The Deadly Addiction Trap That Gets Addicts Every Time
Stuck in the pit of chronic relapse.
When I first came into recovery, I got clean quick.
My relapses stopped by attending recovery meetings, working the twelve steps with a sponsor and doing service.
It seemed I’d got my life back and that addiction was a thing of the past.
But after seven months of sobriety, one day out of the blue, I relapsed. And relapsed hard.
Rattled and shocked, I brushed myself down and got straight back on the recovery horse, battle shield and sword.
Resolve renewed, the reason for my relpase restored, I meant business.
Little did I know that for the next four years, I would barely stay clean for a few weeks before I’d relapse again.
Addictions Deadly Slippery Slope
Addiction is like a slippery slope that starts gently but eventually descends into a vertical drop that ends in a bottomless dark pit.
However, there’s something sinister about this slippery slope. It’s also strangely sticky; you can’t get off it once you’re on it.
As the slope’s gentle curvature slowly becomes steeper, the descent starts to pick up speed, and relapses happen frequently, but bizzarely, you have no real idea where you are on this slope until it’s too late.
The Drop
If help isn’t instigated to arrest the progression on this slope, there will one day be a sudden fall into a place called chronic relapse.
It’s a place where all hopeless addicts find themselves stuck in a hole but unable to climb out due to the slippery vertical walls that surround them.
No amount of tools, techniques or strategies will change their predicament. In fact, the more they struggle and fight to stay sober, the deeper the hole gets.
They’re stuck and need to find an escape, but how..?
Where on the Addiction Slope Are You?
“Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not.” ~ The Big Book, page 34.
There are many approaches to recovery out there, but their effectiveness will depend on how far down the slope of addiction you find yourself.
Those at the beginning of the slope have some power around relapsing, but those at the bottom have none.
The Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) describes three different types of drinkers.
- The moderate drinker
- The heavy drinker
- The real alcoholic
The Big Book explains that in the first two categories, these drinkers can still stop the descent into chronic relapse, but in the third category, these drinkers are already firmly in the pit.
However, the Big Book stresses that even the potential alcoholic (moderate drinker) is at risk of becoming stuck in that same pit as the real alcoholic.
“But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.” ~ The Big Book, page 21.
But regardless of what category someone falls into, once you acquire what the Big Book calls a ‘peculiar mental twist’ that all addicts have, you are no longer at the beginning of the slope. You are officially headed to the pit.
Cunning, Baffling And Powerful
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle.
So what is this peculiar mental twist that the Big Book mentions?
The peculiar mental twist is a temporary firm belief that despite all the warning signs and obvious common sense not to do something like drink, you believe:
- It will be alright if you drink, and here’s why.
- You certainly don’t need to quit alcohol altogether or even take a break; you just need to moderate.
- Losing control, let alone the power of choice, won’t happen to you because you know your limits.
But when loss of control does happen, afterwards, your previous unwavering belief around drinking has vanished. In fact, you are in disbelief at your flawed thinking and are convinced that it won’t happen again, as this time, you’ve definitely learnt your lesson.
What addicts fail to realise is that they are caught in an ingenious trap that wants them to believe that they have the power of choice and that by exerting their willpower, they’ll be alright.
The crafty, deceiving power of this condition is that it’s always, next time, it will be different, but because your mind and will are compromised, next time never is different.
In reality, you are sliding perilously down that slippery slope soon to be out of reach from all human aid.
The Mother of All Interventions
“Sometimes God lets you hit rock bottom so that you will discover that He is the rock at the bottom.” ~ Dr. Tony Evans.
Addicts who have lost the power of choice and are in the pit of chronic relapse are doomed. Unless someone intervenes and drops a rope to get them out, they’re stuck. But sadly, that’s not possible — this dark hole isn’t in our three-dimensional world.
It resides in the addict’s mind, and for a long time, addicts aren’t aware they’re even in a hole. In fact, addicts are convinced it’s them choosing to relapse until one day, they are struck with the stark realisation that this hellish relapse experience is happening to them, not by them.
These addicts are suffering from the full scope and range of this fatal progressive illness that leaves them without a mental defence not to relapse. These addicts need a total transformation of mind, body, and spirit.
They need divine intervention.
Waking up To Reality
“We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.” ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
You don’t have to lose everything to accept you’re trapped. Once you see your powerlessness in-depth, the reality of the addict’s situation, you can get well and still have ‘two cars in the garage’.
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.” ~ Step One from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
If Step One has been accepted 100% in powerlessness and unmanageability, a rock-solid foundation of absolute powerlessness can be built.
When this happens, how you see your life will change as you accept that the terms of your life have changed.
For you to live and thrive, it won’t be solely about you anymore. It’s going to be about others.
The practical solution the Big Book found for getting out of our wants and trying to run the show is to focus on helping others.
It’s not thinking less about ourselves. It’s our capacity to think more about others.
The rest of the steps are there to unblock you to a spiritual experience.
Final Thought
“A recovered alcoholic is someone who doesn’t know why he has stopped relapsing.” ~ Tim Toucan
No one truly knows what’s happening in the mind of an addict.
No one knows whether it is some undiagnosed brain condition that science has yet to pick up on or some fourth-dimensional entity infiltrating our minds. As the Big Book says, ‘We cannot answer the riddle’.
But what appears to be happening on the objective facts alone is, at certain times, there is a lack of memory around the consequences of relapse, a temporary absence of common sense replaced with a delusional fantasy type of thinking.
This is the relapse experience.
When we return to our senses, we are shocked at what we did and believe we will handle ourselves differently by being on guard next time.
This is the relapse cycle.
The relapse experience and cycle are the components of the trap that are repeated endlessly down addiction’s slippery slope until the addict’s last breath.
When we accept what’s going on, get our affairs in order, do the best with what we have, and help someone else, something happens and relapsing stops.
We are no longer in that dark hole of despair and have somehow been transported elsewhere.
How did that escape from the pit happen? Who knows.
But the facts are there to behold: we are in a place of sustained recovery.
If we continue this new way of living, living a principled life filled with integrity, purpose, meaning, contribution and service, we seem to remain recovered.
And who wouldn’t want to live a life like that?
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