Every once in a while, there’s a story that hits the local news about someone who managed to quit their addiction cold turkey. You may have even encountered individuals from your loved one’s own support network who have managed to stay sober for months or years.
Referencing these success stories, you may wonder why your spouse, child or parent hasn’t been able to hang on to their recovery. Why do they keep relapsing? In your loved one’s case, they may be suffering from chronic relapse.
In this post, you’ll learn what chronic relapse is, why your loved one is struggling with recovery more than others and the solution that’s available to help you help your loved one get their recovery back on track again.
What is Chronic Relapse?
Depending on how often it happens, your loved one’s relapses may be routine to you now: They attend addiction treatment for a month or two, and you’re able to rest easy knowing they’re in a facility where they can’t drink or use drugs. They return home, looking better than they did before entering rehab, and make promises about their sobriety. Within days or weeks, though, they’re back to drinking or getting high, claiming they can’t deal with everyday life.
This is what chronic relapse looks like – when a person struggling with addiction has attempted and failed multiple times at staying sober. The question now is, why does your loved one struggle like this while others don’t?
Why is My Loved One Struggling with Chronic Relapse?
Relapse isn’t easy for those on the outside looking in to understand. From your perspective, you see your loved one turning their life around and getting better. So, why in the world would they ever want to lose themselves to addiction again?
Addiction is a Disease
First and foremost, it’s important to remember that addiction is a disease. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction is a “treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment and an individual’s life experiences.”
Your loved one is struggling to live with a disease similar to that of cancer, heart disease or diabetes. If you’re able to develop and maintain this mindset, you’ll be able to empathize more with your loved one and support them in their recovery.
Genetics and Environmental Factors
You should also keep in mind that every individual responds differently to addiction. Growing research has shown that genetics play a major role in addiction. Your loved one may struggle with their recovery more than others partly because of their genetics.
There are also environmental factors that can contribute to your loved one’s chronic relapse. Consider the following questions:
• Does your loved one still converse with people who drink or use drugs?
• Do they work a job that doesn’t make room for a healthy work life balance?
• Have they struggled to build and maintain healthy friendships and relationships?
Answering “yes” to even one of these questions may indicate that outside stressors are dragging your loved one back to substance abuse.
Inefficient Addiction Treatment
Another possibility for your loved one’s chronic relapse is the addiction treatment they’ve received. Not all addiction treatment programs are created equal; different facilities offer different levels of care and expertise.
That’s not to say that the addiction treatment center your loved one went to isn’t credible or effective. However, it may not have had the right approach your loved one needed or your loved one may not have had enough time to truly get to the bottom of their substance abuse and develop healthier habits.
No matter what the case may be, your loved one shouldn’t give up on addiction treatment. They just need to find the program that’s best for their unique addiction and recovery needs.
The Raleigh House Offers Hope After Chronic Relapse
Relapse doesn’t make your loved one a failure. In fact, relapse is simply a small part of the recovery journey. No matter how many times your loved one has relapsed, we can help them get their recovery back on track at The Raleigh House.
We have over 10 years of experience helping people like your loved one recover from addiction. We follow a gold standard of continuum of care with various levels of treatment to ensure your loved one has enough time to recover and develop effective relapse prevention habits.
We also take a dual diagnosis approach to treatment, which means we address underlying mental health challenges. If your loved one is struggling with depression, anxiety or trauma, we’ll uncover that and help your loved one discover healthy ways to cope that don’t lead back to alcohol or drug use.
The faster you can get your loved one back into addiction treatment, the better off they’ll be. Contact our admissions team today to learn more about our treatment approach and find out how to get your loved one started.
