What are some signs that my loved one may be relapsing?

B.R. asks: What are some signs that my loved one may be relapsing?

Hi B.R.,

There’s an acronym for the other word for relapse, which is a slip, S-L-I-P. It stands for Sobriety Loses Its Priority. You’ve got an addict who’s been clean for a while, or an alcoholic, or gambler, etc. who’s been clean for a while, who hasn’t been using their addictive behaviour. Things are going pretty well and then… sobriety loses its priority.

I’ve known people who have been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and they know they’re not going to live very long, or they have a loved one who’s received that diagnosis, or they’ve had a child who’s died, and they’re clean and sober in recovery, and they make the choice to stay that way. Even with the most devastating things that could happen to a person, they make the choice to stay clean and sober. I know other people who’ve been clean for a while and who have what we call in the addiction field “a broken shoelace” – some kind of small frustration happens, and they use that as an excuse to use their addiction.

When somebody makes the choice to relapse, what they usually do is they set that up for a while beforehand. They usually start to think about using before they actually do it. They’re thinking that Maybe tomorrow or maybe next week I’m going to use. I’m going to go get what I need, and I’m going to just try to fool mom and dad, and I’m going to use because I want to use. I want to go to the beach and smoke a joint. They are in a place of self-absorption, caring only about what they want – not really thinking about you at all. The signs are things like mood swings, doing things differently than they usually do, starting to sleep all day and use their addiction all night, doing things in more unhealthy ways; it’s rare that you don’t see those signs before somebody relapses.

If you’re seeing those signs, another question you might ask yourself could be “What do we do if we see those signs?” And again, I think the same boundary needs to be set where you’re saying to the person, “We love you. We want you as part of the family. We’re seeing some things that are concerning to us. We need you to take care of this. We need you to go back to counselling. We need you to maybe go to treatment again. We need you to take care of yourself because we love you and we don’t want to watch you be an addiction anymore. We don’t want to go through this with you again. So, you have a choice about taking care of yourself or relapsing, and there will be consequences, good or bad, to either choice. And we love you very much, and we know what we hope you’ll choose.”

It’s the same boundary as you’d set if you’re dealing with somebody who has already relapsed or is in active addiction. If you see this happening, what I suggest is that you don’t second-guess yourself. If you think somebody’s having a problem, they probably are.

All my best,
Candace