7 Signs You're Headed Toward Relapse | Addiction Recovery 2022

If you or your loved one is having one, any one of these seven thoughts, it is a very, very strong indicator that you're headed toward relapse. Now, we're going to go through these seven statements. They can be, well, statements. They can be thoughts or statements. If you're watching this because you're thinking of a loved one who's struggling with an addiction, you may hear them say this out loud. In fact, pretty frequently, they. The person will verbalize these things out loud. But if you're watching this for yourself, and maybe you haven't said it out loud, but you're having these thoughts in your head, I want you to really pay attention to them because they're very strong indicators. And a lot of times people miss it as a relapse warning sign because none of these are I'm thinking about using, right? These are like precursors. We call them relapse warning signs. I'm going to call them relapse warning thoughts. Okay, for those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your life and your family back on track and get back out there and live the life that you want to live. Now, on this channel, we like to look at things from every angle. We like to look at it from the individual angle and the family angle. And we'll be sure and do that in this video. Video as well. All right, let's get into our seven dangerous relapse thoughts. Okay, the first one is, you start making excuses to put yourself in places that you shouldn't be. Now, it may feel like they're really good reasons. Like, well, I had to go over there because I had to get my haircut and it was on that street. Or I had to go to my cousin Ray Ray's birthday party, because that's my boy. Like, we grew up together. Like, it would be disrespectful not to show up, right? You may feel. You may be telling yourself that you have to, right? You're not telling yourself that you're gonna use that. You're gonna drink, you're gonna do anything shady, but you are making reasons to put yourself in situations or places that you shouldn't be. And maybe you've already started putting yourself in those places or situations and nothing bad has happened. That doesn't mean it is not a morning time, because a lot of times we sort of subconsciously start getting close to it, right? I Like to say, if your addiction can't get you to use today, it plays the long game on you, right? It'll just get you to get close to it, because eventually you get really confident about being in these places because you've done it. You know, you've been to places where people were drinking. It didn't bother you. And so you. You. Your guard gets down, and one day, your addiction will have you in a very vulnerable spot, because you'll be in one of these places on the wrong day, you're in the wrong mood, you've had a rough day, all your willpower is gone, and you just don't have that shield. And so be very, very careful. No matter. Even if it seems like a really, really important reason, seriously think about whether it's a place or situation you should be in. If it is a place or situation that you have to be in. I mean, sometimes you kind of do, like, work situations, stuff like that. Then I want you to think of a plan for how you're going to navigate that situation. In recovery, we like to say. Excuse me. In recovery, we like to say you have to have a plan for how you're not going to use. Just like you had to have a plan for how you were going to pull it off, right? You've got to put time and energy into it. You can't just decide to yourself that you're done with that. You're not going to do it anymore and not put the energy in. Strategy. It takes strategy now. It's not always that hard forever, right? Like, eventually, not using becomes your new norm, but until it does, you have to really be careful. And even if you've been sober a really, really long time, but you find yourself making excuses to go to places you shouldn't be, like, going to the club or something like that. You need to stop and. And check on that. I want you to take it seriously. Don't take it lightly, because addiction is very sneaky. Recovery, they call it. It is cunning and baffling and powerful. Okay? And it will sneak in the side door. And this is one of a. This is like addiction's way of sneaking in the side door. Because it's not trying to get you to use, right? It's just trying to get you to get close to a place or situation where you could use if you wanted to. Right? You got to be five steps ahead of it, and that's what we're doing here today. All right, let's move on to number two. Number two is if you've Got like a life problem. Maybe it's a relationship issue or a work issue or a school issue. And it's building on you. And you're not dealing with it for whatever reason. You're trying to ignore it. You're hoping it goes away. You're building resentments, but you're not taking action to actually solve this problem. That's also a bad sign because you're not dealing. You're not dealing these. The problem, whatever that problem is, it's going to continue to build and build and build. And eventually you find yourself stuck in a rock in a hard place. You find yourself feeling like there's no way out. And then you convince yourself that you kind of like. It's like. It's almost like I have to use or else I'm going to go crazy, right? You, you convince yourself why it's okay because you've gotten yourself in a really bad situation by not handling just regular life problems as they build. Maybe it's a financial problem. Like I said, it can be any kind of problem. But