A view on relapse

[Motivation_Follows_Action]

I have been lucky enough to only have relapsed once during my quit (I honestly would have relapsed full-on by now if I'd had my supply so that's why it's so important to trash it before you think you need to), but it's something that's been buzzing around in my head for a while and I wanted to express my opinion on it here. It may be unpopular and is definitely not something I have researched or anything so feel free to shoot me down! I'm genuinely interested in the consensus on this one. Ok here we go.

I believe relapsing is part of recovery. Like we say, recovery is not a linear path, and many of us just find ourselves at breaking point at some time. I admire those who only quit once, but I think it is probably the exception rather than the norm. What is more important to me about relapse is how you deal with it. If you are able to kick yourself upside the head and berate yourself for a bit, that's step number one. But to me the most important step in getting on with recovery is PUTTING THE RELAPSE BEHIND YOU. If you fixate on how much you fucked up , it will derail you and you'll be tempted to give in altogether.

I was really upset when I relapsed and my therapist said to me that it was only a big deal if I thought it was a big deal. She asked me if I had any more supplies, I said no, she said, "well you're not getting any from me, so that's it then. Problem over. You now know your triggers, so let's work on them, not the drug." Essentially, she was saying just keep moving, nothing to see here.

What does everyone else think about this? Have been curious to discuss with the forum for a while.

[ashley6]

MFA,

This is an interesting concept. I just realized another trigger of mine: talking about relapse. I'm so glad you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps and got right back on track with the slip up. In my mind, I try to live as though relapse doesn't exist, because it scares the shit out of me. I don't think if bounce back like you did, and I'd be checking myself into rehab. Relapse is most definitely a common part of recovery that I pray I don't experience, one day at a time. I'm not offering a lot of insight here, just thinking out loud.

[lea]

I believe that relapse is part of recovery. With me there were several before the actual quit - e.g. I'm 7 weeks off ritalin but prior to that I can't even remember how many times I tried to quit and made it anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks, but with no plan and no support. No support because I didn't tell anyone about my addiction and the plan was pretty much white knuckling it. At one point my attitude was just that I'd be addicted to this drug for the rest of my life and I don't care. Then when things got really out of control I would plan to quit once the current supply of pills ran out ... again planning without a plan. So for me relapse was a learning experience in that I learned you can't do this alone and you certainly can't do it without a plan. Finding this site was a real eye opener. I am taking it one day at a time.

[quit-once]

Like Ashley, I really don't have a lot of insight to offer on this. In fact, I was not going to post a response but then later on I thought of a dumb comment so here is my lame attempt at a response:

Like the recovery process, quitting is a very indiviidualized thing. I think that one's vulnerability to relapse is dependent on how ready or willing to quit they were in the first place. In my case, I wanted to quit for over a year before I did. Life got in the way of quitting on my terms. During that period, and especially during the last few months of my addiction, I had already quit in my mind and I was sooo ready to be done with the burden of the addiction that I wanted my time to quit to come sooner and sooner. There were times I remember thinking: "I hope I can survive in one piece until I am able to quit" meaning I really feared permanant nerve damage, heart problems, daibetes, or a stroke. I am sure some of that thinking was due to mild psyshosis coming on.

I also read a lot of these forums before I quit and saw that nearly everybody suffered a relapse and I saw the hell and strife that relapse created in peoples lives. I also had a lot of practice quitting smoking and I knew that the motivation to quit again after relapsing could take several years to come back. Furthermore I had also accepted that there was no such thing as a return to casual use because of my advanced addiction. I also knew that a relapse would not be a minor hiccup but a full blown return to that addiction which I had grown to loathe. The experience of my nicotine addiction and many attempts to quit cigs really helped me to accept that my adderall quit was indeed for good.

