Picking Up the Pieces After Major Relapse by Guest Writer Suzanne K

In recovery, sometimes people slip. Sometimes they fall big time. It can be frustrating and crazy-making trying to figure out what to do in either case, but when you completely collapse, doing what’s right may mean the difference between life and death. With so much at stake, how should you go about picking up the pieces after major relapse? Here are some points to consider.

What Just Happened?

No, it’s not a movie title, but it is a good question to ask yourself. Chances are that you have only a foggy memory of what precipitated the relapse. When you’ve gone so far over the edge that the last few days or weeks are a blur, you know you’re in bad shape. Still, in order to climb back from the pit of relapse, you need to figure out what it was that drove you over the edge.

Think hard. Walk yourself back in your mind to the last thing that you remember. Don’t fret. This may take some time. Make a pot of strong coffee, cook some breakfast, and sit down afterward with a pad of paper and a pen. Yes, this involves actual writing things out.

Some words of caution: If you find yourself sitting at the table or desk – or lounging on the couch – get up and move around. Do some deep breathing exercises or run or jog in place, anything to either a) calm yourself or b) get your blood pumping. You need one or the other in order to jumpstart your sluggish brain. Either one will also help you stave off the craving to use again. Succumbing to urges is likely what got you into trouble in the first place.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Start writing whatever comes into your mind. When was the last time (day, hour) that you had a drink, took drugs, went to the casino – or all of these? Who were you with? Did you seek out the company of others you know use, whom you’ve been with in the past and thought you could get away being around again without slipping? Do you remember anything about how you felt when you took the first sip, popped the pill, snorted the powder, sat down at the blackjack table?
Write it out. Be specific. You need to pinpoint the people, places, and things that started this train wreck. That’s the only way you can begin to figure out how to start picking up the pieces.

Besides, you need to have it all down on paper so you can then begin to work out your plan to get back on track in recovery.

Look For Clues

Okay, it may be a blur. You may not be able to remember, at least not right now. In that case, your best option is to look for clues. Do you have receipts for booze you bought at the store? Are there empty bottles about the house? Dig out the charge slips from the bar or club. Those will give you the dates and times to jog your memory. Do you recognize the places as ones you used to frequent? Do you know the bartender or server well? You may want to call him or her and ask them to relate the circumstances surrounding your descent back into drinking. Do not, however, call the buddies you were with – not under any circumstances. They are the least reliable and last persons you need to either talk with or be around.
If any of this gives you the jitters and prompts you to look for a bottle (or pills or your car keys to drive back to the casino), call your 12-step sponsor immediately. Get yourself to a meeting before you can convince yourself that it’s all a waste of time and since you’ve fallen off the wagon, you might as well stay there. That’s not reason talking – it’s your addiction trying to overtake your life again.

Other clues that you can look for include drugs and drug paraphernalia in your home: needles, packets of heroin, crystal meth, bags of marijuana, bongs, pipes, and empty pill containers. Of course, tracks on your arms, legs, feet, or armpits are a dead giveaway as well. What about the state of your home? Is it tossed, full of debris, dirty, smelly, like a tornado whipped through it or you had a blow-out party? And your car, what about that? Is it dented, scraped, completely out of gas, filled with bottles and/or signs of drug use, or evidence that you’ve been to the casinos?

Look in the refrigerator. Is it completely bare – except for that bottle of vodka that you stashed in the freezer? You know – the one that’s empty. If you’ve been on a bender or at the casinos for an extended period, you probably haven’t been eating at home. If there is any food remaining in the fridge, it’s probably spoiled, moldy, or past its expiration date.
What about the mail that’s piled up? If the trash hasn’t been emptied, that’s another clue as to how long you’ve been away, so to speak.

What do you do with the clues you find? Write down as much as you can about what they tell you that you’ve been doing for the past few days or weeks.

Clean Yourself Up

Now, you need to take action. But you can’t go out of the house in your current state. Take a shower and clean yourself up.
Your brain will be telling you that what you need is a drink or to do a line or pop some pills or go back and score big at the tables. Again, that’s your addiction trying to take over – and you’ve seen how much good that’s done you.

Force yourself to get in the shower. Count to a hundred and put one foot in front of the other until you actually get in there and scrub yourself clean. Wash your hair, shave or put on make-up (or both, if appropriate), and put on clean clothes.
You should at least be presentable when you go out.

