Relapse

Recovery doesn’t just happen because one stops drinking and using drugs; especially in the beginning, it takes diligent hard work and sacrifice. I think this may be the hardest lesson we have to learn as alcoholics and addicts new to sobriety, that even though now sober we continue to think function, and make decisions with a "diseased" brain. Quitting is the easy part, it’s staying sober that is the real trick.

Those in AA say to change people, places, and things. A therapist might say it also requires cognitive behavioral training. A pastor might say that it takes faith and finding one's spirituality. And they would all be right. One has to proactively work a recovery program, consciously setting aside time and resources not only to stay clean and sober, but to maintain a healthy and progressive mindset.

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Even though this little NPR interview with two addiction experts had a promising title of interesting subjects, What Triggers Addiction? How Can It Be Broken?, it was light on details because of its brevity. Of course brevity was what attracted me to it in the first place and I still found it a thoughtful piece. They covered a subject near the end of the interview on "choice" that I found particularly interesting because it so closely paralleled my own thoughts on the subject. You can click on the streaming audio here to pull up the player in a new window.

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The names, places, and circumstances may vary, but you can be rest assured that most alcoholics and addicts follow a very predictable path. The same rationalizations, secrecy, prevarications and red herrings are used by gutter drunks to Boston bluebloods as if they were all using the same playbook; I call it The Alcoholic Playbook.

Looking more like the star of a tribute film to John Candy than a professional athlete, John Daly, an alcoholic with a bipolar golf game, will run the route for us today demonstrating the “Control Play". With at least three trips to the Betty Ford Clinic for alcoholism, four ruined marriages, and a gambling habit that has cost him upwards of $50 million- obviously control is not one of John's better talents. However he does not let this fact get in the way after an alleged drinking incident in the Hooters hospitality tent led to a golf analyst commenting, “The most important thing in his life is getting drunk.”

“That hurt. There were some rumours flying, probably because of my past. My lifestyle has been great. I'm eating too much, but I'm hardly drinking at all - and I never go out. I guess that's just the way my life is going to be for a long time because of my past.” ~ TimesOnline

”But I’m hardly drinking at all”… uhhh yeah, right John, you’ve got the drinking under control. You’re an alcoholic yet somehow you rationalize eating too much and the comments of a talking head as being more harmful than the fact the YOU ARE STILL DRINKING! A good sand wedge will not extract you from this relapse trap.

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Most alcoholics find safe harbor in their recovery routines and comfortable surroundings. The support of friends and family, familiar meeting places, and yes, having those that know of our plight helping to assure our accountability all add a measure of safety and help staying sober at home an easier task. But what about those that travel or who are called away unexpectedly, especially for emotional issues like a death in the family or severe business trouble.

Nothing but strangers around, a lonely hotel room, and only the company of one’s thoughts can be a recipe for disaster for an alcoholic with no anchor to keep from drifting.

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I decided not to shortchange the answer by writing just a quick reply and promised a full post after being asked this question.

Hi I just wanted to get your thoughts on POT because I have a problem with Alcohol but not with pot. Considering that it could be a legal alternative to Alcohol in the near future I wonder if you would ever consider recreational pot use acceptable for people who don't have an addiction.
Thanks,
Christopher

My thoughts are very simple when it comes to any type of alcohol or drug use for those of us in recovery regardless of “WHAT” we were addicted to in the past. Don’t do it, any of it. Recovery is about learning to deal with life without mood and reality altering substances regardless of their legality or how they are ingested. Just the very fact that an alcoholic is trying to rationalize smoking a joint, or a junky is considering taking to the bottle means that their disease is influencing both thinking and decision making. Trying to figure out new or safer ways to escape reality and stress is not an exactly healthy exercise for someone like me.

Also, I have a problem with alcohol and pot even for those that are lucky enough not to suffer from addictions.

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There’s an old saying that a relapse happens long before the first drink or drug use. For the alcoholic and addict, it is the planning and decision making behavior, the alcoholic thinking, which gets one in a position to buy that first drink or pill that is the actual start of a relapse.

