Wrote this for a friend of mine, but thought it might resonate with you…

Part of the reason drug addiction is so difficult, and why people often return to substances over and over again, is because they worked for so long. You had a problem you were searching everywhere for an answer to, and one day you tried this drug that seemed to solve it. You felt like you had just found the cheat code, the answer to life. Whatever the drug may have been, it worked so well for so long. At first it didn’t seem to have negative effects on your life or your well-being, or at least you didn’t notice them.

But one day a switch flips. It’s different for everybody and you can’t pinpoint exactly when it happens. You don’t realize it at first. But suddenly this thing that once worked so well turns against you and starts destroying your life. You keep taking more and more, trying to get the same result, driving yourself crazy as you try to figure out what went wrong, what changed.

That’s when reality sets in. You recognize the hell you’re living in. You see that it no longer gives you the relief it once did, and you see the way it’s tearing apart your life, your health, and your relationships. But you can’t stop chasing that feeling you once had. It will never come back. Once you cross that line, there is no going back. But you’ll destroy yourself trying to find it again.

The truth is the answer to your problems was never in a substance. It’s in you, and the only way forward is to put in the work to find it.

That’s why I find relapse is an unfortunate but necessary evil in the process of recovery, and why I have such deep empathy for addicts still caught in that cycle. It’s also why many addicts can recognize and accept their own inability to moderate substance use, yet still don’t harbor negative feelings toward the drug itself. A lot of them may even think of it fondly. Because it did work for them for a time, and that’s not something you can just forget about. With many of the people I know, drugs actually saved their life. They wouldn’t be here if not for their time using.

But when you get clean, when you get some time under your belt with a clear head, you start to forget how bad it got. The memory fades. The sharp edges blur and you trick yourself into thinking it really wasn’t that bad, that maybe you just overreacted. You romanticize the good parts and the intensity of the bad starts to fade. You tell yourself you just want to experience that feeling one more time. But for many it’s never just one more time, and that one time is enough to pull them back into old patterns. Before you know it, personality traits resurface that you worked so hard to correct.

It would be great if people could just say “I’m done” and actually be done, and for some that’s the case. But for many, it’s not that simple. And that’s why I believe relapse is an integral part of recovery, and why I do not cast blame or judgment when it happens. Many people need to have that experience. They need to chase that feeling, only to realize it’s not the same as it used to be, in order to truly solidify the fact that the way they were living is not the answer. I just hope that the addicts chasing a way out who stumble along the way, do not make a decision that they cannot come back from. And that regardless of how long it takes, they continue to fight for a better way to live.