Dallas Bragg argues that relapse spirals aren't caused by the drug itself but by the shame and moral judgment people attach to using. When sobriety becomes a test of whether you're good or bad, a single use triggers shame that keeps you isolated and using longer. Treating a slip as a neutral event to learn from, not a moral failure, breaks the cycle.
One reason some of you are stuck in relapse is that you are framing recovery in a way— and you've probably been taught this— that recovery is binary. That when you don't use, that makes you a good person. When you use, that makes you a bad person. And that using is bad, bad, bad, right? It's all in the meaning you make. Of the experience, if you can zoom out and know that whether you use meth or meth or monkey dust or GHB or whatever it is, whether you use or don't use, that is not a moral, moral call on who you are as a person. That does not make you a bad person. It does not make you a good person. You're just a person in recovery. That's all. So when you label using as bad and that, that makes you a bad person, that That's why you spiral when you relapse. That's why you don't go back to the meetings. That's why it takes you weeks to recover and why you isolate and why you punish yourself so badly. It's because using, it makes you a bad person in your mind. If you could just release from the messages you're receiving and know that all life experience is neutral until you place a meaning on it. You are going to be able to, to use, not see it as bad, see it as a learning opportunity, learn from it, and, and contradictively, you stop using. You stop using. It doesn't have to be a statement about who you are and how good you're doing in recovery. It is just part of the journey. That is all it is. Release yourself from the shame and the suffering that's being imposed on you and get recovered.
