After relapse, rock bottom hits faster than before...why?

[missparkles]

Sparkles was wondering why, when she's relapsed after staying clean for a significant time (over a year) she will hit rock bottom a lot quicker? When she first became addicted to heroin it took years for her to get as low as she did, but now she finds this can happen in weeks. Anyone else have any thoughts?
TIA.
Sparkles.

Reputation Comments on this post:

very good points raised

[beena]

Hey Sparkles: SWIM can't explain why it happens but she knows exactly what you're talking about. SWIM's experienced exact same thing and often wondered why that is. SWIM started smoking crack-cocaine about ten years ago with her boyfriend. A few times he went away (either prison or rehab) and SWIM was able to quit drugs entirely whilst he was gone, but then when he got back they'd relapse together: SWIM would often half-joke that he was her 'trigger' (to use 'rehab-speak', lol).
Her addiction seemed real enough and bad enough when they were together but somehow she had an ability to snap out of it immediately and stop using when on her own.
This pattern of behaviour and drug-use went on for a good few years, but then one time SWIM's boyfriend went to rehab off his own back, said he really wanted to get clean this time, (whereas before he was pressured to do it by SWIM - the thinking being that as she could stop without him around, he must be the problem). But ... sod's law ... that time when he went away it was different: SWIM lasted a week before she found herself at a friend's house looking to score, at first it was once a week and then two or three times until she was doing it just as much as if her boyfriend was there with her. He came back from rehab to find his girlfriend still using - that was his recovery fucked ...
Then SWIM made the biggest mistake of her life by trying heroin to come down from crack. So, two or three years ago she got a smack habit to boot.
The thing is though over the ten year period SWIM and her boyfriend have tried numerous times to clean up their act. And they're damn lucky in many respects - SWIM's got brilliant, supportive parents who don't live in England. Where they live is like a refuge to SWIM: it's a small island with hardly any crime or drugs. SWIM and her boyfriend make a bolt for 'home' whenever things get too bad for them in London. Every time they've returned to the city they've relapsed but it used to be that they would last a couple of months perhaps or a few weeks and then when they did succumb they might use once and manage to go another week before doing it again and so on. But recently SWIM has found that they're relapsing the very day they get back to London. SWIM has been away for a couple of months at a time, got clean in that time but as soon as the day arrives to return to London her guts start going, and all she can think about is scoring when she gets back. And if she does mess up, she messes up big-style. There's no more 'i'll just use once' type of thing. Just using one time will set off a downwards spiral of addiction immediately. The rapidity in which she hits the road to the bottom is really quite remarkable(!). It's like she's got no brakes on.
I really think that this is something a lot of people messing about with drugs don't know and should be told: It's like there's levels of addiction. I mean someone might start using drugs like crack and heroin and use every day for six months. Sure, they'll be physically and mentally addicted in that time but it's not the same kind of addiction they'll experience after two years say and certainly not the same addiction they'll experience after ten years. When SWIM got addicted her attitude was like 'well, that's it I messed up now ... I gotta do something about it but it doesn't really matter if I do something now or in a couple of years cos it'll still be the same addiction that i'll have to deal with' ... but it's not ...no way. SWIM can be clean for two or three months now and know that if she uses just once she'll be scraping along the gutter again within weeks.

People say that drug and alcohol addiction(s) are like a disease. Well, diseases tend to be progressive so I guess that's how addiction is too ... it can only get worse.

[missparkles]

Sparkles knows just what beena means. Sparkles will just take up where she left off after being clean for a long time. But it's the speed with which she can get into that cycle of abuse that scares her.
It took fifteen years for her to lose everything because of her addiction, yet when she relapsed after being clean for a few years it only took months for her to be in the same situation. She thought it would take another fifteen years before she hit that rock bottom, it didn't.
Why do we go straight back to where we were, as opposed to going through all of the stages of addiction we originally went through? Sparkles remembers some good times whilst she was using, but she never experienced those after the first relapse. All of the "in between" stages from her first hit to end stage addiction, the desperate stage when everything seems bleak, just didn't happen. It's like her brain, body and behaviour just clicked back to the time just before she quit using. Strange.
Sparkles.
The bige. Sparkles agrees, she always thought that maybe she could control it, just one last time. No...she couldn't. We do lie to ourselves thinking we've kicked the addiction...but we are just kidding ourselves.

[thebige]

swim thinks relapses are a way to ultimately convince yourself that swiy is not really missing out on anything at all..........
As for the rock bottom thing.............its probably ingrained into swiy mind,much like an addiction is.......
swiy will beat yourself into the ground because swiy always had in the past.........
swim would add more but he just got his morning coffee...........