And you need to go out because there’s something very important that you need to do: go to a 12-step meeting as soon as you’re ready.

What If You Can’t Do It?

Got the shakes because it’s been a few hours since your last drink? Feel like you can’t keep from going to get another bottle or head out to the bar – even if it’s six in the morning? Yeah, you’re going through the first stages of withdrawal – and you know it’s only going to get worse from here.

Call your sponsor and ask for his or her help. You need to detox and, depending on how bad your relapse was and/or what substances you used, you need it fast. Don’t try to do this on your own. You aren’t the best judge of what’s best for you and you certainly aren’t a medical professional. Even if you are (there are plenty of doctors and nurses who get hooked, get clean, and relapse), you’re not your best at treating yourself. Medical supervision is what you need.

If you’re still drunk, you can’t get behind the wheel. This is all the more reason to call your sponsor, a close friend, or a family member to drive you to the detox facility at the hospital. If you’ve been in treatment at a residential facility before, you may need to go back in.

Take it one step at a time.

Recognize that you need help. Ask for it. Then, do what you need to do to get clean again.

After Detox, Then What?

You know the drill. After you purge the alcohol or drugs out of your system, it’s time for some serious revisiting of what and why and where – and, beyond that, what you are going to do from here.

A little – or a lot – of counseling is in order. Again, this is not something that you can figure out on your own. If you could, you wouldn’t likely be in this position of suffering a major relapse. But that’s not always the case. Everyone is different. What will do one person in may not faze another. Maybe you know full well the strategies to employ, the tips and techniques that you practiced during treatment. But when your brain chemistry has changed as a result of long-term alcohol or drug use, and if you’ve stopped taking any meds the doctors prescribed you to help ward off cravings and urges, sometimes you are powerless to stop yourself.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself as a means of explaining what happened. Hey, that’s as good a reason as any. But it’s not altogether true. You can stop yourself. You already do know that it’s possible. You did it before. You can do it again.
You just need help figuring out what may work better for you next time the cravings and urges resurface.

And, of course, they will.

What if treatment is no longer an option? What if you don’t have aftercare or continuing care as part of the treatment program you were in? There’s always counseling available. It’s a matter of figuring out how and where to get it and how much it’s going to cost you. Ask your 12-step sponsor, your doctor, or call the treatment facility you went to and find out who can help you.

Be prepared to stick with counseling for the long haul. When you’ve had a major relapse, it means that something isn’t working right for you. You may need to re-examine your commitment to sobriety. Did you think it would be easy? Did you go through treatment just to satisfy your family or your employer or someone who said you needed it? Was it court-ordered treatment that you thought you could just coast through and be done with it?

Guess what? You may need to go back into treatment for another 30 or 60 or 90 days. This time, make sure it sticks. Go into it with your eyes wide open. Admit to yourself that you didn’t give it the full attention and focus required. You didn’t honestly want to get clean and sober. Maybe now you will. You owe it to yourself to give sobriety another try.

For some people with long-term alcoholism or drug abuse, it takes more than once in treatment before they finally figure out how to live without the bottle or fix. And, beyond just living, they need to learn how to live life in joy, to be productive and fulfilled and happy.

Reach Out to Your Family

Not everyone who has a major relapse has the luxury of still having a family around. It’s also true that just because you do have a loving and supportive family that you won’t ever relapse. The truth is that relapse, just like addiction, can happen to anyone. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what race, religion or nationality you are, how rich or smart you are or where you live.

But everyone needs a support network in recovery – and, especially when they suffer a major relapse. Picking up the pieces after such a big fall is simply not possible on your own.

Maybe your family is your 12-step sponsor and fellow group members. Maybe your family is your wife or partner, your children, or parents, or other close relative. It could be your best friend that has stood by you all your life – even through your darkest hours of addiction.

Whoever your family is in the real or abstract sense, reach out to them now. Tell them that you’ve had a major relapse and you want to get clean again. Be prepared for the full range of emotion – everything from sorrow to anger to grief to disbelief. Acknowledge that you made a big mistake. Beg for their support and encouragement as you do what you need to now. No, they can’t do it for you. But they are critical to your ongoing recovery. You need them in your corner.

