymore, and that’s progress.)

One mentee went back to using internet pornography compulsively last week; another returned to an abusive relationship she had had some success in leaving. Other friends have relapsed on drugs after some time “clean”. And I’ve been pounding down more soda than usual. It’s been “relapse week” all around, and so I thought I’d write a bit on the topic.

Whatever it is you’re trying to give up, whether it’s a bad relationship or a destructive habit, relapse of one sort or another is going to be part of the recovery process. I often point out to people that I went to my first AA meeting in April 1987, when I was nineteen — and got sober “for good” (God willing) more than eleven years later, after years and years of going in and out of the program. Whether the issue was alcohol or drugs or cigarettes or unhealthy one-night stands or cutting myself, I didn’t succeed in giving up what was unhealthy the first time I tried. Depending on the behavior, I’d put together a few weeks or months or even years before, as a result of one setback or another, relapsing spectacularly. (I had six years clean and sober from alcohol and drugs between 1990-1996 before a major slip.)

As anyone who has accumulated “time” before slipping knows, the shame of a relapse often makes it difficult to tell anyone that it has happened. Particularly when one has loudly repudiated a behavior, it becomes nearly impossible to admit that one has gone back to it — which is perhaps why sexual compulsiveness is so rampant among conservative pastors and politicians, whose livelihoods are tied to the public’s assumption that they have conquered their own frailties. It’s why I sometimes tell my sponsees/mentees to keep some of their fresh changes on the down low for a while, lest they invite hostile judgment should their commitment to a new set of behaviors waver. Having gone in and out of many a recovery program before finally putting together substantial “time”, I can assure the reader that it’s much more difficult to relapse and come back than it is to begin recovery in the first place. Pride, as usual, is the enemy.

Though a great many folks object to the “disease model” of addiction, I’ve always found it helpful. Indeed, for me it applies to a variety of other social ills: just as drug dependency is a disease with physiological, social, cultural, and psychological dimensions, so too are racism, homophobia, and sexism diseases from which we, both as individuals and as a society, need to recover. I reject the familiar and tired accusation that this broadens the category of disease to the point of useless absurdity; rather, it’s the most helpful model for understanding and “curing” a host of social ills. Diseases manifest in individuals, but are best combatted by treating entire communities as well as the people who seem most afflicted.

Relapses frequently happen because of social pressure. An alcoholic may find it relatively easy to dry out in a recovery center, but will find it much harder back in a community where most of his or her friends and family drink. Someone raised in a sexist culture may find it liberating and easy to practice their feminism on campus — but when they head home to the family dinner table, it’s all-too-simple to “relapse” into the old, heretofore repudiated behavior. As any addiction specialist knows, preventing permanent relapse into any unhealthy pattern requires transforming families and communities.

But regardless of our commitment to a disease model, let’s admit that these individual relapses will happen. The key is seeing them as part of recovery rather than as a rejection of growth; as baffling and disappointing as slips are, both to the relapser and the ones who love them, they aren’t signs that change is impossible. They are reminders that change is difficult and gradual, occurring in fits and starts. That doesn’t mean that someone who is being abused by a relapsing addict owes it to him or her to stay — quite the opposite. Addicts need to feel the pain they cause, and they need to taste consequences; they also need to be reminded that no matter how far back they’ve fallen, hope remains. Virtually everyone on earth who has transformed his or her life has known relapse of one kind or another, and our eventual triumphs were all the sweeter because of the stumbles along the way.