Relapse
We've all fallen off the wagon. Here's how to get back on.
I first understood the idea of alcoholism via watching Sue-Ellen on Dallas. She had a major voddy habit and was forever straining to resist another glass, her hand shaking as she reached out slowly, mascara streaming down her face, JR cackling at the spectacle of his own wife’s hopeless addiction. I assumed that was what it was like to be a recovering addict: forever caught in a torturous purgatory where the one thing you desired was the same thing that would kill you.
Turns out, recovery can be a whole lot more pleasant than US soap operas from the 1980’s would have us beleive.
When I first started The Reset I wrote about the day I got sober.
Prior to that day, there had been relapses. Dozens of them, maybe more. I had tried and failed to get my bad habits under control for years. It started with me trying to stick to certain boundaries, like never drinking in the week or before 6pm. I would succeed in these practises for weeks, sometimes months, but eventually I would go back to drinking arbritrailiy.
I even managed to have prolonged periods of sobriety that I thought might last forever. In 2009 I got a big new job and decided that booze and drugs would probably prevent me from doing it properly. So I quit completely for about eight months and found it quite enjoyable. The problem was, I never committed to it being a permanent state. I allowed myself the option of falling off the wagon at some point. The fact that I had managed to stay sober for so long gave me the illusion of control. How could I possibly have a problem with drink and drugs if I could so easily do without them for such a long time? I rewarded myself for this acheivment by eventually re-embracing intoxication more enthusiastically than ever before.
At that stage, I hadn’t accepted that alcohol was a problem in my life. I just told people I had taklen a break and it was no big deal. That gave me the opportunity to relapse with impunity.
Absitence is about will power and, like a crash diet, it’s not sustainable. It’s about denying yourself something you crave. Often, you end up feeling like you are denying yourself freedom and pleasure. So, inevitably, you relapse.
Sobriety is not about will power. As the Secret Drug Addict put it so brilliantly in his recent interview on the podcast, sobreity is about patience and accpetance. Acceptance that you have no control over your addiction and that it makes your life shit. And the pateince you need to learn that life really is so much better without it.
As long as you frame your decision as something you have had to do reluctantly then you will ultimately fail. Accept that booze makes your life shitter and you’ve got a chance of succeeding.
I don’t crave booze or drugs. I take such pleasure in sober life that the idea of going back to my old ways just scares me. I find the idea of still getting on the piss or taking drugs at my stage of life really depressing. I just can’t visualise myself as that sort of bloke.
I think people relapse only when they haven’t yet accepted the sober version of themselves. They crave booze because they still beleive it will make their lives better, not worse (maybe they like the taste of it; or they still really enjoy the feeling of being pissed and can’t live without it; maybe they can’t relax or feel contentment without a drink or two inside them). And they beleive that they can control the extremes of their behaviour.
Of course, they might be right. If getting pissed definfitely improves your quality of life, and you are able to control your intake, then you really don’t have a problem. Crack on. Dip in and out at will. Sounds like a lot of fun, I guess.
Towards the end of my drug use, I would sometimes try to stay clean for a couple of weeks then cave-in after a stressful day and call a dealer. They would deliver the drugs, I would take some and then immediately regret it. In a state of self loathing, I would throw the rest in the bin. Then, within an hour, I would regret my decision to chuck it away and call the dealer again to deliver some more. I was throwing away more than I took. The dealer absolutely loved it. Mental. And so the cycle of resistence, craving, capitulation and regret would go on and on.
Yes, there were clues everywhere that I was not enjoying my habit any more and that I was not remotely in control.
Ah well. All’s well that ends well, I guess. All I’m saying is, if you relapse, don’t beat yourself up too much about it. There is no sober person who didn’t fall off the wagon several times before it finally stuck. Treat yourself with a bit of compassion. Know that what you are going through is really hard.
But be under no illusion: you are not in control and booze is making your life worse, not better. You’re on a lift that is going down. You can’t stop it and you can’t reverse its direction either. But you can choose to get off whenever you want. Try again. Try harder. Eventually, things will work out.
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Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times
https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123
@calm 0800 58 58 58
@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138
@CharitySane 0300 304 7000
https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/
https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/
https://andysmanclub.co.uk/
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/gambling-addiction/