you're not assertively taking action on it. You're just letting it brew and build. Eventually that's going to come to a head, and so I want you to be careful about that. Part of a big part of recovery is about. I call it sanity management. That's what recovery is, sanity management. And this one's all about managing your sanity, taking care of things as you go through life so that things don't build up and volcano in on you. Okay, number three. Number three is you start finding yourself very frustrated with your recovery supports. That could be your counselor, your sponsor, your peer recovery coach, your meetings, your cousin Gigi who always checks in on you. You start finding reasons to distance yourself from the good positive influences in your life. Right? Because like to say, if addiction can't get you to use today, it'll get you one step closer. Or it'll start getting rid of the things over here on this end that are kind of holding you solid, right? Let's get rid of some of these positive influences. Maybe I can't get you to get to a negative influence, but maybe I can get you to get rid of a positive influence. I like to say that addiction is like a lion hunting you down. It wants to get you alone and by yourself and vulnerable, and then it gets you. So if you start finding yourself wanting to distance, I want you to really stop and think about that and ask yourself, why is that going on? Maybe it's a problem or a frustration. You're Having in a relationship a real life problem, and you're not dealing with it. Kind of like back to number two. Now that doesn't mean that whoever is in your recovery supports that there aren't naturally problems there, or that those people are perfect or that there's never a reason to push them away. But when you start finding reasons, reasons to avoid like all or most of your recovery supports, then it's not just a one thing issue. Something else is going on, right? That is taking steps towards the other direction. Number four, this one happens when you get a pretty good amount of clean and sober time in and you get doing really good. And honestly, you forget how bad the situation was when it was really bad, right? And you start remembering the good parts and you forgot how terrible it was. And then here's where number four comes in. And then you start convincing yourself it's okay if you do it a little and you won't let it get back out of control like you did last time. Now, if you're having this thought, this is imminent. You're five minutes away from relapsing if you haven't already. So please do not ignore this one. Like this one is. This one is like, like there's like a tornado watch and a tornado warning. This is a warning, okay? Like this one is like it's on. So when you're having that thought, you're actively convincing yourself to step back into your addiction, right? This is not even a side door approach. This is like a free front door approach. So please take it seriously. Number five, which is similar to the last one, but just a teeny bit different. You start thinking to yourself, well, I never had a problem with X, Y or Z substance. As long as I don't use this one over here, that caused me all this trouble, it's okay if I use that. Now usually that over here, it's usually alcohol or marijuana. It could be anything though, right? Like it could be a prescription med that you had or something like that. But you start convincing yourself why it's okay to start doing something that you used to do when you're in your addictive cycles, because it's not the one thing that caused you all the trouble. Most people that come see me, and it's kind of like a first round of getting help for an addiction. They, they feel like they're, they feel like there's one particular substance and sometimes it is, but, but they feel like there's one thing that's causing them problems. Like they feel like they're only addicted to cocaine, or they feel like they're only addicted to alcohol, but they use all these other substances. But they don't. But those aren't the problematic substances. The problem is all those other substances are still sort of all wrapped up in your addictive behavior and cycles, right? And so when you go back to those other substances, not only are you really running the risk of those other substances become a problem, because there's a big risk there, but you're also sort of kind of like the number one. We said you're putting yourself back in old places situations. If you want to think of it from an old school recovery, playmates, playgrounds and plague things. You're getting dangerously close to the fire, so please pay attention to that one, because it's not usually a good sign. Number six is you start telling yourself that you never wanted to get sober in the first place and that you only did that because whoever over here, your mama, daddy, sister, brother, husband, cousin, police officer, probation officer, whatever made you do it, right? Maybe you've been sober for a long time now, but you start saying, you know what? I didn't even want to do that. I didn't want to get sober. I just did it because I had to. And you know what? You can't be sober for someone else. You can only be sober for yourself. Now, come on, dude. If you have been sober for a while, somewhere in there, you was doing that for yourself, right? So you start to take it back. That's what I call you start to take your recovery back, right? You start going backwards in your thinking and convincing yourself this is another one. It's an imminent warning sign. Like, this is another one that says you are like 10 minutes