Recovery Can Include Relapse
Nov 14, 2024
“I can’t believe I did it again. The last time was supposed to be the 'last time.' Why do I even try? It feels like I will never overcome this addiction. I feel so stupid. I can’t believe I screwed up one more time. I had the filters in place. I was doing what was right.”
These words were followed by an unfathomable concept.
“What if you were grateful for your relapse instead of beating yourself up about it.”
“What are you talking about? How could I ever even imagine being grateful for the thing that is ruining my life? Seriously, you want me to be grateful that I looked at pornography?”
“No, not grateful for the pornography, grateful for the message that came with the relapse.”
“You’re not making sense.” (The shame was almost overwhelming at this point)
“Yes, pornography is destructive. It damages the brain, our relationships, and destroys our peace. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is getting down on your knees and praying in gratitude, not for the porn, but for the relapse.”
“This relapse is killing me. Why would I ever be grateful for it?”
“Because you just got one of the greatest gifts you can ever be given. You just got the exact location of the place you need to start digging in your soul. You just got a pin in your own personal map to the exact GPS coordinates you need to drive to and start doing the work. For this, you can always be grateful. You can always say thank you for this pinpoint knowledge of where you need to start digging up your demons. You now know where to start healing.”
That’s when it all changed. The relapse became a way to heal instead of a shame bomb that spiraled out of control. I didn't have to believe the lie of sobriety anymore that if I relapsed my worth is reset and I “should” be ashamed. Sobriety is the Counterfeit of Recovery. Sobriety is not about true cleaning out our souls. it is about suppressing the demons still trapped inside.
Nothing illustrates this better than one’s relationship with relapse during sobriety as opposed to one’s relationship with relapse during recovery. In order for true and complete recovery, sobriety can not be the end goal because it alone cannot provide complete healing. Let’s take a look at the definition of sobriety to see why that is.
The Definition of Sobriety
In the words of Todd Sylvester, host of “Beliefcast”, sobriety is “the time between relapses.” Sobriety defines your success and your worth by how long you can refrain from using or engaging in the addictive substance/behavior until you slip up again. In other words, your worth hinges on the amount of time you are able to suppress the demons inside until one finally slips out again. Sobriety is marked with bookends of relapse. Sobriety anticipates and even expects relapse and also says your “Worth Clock” now has to reset at 0:00. This is not a sustainable way to live.
Please understand, it is incredibly difficult to get sober and stay sober. If you are someone who has made or is making the effort to stay sober, I commend you for your strength. Keep the momentum and never stop striving. At the same time, please know there is a better way that doesn’t have to involve a daily battle.
It Gets Easier (Because of What Happens During Recovery)
Many people healing from an addiction put in the effort to get sober and are discouraged by how difficult it is to stay sober. It’s common for people who have been sober for years to still struggle every single day to maintain their status as “sober” and get their next coin at the SA meeting. They think that because of their past decisions, they are now convicted to a life sentence of imprisonment to addiction and hard labor. They feel like they have to live with the terrible effort of running from the urge every day for the rest of their life. You may feel this way right now.
This simply isn’t true! When the need for the behavior disappears the behavior also disappears.
Our Relationship with Relapse
As mentioned earlier, In a sobriety mindset, your success hinges on your ability to avoid relapse. Once you relapse, your progress resets and you start back at square one. The stopwatch button is pressed and you go back to zero. Relapse is often devastating to someone who is sober. It may cause them to feel like a failure and discount all of the work they put into staying sober, and they may even give up on the healing journey entirely. You may have felt that after a relapse all of your hard work disappears the second you stumble. Time to reset the clock. 0:00
That does not mean that sobriety isn’t important. The entire goal of healing is to remove the need for the behavior rather than just changing the behavior. The focus is on a very different spot. Sobriety is important especially for the first two weeks to two months when the dopamine dependency cycle is resetting. However, what isn’t helpful is measuring your healing in terms of intervals of sobriety. The behavior is not the issue. Pornography could be replaced with drinking, drugs, gambling, shopping, excessive exercise, etc... etc... etc.. The issue is not the pornography. The issue is the emotion that is driving the need to look. What event in your past created a belief in you that is so hard to deal with that it is easier to distract and numb instead of facing it? What false narrative are you telling yourself that drives the behavior of looking?
Addiction is a symptom of an underlying problem with shame and pain avoidance. A person’s amount of and relationship with shame is a main driver for the need for the addictive behavior. So when we are in the sobriety stage, we are measuring our success by our ability to suppress our symptoms and we don't address the real issue, the emotions, at all. That is why sobriety can not be the end goal.
Relapses are Pins in Our Healing Map
When in recovery, relapse is not devastating like it is in sobriety because it doesn’t signal a failure. Instead ,those in recovery find gratitude for the message that comes with the relpase. Sobriety is destroyed with a relapse. Recovery is enhanced with a relapse.
When someone in sobriety experiences a relapse, they often continue to spiral and have a very difficult time picking themselves back up to try again. Recovery is different because success is defined in terms of healing, not by a timeframe of avoidance.
During recovery, relapses act as helpful landmarks that help us to identify where we need to be focusing our energy. The triggers put up flags within our hearts where demons are still lurking like push pins on a map so we can turn to that location and dig up the shame.
The way recovery works is by identifying and facing our shame and pain. We pay attention to what kinds of things trigger us and what kinds of thoughts we have about ourselves when triggered. Then we pull those thoughts out into the light and make peace with them. This is done by admitting the wrongs without shame, then reframing the thoughts.
Recovery is the practice of making peace with our shame by challenging the validity of its attacks on our worth and replacing them with a more compassionate narrative. I like to go to call this “Inviting my Demons to Lunch,” similar to a tale about Buddha told by Tara Brach called, “Inviting Mara to tea.”
Inviting Mara to Tea
In the story, Buddha is working hard to transcend. Each time he is about to transcend his enemy Mara, a demon god, attacks the Buddha preventing him from his transcendence. The Buddha's assistant, Ananda, sounds the battle cry each time he sees the terror approaching and they pick up their weapons of war and ward off each strategically timed assault. This prevented the Buddha from the enlightenment he is seeking so diligently to find. One day, Ananda sees the "Evil One" galloping towards them with weapons brandished high. He runs to tell the Buddha, who is wonderfully near his goal -- it is time to once more fight off this unrelenting knave. This time the Buddha does not pick up his swords and scimitars but rather instructs his attendant to invite Mara in for tea. In an astonishing turn of events, he then he sits down with Mara and serves him as an honored guest and says, “I see you.” He accepted Mara into his home. He acknowledges Mara just as he is still holding the weapons of doubt, shame, fear, lust, and greed. By accepting him he neutralized the threat and creates an emotionally safe place in which he could finally transcend.
By acknowledging Mara and the intentions behind Maras's prompts for anger and doubt, the Buddha dismantles Mara’s attack with compassion and understanding.
It works the same way with our own demons that try to attack us with shame. When we acknowledge them (“I see you”) and understand why they feel the way they do, and how they are actually trying to protect us, we can use compassion to let their harmful beliefs go.
Relapses show us exactly where our demons are hiding. And because of that we can be grateful for our slip-ups and use the information they provide to accelerate our healing. Your relapses do not define your worth, they only define the work ahead of you.
So, the next time you find yourself struggling, consider pausing. Invite those difficult feelings in, ask them what they’re here to teach, and let your relapse guide you toward deeper healing. Your worth doesn’t start over at zero—it grows every time you choose recovery over shame.
Are you struggling to heal from a pornography addiction? Join our addiction recovery program, starting January 8th. Recovery is within your reach.