[ashley6]

Quitonce,

I think we have a lot of similarities in how we went into quitting. I, too, thought about how badly I needed to quit for a year before doing so. I even brought my parents to counseling to tell them that year before, because I was desperate, but I knew deep down I wasn't ready. I just wanted to stop hurting the people who loved me, and I felt I owed them the truth. My counselor calls it a year relapse, but I don't think so, because I wasn't fully ready to quit at the time, so I gave it like 20% effort. I think that last year was helpful to me in an odd way, so my addiction could run it's course, and I could see the real destruction it caused. Thank God I lived through it, because an addict won't quit until they're ready, as we all know.

[sky]

one possibly good thing about relapsing is realizing how much you've grown to despise it... after some time, you've changed, your daily habits and attitude and persona have changed and evolved such that it's repulsive... case in point:

I went on a long vacation recently. It began with a long ass drive. driving and smoking go hand in hand. I got it into my head that it would be nice to smoke while I drove, even though it'd been more than 3 months since I'd quit, even though I thought it was disgusting and it bugs me when I can smell my neighbors smoke, etc etc... I even told myself that's how people start smoking again, "it starts with one...". I had the internal dialog for about 70 miles, then bought a pack when I stopped to fill up. I waited another 15 or so miles, then opened the pack, took one out, and lit it. It was FOUL! I smoked maybe 1/5th of it, then chucked it out the window. I was repulsed by the way it made me feel, the taste in my mouth, the smell of my car and clothes and hand. I wanted it out and off and damn was that nasty. I then chucked the entire rest of the pack out the window (sorry for all the littering, I just needed it gone). So, that relapse taught me how much smoking is foul and repulses me now, how disco 70s it is to still smoke after all that we know about how bad it is for you... I don't miss them at all. I did think about buying a pack for my return drive home, but that was probably the addiction talking, it wasn't hard not to and to ignore it/ tell myself I'd be happy I didn't....

[Cat]

Was going to be like, "I'm a success story, no relapsing here!" But looking back I realize how close I was to relapsing - it was luck and circumstance that I couldn't. Now I feel like I'm out of the woods. But yeah, that first week or two is dangerous territory and I feel like the near-misses were part of my recovery for sure.

I've never written about my near relapses here. Both these things happened around five days after quitting, I was so desperate.

1. Was texting my cousin who also uses - she lives in another state but has a script that needs to be filled here. We decided she would mail it to me to fill and we'd split the bottle. Luckily, two things happened - another week passed before the script arrived in the mail, so I was already feeling a LOT better. Still went to the pharmacy to fill it, but because it was in her name to get it filled without insurance was ridiculously expensive - so I pulled the plug on the whole thing. Mailed the script back to her.

2. Tried finding a new doc who would prescribe. Had just switched health insurances to a new system that makes it very hard to get a script for adderall. I found out it would take at least a month and 3 different doctor visits at minimum to get a new script through their system. It was so annoying at the time, but in retrospect probably saved me!

[BeHereNow]

I have to agree, I think relapsing is at least very common, and is part of the process.

MFA your therapist sounds really good. I like what she said about nothing to see here, move along, carry forward. No big deal.

When I quit smoking, I quit 3 times, up to a year each, before I quit for good. And I've relapsed on adderall too, also after long periods of time.

I think that after a longer time, it gets more dangerous in some ways, UNLESS we keep in mind how bad the addiction was, all of its effects on us, without romanticizing it. I think it helps to retain the same loathing for the substance that drove us to quit in the first place. I need to keep actively despising the substance in order to stay quit (for example, I physically can't stand secondhand smoke!)

The first time I quit adderall, which was in like 2003, I actively hated it for years, until I forgot about it, but still hated it in the background. It makes me so angry that they give that crap to children. I hate what it does to people. I hated it up until someone handed me a 5. That was the end of me hating it, and I relapsed. Now, I'm still building that hatred back up. Hate is a strong word but it worked. Kept me motivated for all those years, until I slipped (which WILL NOT happen ever again!!!!)

Basically, in my mind, adderall is slowly moving from a false pedestal back to hell where it belongs!

A little rambly, but I guess, as someone who has quit multiple substances and relapsed repeatedly, this is a big part of how I build up the strength to never relapse. But, I think that for some of us, it takes relapsing to build up the mental will to realize we never want to relapse again.