[Spare Chaynge]

purely mental....swiy does it all to themselves..in swims own opinion.

[Spucky]

Are Swiny is asking for Physical, Psychological or even both Reasons?

[missparkles]

All reasons. If the "Spuckster" has any info Sparky would be most grateful.
Thanks.
Sparkles.

[adam7050]

Originally Posted by missparkles

All reasons. If the "Spuckster" has any info Sparky would be most grateful.
Thanks.
Sparkles.

Hi, swim rides the same way. I'd say for 2 reasons:

if it took 15 years to get to a rock bottom point, there were a lot of decisions ,made in those 15 years, slowly but surely things were being done that were never thought he would ever do. When swim relapses, if he's smoked before or injected in the the past, why worry about it now?
(and)
swim sucessfully gave up a 2 pack a day smoking habbit over 15 years ago, and hasnt slipped once, but swim cant spell moderationN. Never relapsed assuming that it was a one time thing, but beating himself up for failing seems to accelerate the addiction, and usage increases rapidly to usually higher and higher levels, maybe also due to some sort of self destructive behavior.

swim knows better and that relapse is part of the process usually, but doesnt seem to help the situation.

[missparkles]

That's so true, all the situations that are agonised on, on the way down, are no longer a problem.
Having felt the guilt, shame, actually believing that you are a useless human being, makes relapse so much easier.
But not less painful.
When relapse happens the negative thoughts come flooding back, and keep you down.
Sparkles always though heroin made her stronger, but it didn't, it made her weaker.
Sparkles.

[cyndi]

Originally Posted by missparkles

Sparkles was wondering why, when she's relapsed after staying clean for a significant time (over a year) she will hit rock bottom a lot quicker? When she first became addicted to heroin it took years for her to get as low as she did, but now she finds this can happen in weeks. Anyone else have any thoughts?
TIA.
Sparkles.

Yes swim hits rock bottom fast, very fast now. Swim was sober for 10 years and then it has been a series of relapses but this time with major consequences every time. It is part of the insanity. Some may be tolerance issues perhaps. In other words one uses the same amount when they probably shouldn't. But then an addict can't use a little and put it up or in swim's experience that is the case.

[Harryblue]

Well I don’t think many will like this explanation but the reality is you are falling from a lower height when you relapse.
When you (not you personally, it’s a 3rd person ‘you’) began your original decent into addiction you aren’t an addict, you had to learn how to do it. A relapse would suggest you haven’t ‘unlearned’ those behaviours and traits, so its much easier to fall again.

Personally I believe in a CBT approach and if you do it properly its like you were never actually a junkie in the first place. Hence if you fell it would take the same amount of time as the first time. It also means you could go back to recreational drug use if you are so inclined without falling, but no one would, because you’ve just reversed the process and aren’t drawn to it.




Harryblue added 0 Minutes and 41 Seconds later...

Originally Posted by Harryblue

Well I don’t think many will like this explanation but the reality is you are falling from a lower height when you relapse.
When you (not you personally, it’s a 3rd person ‘you’) began your original decent into addiction you aren’t an addict, you had to learn how to do it. A relapse would suggest you haven’t ‘unlearned’ those behaviours and traits, so its much easier to fall again.

Personally I believe in a CBT approach and if you do it properly its like you were never actually a junkie in the first place. Hence if you fell it would take the same amount of time as the first time. It also means you could go back to recreational drug use if you are so inclined without falling, but no one would, because you’ve just reversed the process and aren’t drawn to it.

Whoops, wierd font and I can't edit.

[kasbeq]

Originally Posted by missparkles

Sparkles was wondering why, when she's relapsed after staying clean for a significant time (over a year) she will hit rock bottom a lot quicker? When she first became addicted to heroin it took years for her to get as low as she did, but now she finds this can happen in weeks. Anyone else have any thoughts?
TIA.
Sparkles.

Swi sparkles this is so true

This should be taken into consideration if one is having thoughts about using again after a period of staying clean . If a person takes this information into account ,that it will not be like starting from beginning – but you will actually be pickicing up the shit from where you left , it should be a good incentive not to use again EVER

When swim started, it took him a good year to end up with a gram a day habit ,and two years to use IV.
When swim abstains for a long period and relapses , it takes him one week to reach a gram a day habit , and probably three weeks to start IV.
Swim has no idea why is that , he only knows that its true