It’s unfortunate that it happens, but it does happen a lot…
People relapse all the time back into their addictions after varying lengths of sobriety from them.
Having attended various 12 Step Recovery meetings from AA to SLAA to Al-Anon, I have witnessed countless people sharing their stories about their relapses that came after lengths of sobriety that ranged from 1 day to 40+ years. And what I’ve come to learn is that relapses affect everyone, including those who I thought had extremely strong recovery programs.
I often find it quite heart-wrenching to listen to these relapse stories. In each of them, I frequently hear a person blaming their relapse on a job they were miserable at, their lack of money, having too much money, breakups with a partner or other relationship crises, unhealthy friendships, hanging around in the wrong places, and other miscellaneous reasons. The truth is, there is really only one cause behind every single person’s relapse and it took me a very long time to figure this out. While all of those reasons that people give for their relapse are contributory to it, the sad reality is that each placed their Higher Power and their recovery work on the back burner for those reasons.
Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, who founded the 12 Step Recovery programs through Alcoholics Anonymous, discovered that it was the combination of finding and maintaing a relationship with a Higher Power and continuously doing recovery work every single day, is necessary to preventing relapse and remaining sober from alcohol. The same principle holds true with any addiction, no matter what it is.
While I haven’t yet relapsed on alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes in over 18 years, I have with some of my other addictions. I could give similar reasons to why I relapsed with those addictions, like many of the other people have done when they have relapsed. If I did, my biggest one would probably have to be due to my hanging around with toxic people and engaging in sexual relationships with them. But I see clearly now that my getting involved with any of those toxic people was just the after effect of me avoiding doing the 12 Step recovery work and maintaining a daily connection to my Higher Power. In AA, I saw this happen first hand with a former sponsor of mine.
A few months ago, she relapsed back into her alcohol and drug addiction after many years of sobriety from them. She was someone you would never have guessed would relapse either. She did a tremendous amount of work in her recovery to helping others out and keeping a close relationship with her Higher Power. But just prior to her relapse, she met a man who she quickly fell for and began to put aside some of her daily spiritual and recovery routines to spend more time with him. When enough time got away from her doing those routines, she began to be tempted again with alcohol and drugs. (It’s important to note here that temptation for any addiction never really goes away completely, it only goes into remission because of one’s recovery work and spiritual maintenance.) As it might have been for anyone else, after enough temptation was placed in front of my former sponsor and when her defenses were lowered enough from not having done her daily recovery and spiritual routines, she fully relapsed back into her alcohol and drug addictions. To this day as of my writing this, she has yet to wholly return to her 12 Step Recovery work nor her Higher Power who could help lead her back there. And the sad truth, is that she may never make it back. Many never do.
I used to think I was invincible to relapse from all my addictions, especially alcohol and drugs, since so many years had passed from the last time I engaged in either of them. But after seeing this former sponsor and so many others who had many good years of sobriety and recovery from their addictions go backwards and relapse, I have realized it was only ever my ego that believed this. In fact, just a few years ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table of one of those toxic men I was sexually engaged with, and holding a beer in my hand deciding whether I should have a taste or not. Thankfully, and most gratefully to God, I did not. That was at 16 years of sobriety where my connection to my Higher Power and my recovery work was at its weakest because I had placed this toxic man in front of the both of them.
The simple truth is that any person who relapses back into their addictions after one day or after 40 years have one thing in common. They decided something else was more important than doing their recovery work and developing a greater closeness with their Higher Power. No one is invincible from a relapse. NO ONE. All it takes is to start believing that you can skip some of your daily spiritual and recovery routines until eventually, you’ve skipped too many of them. And that’s when most relapses will happen.
If you are someone that is recovering or feel you are recovered from any addiction, don’t ever let yourself believe that you are immune to relapsing back into it. But most importantly, definitely don’t ever allow yourself to put anything in front of your recovery work or your relationship with your Higher Power. Because as soon as you do that with either of them, you are taking one step closer to that relapse…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson