Why Relapse Is Predictable

In addiction recovery, relapse is predictable. But it’s also preventable.

Relapse is predictable because it’s part of a larger cycle that continues to repeat itself as long as it’s misunderstood. With understanding, relapse is preventable. But prevention requires a much different approach to recovery.

Let’s unpack all this by looking at each element of these claims. That will mean redefining some of the terms. As we do, we may begin to see the problem with the view that addiction is the only problem to solve.

Addiction as a Strategy

I define addiction as any persistent and repeated strategy used to manage internal discomfort despite painful and negative consequences.

Addiction to heroin, cocaine, meth, pain meds, alcohol, nicotine, or other substances are obvious examples of addiction. When we are addicted, we keep using these substances despite the risks and consequences.

Behaviors like using sex, pornography, or gambling are also acknowledged as addictions when they become problematic and difficult to manage. Less obvious are dysfunctional relationships, overworking, excessive exercising, scrolling, and comfort eating.

But any strategy that works well enough to manage internal discomfort can become an addiction. If it works, it’s hard to stop doing it.

Before addiction became a problem, it was a solution to another problem. It was a way to manage internal discomfort.

What Does It Mean to Recover?

What does it mean to recover from an addiction?

Most of us would agree that recovery means that we stop the addiction. If recovery means stopping one addiction, then relapse means returning to that addiction.

But when I refer to addiction recovery, I’m referring to much more than that.

If addiction is any persistent and repeated strategy used to manage internal discomfort despite painful and negative consequences, then relapse may be much broader than returning to the original substance or behavior.

Relapse can mean returning to any addictive strategy used to manage internal discomfort.

That changes the way we think about recovery. If addiction is a strategy used to manage internal discomfort, then doesn’t the internal discomfort have to be addressed for recovery to be successful?

If we stop using the strategy that worked to manage the internal discomfort, and if we don’t resolve what’s causing the discomfort, we’re going to have to either experience the discomfort or find another way to manage it.

The options are to find a way to manage the discomfort without negative consequences, to stop trying to manage the discomfort and just experience it, or to resolve whatever is causing the discomfort.

Why Relapse Is Predictable

Now let’s look at the discomfort.

There are many forms of internal discomfort that we must experience, manage, or resolve. But if the discomfort is too great, simply experiencing it can become unbearable. Managing it becomes a preoccupation that depletes our capacity and creates secondary problems. And resolving it seems impossible.

Resolving the internal discomfort seems impossible until we understand what’s causing it. But if understanding discomfort means exploring the discomfort, we tend to avoid it. We want to get away from discomfort. Looking at it feels counterintuitive.

So we want to avoid discomfort. We want to avoid addiction. We stop the addiction but the discomfort returns. It remains unbearable, so we find another way to manage it.

This is why relapse is predictable.

And relapse happens more often than we think if we include a return to any addiction to manage the discomfort.

My Own Recovery Showed Me This

I quit alcohol in 1982. I haven’t had a drink since. If relapse means returning to alcohol, I’ve never relapsed. But if relapse means returning to any addiction to manage the discomfort, my “recovery” has been a series of relapses strung together in what I’ve been calling 43 years of sobriety.

Let me count the ways I’ve managed my discomfort since 1982.

Nicotine. I smoked until 1994.

Caffeine. When I quit drinking alcohol, I doubled up on coffee.

Food. I gained up to forty pounds after I stopped smoking.

Sex and love. After my first wife died, I used sex and romantic relationships to manage my grief.

AA meetings. In my first two years of sobriety, I attended up to three meetings a day.

Work. I still use work to distract and get a sense of value.

Approval. I became whoever I needed to be in the pursuit of love, approval, and appreciation.

But I was sober!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of my sobriety. But the discomfort had to be managed in some way. After I’d been sober for twenty-two years, I began doing something different with the discomfort. I began exploring it and addressing it.

After a disastrous marriage, I divorced my second wife — the negative consequence of my sex and love addiction — and found myself in an overwhelming state of discomfort.

I was committed to my sobriety from alcohol and didn’t consider returning to that addiction. And I was afraid that if I got into another relationship, I’d easily slip back into my love and sex addiction and lose myself in the process. So I became willing to do what it took to resolve my discomfort.

Fortunately, I discovered The Work of Byron Katie and found that her method of self-inquiry brought relief from my internal discomfort, not by managing it, but by directly addressing it.

I had recovered from my alcohol addiction thanks to the other addictions I found to manage my internal discomfort until I discovered a way to address and resolve my discomfort.

What Prevention Requires

If relapse is a return to a strategy for managing discomfort, then relapse prevention can’t only mean avoiding the old strategy. It has to include addressing the discomfort that made the strategy necessary.

Addiction has a job. Addiction will move from one strategy to another if necessary to keep doing that job. The job of addiction is to manage internal discomfort.

To recover from addiction means to recover from the need for addiction.

Recovery, I believe, must be addressed at three levels to be lasting and sustainable.

The first level is recovery from the addiction and its negative impact.

The second level is recovery from what the addiction was trying to manage — the internal discomfort.

The third level is recovery of the true authentic self that was lost in the busyness of self-management.

This is the first in a series of articles I’m writing about common misunderstandings related to addiction and recovery. In the next article, we’ll explore the nature of the internal discomfort that addiction tries to manage.