You need all the help you can get.

Most of all, you need to find the courage or guts or determination to see it through this time. How you approach your family, the words you use, the actions you take, may help or hurt your chances to enlist their support.

It’s definitely a challenge and one that you may cringe at tackling. Maybe all you need to do is let them know what’s happened. Maybe you need them to drive you to the detox facility or the rehab center. Maybe you just need to ask them to be there for you while you go back into treatment.

Maybe they need family therapy as well. Something has obviously gone awry. If you live at home and your family members are suffering as a result of your major relapse, family therapy may be the most important way that they can help to heal and learn how to best support your recovery efforts.

When You’re Home Again

Assuming that you’ve detoxed, gone back in for treatment, are receiving counseling, have the support of your family and 12-step sponsor and group members, now that you’re back home again, there are things you know you need to do to sustain your recovery.

Just in case you’re unsure, here’s a reminder list:

• Establish a routine. – It’s important that you ensure stability in your life by establishing a routine that accounts for every hour of the day. You need to create a schedule for what you should be doing from the time you get up until you go to bed. Allocate time for meetings and work and meals and recreation. Don’t leave any gaps. Idle hours allow your brain to work overtime at figuring out ways to sneak back into using. Routines and schedules are simple and basic ways to keep you on the right path.

• Take care of yourself. – It goes without saying that you need to pay attention to your health. While you were in relapse, you may have developed other medical conditions or had ones already existing get worse due to lack of care. You need to make sure you’re eating well-balanced, nutritious meals three times a day. Be sure you get adequate sleep. Be aware of and schedule periods of vigorous exercise. Taking care of yourself means you take the appropriate action to ensure that you’re never too hungry, tired, stressed out, or overly emotional.

• Redouble your attendance at meetings. – You may need to go to meetings morning, noon, and night for a while. In order to get yourself re-acclimated to recovery and what works best for you, one of the things you need to do is to be around people who’ve been through relapse themselves. This support network – your 12-step group – is comprised of individuals who not only understand what happens during relapse, but also afterwards, when you’re trying to come back. You may think you’ve heard it all before, but you really haven’t. It’s one thing to listen to others’ stories of relapse and recovery. It’s another thing entirely to go through it yourself. Maybe now the words you hear will have more meaning. You may just find some suggestions and techniques that will work for you – or that you can adapt to your own situation.

• Keep up counseling visits. – Just because you’ve made it through the major relapse and are back at home and work, don’t think you’re out of the woods. You should make it a practice to continue visits with your therapist or counselor. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which you may have had during treatment, may be recommended for you now. With CBT, your therapist helps you change the way you think and believe and learn how to behave in healthier ways.

• Get involved with a hobby or learn something new. – Stimulate your mind by getting involved with a hobby or learning something new. There are many things that you can do in this regard. Take up woodworking or cabinetry. Learn how to fly-fish and join a club that goes out on day- or week-end trips. Take up downhill or cross-country skiing. Join a gym or a hiking group or off-road adventure club. Go back to school to pursue a degree, finish a degree, or just take classes in something that interests you. By engaging your mind, you’re firing up new brain cells to take the place of those that may have been damaged due to addiction. Besides, when you’re involved in a hobby or learning something new, you’re being creative. You’re helping yourself to grow. And with growth comes hope. With hope, you have the ability to create new dreams, new goals, and a new future.

• Forgive yourself. – Get over the fact that you relapsed. Give yourself the gift of forgiveness. After all, you’re human. You’d do the same for your fellow group member or a loved one if they experienced the same type or similar problem, wouldn’t you? The same thing applies to you. When you forgive yourself, it doesn’t mean you excuse what happened. It means that you take responsibility for the things you said and did – and are taking steps to learn how to live a healthier life.

• Be grateful for the opportunity. – Sometimes when people relapse, they find new meaning in their lives in recovery. It may take you hitting bottom again before you finally realize that this is your one life to live. How you live it is very much up to you.
 

There is no right or wrong about relapse. It just is. But it is also incumbent upon you to learn from what happened and thank God or your Higher Power or power of self or nature or whatever entity you choose for the opportunity to learn from this episode. Seize the day. Begin your journey of self-discovery. Rebuild hope. Envision your future according to your dreams. Find fulfillment, joy, and love. Live.