Tatum O’Neal pled guilty today in court after being arrested last month for allegedly buying crack cocaine. Sounding more as if she was charged with jaywalking, she was ordered to attend two half day drug treatments and fined $95.

O’Neal recently confessed, “I was trying to relapse. I made a giant, horrible mistake that I regret and feel really ashamed and embarrassed about. I take full responsibility.” ~ The Celebrity Café

Full responsibility?

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The names, places, and circumstances may vary,
but you can be rest assured that most alcoholics and addicts follow a very predictable path. The same rationalizations, secrecy, prevarications and red herrings are used by gutter drunks to Boston bluebloods as if they were all using the same playbook; I call it the alcoholic playbook.

I usually use as an example the already publicized spectacle of celebrity drunken antics, that’s your cue Amy Winehouse, when reviewing a page out of the alcoholic playbook. This time however I have asked permission from one of my favorite bloggers, The Junky’s Wife, if I could use her husband as my playmaker.

The full name of this play is "You want to see something really scary?" and it’s a type that becomes more extreme each time it’s used. It has to be progressive for this to work on someone who has a high tolerance for addict inspired drama… especially someone like TJW, who has put up with years of this type of behavior. So let’s take a look at what stage of the game we’re in and see why the junky is calling this play.

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Tatum O’Neal, who at ten in 1974 became the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award as supporting actress in the movie Paper Moon, opened up to the public about her abusive past, drug addiction, and subsequent recovery 30 years later her book A Paper Moon.

Arrested for possession of crack cocaine, headlines this weekend bared her struggle with addiction once again to the public.

Growing up in the 70’s, to me Paper Moon was a boring black and white movie. I will always remember Ms O’Neal as the precocious Amanda in the Bad News Bears. Although it’s seriously doubtful that Walter Matthau had anything to do with it, the above scene with young Tatum and Butterworth the alcoholic serves as an apt analogy to the availability of drugs and alcohol in Hollywood party scene. She was exposed early and often enough to drugs and alcohol that a substance abuse problem was almost a given, her story is sadly similar to most child actors who grow up in this caustic environment.

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Russell J. Simon Jr. was convicted and sentenced to prison in 1987 for burglary and assault. According to the books he would write later, No Way but God’s Way and Inside the Walls, his incarceration was the result of a dysfunctional upbringing and chronic alcohol/drug abuse.

He experienced a spiritual awakening after his release and developed a personal recovery program that was so successful that he began promoting it as a motivational speaker. Focusing primarily on a youthful audience, Simon’s program Ten Seconds Can Change Your Life Forever focused on a message of personal accountability and making informed decisions. His website states that he speaks to over a quarter of a million teens and parents yearly on the subjects of drug/alcohol abuse, addiction, and violence. This is probably a well inflated number since I found very little info online of recent speaking engagements, but at least in the past he had earned a reputation as an effective and passionate speaker.

If I had heard of Mr. Russell before this month, he would have probably been highlighted in a post with a TDA salute. The chances of that are nil now that he has been charged with attempted murder and sexual assault during an alcohol and meth fueled relapse rampage.

It must have been a mighty high wagon indeed that Simon J Rusell Jr. fell off of because he struck the ground with a spectacular crash.

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Even after years of sobriety and recovery many addicts and alcoholics fall off the wagon. Oblivious to misery and heartbreak of years past, suddenly taking up the bottle or the needle seems a good idea once again. Only an acute mental illness could suddenly erase the memories of broken homes, marriages, and lives and somehow make one think that this time it will be different… as if placing a “custom” order. It reminds me of this Subway commercial, just imagine the woman ordering a martini or Oxycontin instead of a cheeseburger combo. .

I would like to say if a bartender or drug dealer responded in the same fashion that this would prevent relapse, but to be truthful I think that a relapse happens long before the first drink or pill. It really doesn’t matter what you say to a person because at this point they are only listening to their illness.