away from using. So please, please, please pay attention to that one. Don't ignore that, and don't tell yourself that bunch of bull. You may have had to take some steps because you were in a rock and a hard place, but you don't get more than a couple days sober unless you decided somewhere along the way it's what you want to do. And maybe you decided that you wanted to do that, because if not, this bad thing is gonna happen to you. I still. You decide that's what you want to do. That's actually some really good judgment, right? Think I'd rather get sober than go to jail. That's just smart thinking. That's good judgment, and that's you doing it for you. That's you saving your butt from going to jail. Or you just did it because you didn't want to lose Your kids. That's still you doing it for you because you didn't want to lose your kids. So don't start tricking yourself and telling yourself basically like, I didn't mean it, in fact, I never meant it, right? You start taking it back. Don't do that. Dangerous thinking. Number seven. You start telling yourself, like, let's say you're coming up on some kind of like significant amount of sober days. I've got a client who tells me they never get more than two weeks. I got some clients who tell me they, they've never been able to get more than six months or one year or whatever. It's like there's these thresholds in your, in your head that you think that you can't get past because historically you've had lapses around that time or something like that. And you start psyching yourself out, right? Like it's almost like placebo effect. You start convincing yourself that you can't get past this particular circumstance or amount of days or situation because you've never done it before. It doesn't matter, right? Like if you got yesterday, you can get today. If you can get today, you can get tomorrow. So this whole idea of like I never get past this magical window of time, that's just an illusion, that's just a trick you're playing on yourself. Being sober tomorrow is the same as being sober today. It's the same as being sober yesterday. There's nothing magical about that. Now maybe you tell yourself, maybe it's not like amount of days, maybe it's not like 100 day mark or something, but maybe it's more like a, a life event. Like I never can get through the Christmas holidays without using. Maybe this is kind of like a variation of that. Maybe that's your thing is you tell yourself something like that. Here, here's what I want you to know. Number one, don't psych yourself out because probably an illusion anyway. Number two, if it really is the case, then let's figure out why do you always fall during the holidays, right? Because I promise you, there's nothing magical there, right? There's no magical force. That's some kind of force field wall that you can't get through. If there is a practical reason why you don't get through that, maybe it's because you're putting yourself in situations. Maybe you're going to family functions where everybody's drinking or using and that triggers you. So this year you're going to do something different. So sometimes there may be some practical reasons why? There are certain events or situations that usually don't make it through. So. So this time, let's get a different plan on how we're going to make it through those events. Or, you know what? Skip it. If you need to skip it, skip it. I don't care how important it is. I don't care. Because you. You might tell me, amber, I have to go. Like, oh, my God, my family just disowned me if I didn't go. Let me tell you what, if you do go and you relapse and you make a big fool of yourself and you ruin the whole event for everyone, then they gonna disown you anyway. And anyone who cares about you and. And anyone especially who knows what you're doing and that you're trying to, like, be in recovery, they're gonna support you, right? They're gonna be like, man, we wish you were there. But they're not gonna give you a hard time about that. So don't try to convince yourself that you absolutely have to do something. There are very, very few things that you absolutely have to do. And whatever it is, it's not worth losing your recovery over, because then you. You don't just lose your recovery. When you lose your recovery, you lose a lot of stuff. You lose relationships, you lose money, you lose jobs, you lose your freedom sometimes. So whatever it is, it's not worth it. And so don't tell yourself you have to go somewhere or be somewhere that you know you shouldn't be. These are all just mind tricks. These are just sneaky, sneaky ways that addiction creeps its way back in in a mostly indirect manner. Now, there are more of these relapse thoughts, and I'm probably going to make a part two of this. But if you're watching now, what's your biggest, sneakiest relapse thought? Is there something that. That you've experienced before? Has one of these that we talked about today, one of these seven? Has it ever taken you down or taken your loved one down? Have you had these thoughts? Have you said these thoughts? Most people that I deal with have said or done at least one of these. Now, if you find yourself in a situation where you're having more than one of these things going on, like, seriously, pull the alarm, Call your counselor, call your sponsor. Tell somebody. This is when you absolutely need to take action. Don't just be like, okay, I'm aware that it's there, and I'm going to keep it on my inside, but I got it contained. You guys that watch this Channel all the time. You know, I always say addiction can only live in the dark. It cannot live in the light. Light kills it. So if you're having these thoughts and these feelings, turn the light on it. Don't just keep them secret in your head, because when you keep them secret, they have the power over you because they grow. It's like feeding the monster, keeping it secret. It just grows and grows, builds. It adds on other ones, other relapse thoughts on top of it until it has you where you want to and takes you down. All right, let's see who's here. Definitely want to hear about you guys experience with this. Threatening to leave. Any suggestions on what to tell her to change her mind? That's actually a really good question. And I have like a whole video I did. It's pretty good while back. Some of the first videos I made about 10 things your loved one will tell you to get you to come get them out of treatment. I think they're sort of like various layers of defense here, Catherine. The first thing I want you to do is just try to delay it or be neutral about it. Try to kind of like avoid it or say, you know what, let's get you to the end of the week, we'll talk about that. Because sometimes if you can just put it off, it goes away and you can get somewhere. If that doesn't work, then you may have to take a more stronger position. And it may be that, you know, you can say, I understand if you're going to leave, but I'm not going to come pick you up. What I can tell you is, Katherine, do not go and pick a person up. That's leaving treatment against medical advice, meaning they're leaving early and they shouldn't be because that's never a good sign. Okay, so if they're not doing well in treatment, guess what's going to happen when you pick them up? Not good things. And then it's you're. And it's going to be like in your house if you bring them home with you. So sometimes there's nothing that you can do to stop that. If there's anything you can say to leverage the person to get them to hang in there a little longer, positively reinforce the progress that they're made. Let them know you're proud of them. You do what you got to do to try to keep them there. And if it comes down to it, then you have to hold a hard boundary. If you go and pick this person up, Catherine, your daughter, I know it's your Daughter. If you're gonna pick your daughter up, this is gonna happen every time. And next time when she goes treatment, which if she's ama, it'll be a next time she's gonna know that she can talk you into it. And sometimes they, you know, they use that really strong emotional blackmail, which I have some videos on my channel about like they, they. It's almost like they're trying to force you to do it because they're threatening really bad things will happen to them. Somebody else, whatever, going to have to be strong. And I, I would not go pick her up. Let's see. Hey, Meredith. Meredith's watching from Kansas. Hey, Meredith from Kansas. Kevin says. Kevin says. I've been in and out of rehabs for the last five years. I had 25 years clean, but a mess of a life now just can't seem to stay clean. It. It is really hard once you. That's the thing about relapse. It's hard to get the lid back on it once it's off. Right. But you can do it. And I don't want you to psych yourself out because maybe this is, this is one of your psych yourself out thoughts. Let me put that back up here because I'm having some thoughts about it. One of the things that could be. I don't know. Because I don't know. Kevin. So I could be wrong. Kevin. Just a total guess. Okay? But one of the things that could be happening here is when I. When I'm really thinking about the sentence. I have been in and out of rehab for five years. I had 25 years clean, but a mess of the life. So right there it tells me that you're telling yourself that your life when it was clean wasn't good. So that could be like a subconscious thing that's keeping you stuck because you're like, well, life was sucky that way anyway. Another subconscious thing, like I said, this is just total guess here is that you're telling yourself that you can't. That you can't stay clean. It's kind of like that number seven one that we talked about just while ago where we talked about how it's this false belief of there's a certain law you can't get past. Or it's like, well, I used to could do it, now I can't. You got to get rid of all those rational beliefs. If you got 25 years clean, you have massive skills. And if you got 25 years clean and your life was a big mess, then you are like a recovery ninja. So don't let that addiction tell you otherwise, dude, you did it. And you did it for a really long time under difficult circumstances, and you absolutely can do it again. But I kind of have this sneaky suspicion that you're telling yourself that life wasn't even good when you were clean. I could be wrong. Total guess. See, Deborah says my daughter threatened to leave the first few days and ended up staying the whole time. Planning on going back soon. Yeah, I'm glad you. I'm glad you said that there, because usually that first week or two, usually, firstly, they get squirmy, even people that put themselves in, because it gets hard and you get so uncomfortable, right. And you start wanting to leave. And that's kind of a natural response. So if you can just hold it off, a lot of times it gets a little better and it resolves itself. I'm glad you said that, Deborah. Juanita says, love your work, Amber. Your spot on your info really helps. Well, thank you, Anita. You're so sweet. Thank you for the nice words and feedback. Christy says, especially number three and four, those biggies for in you, for you, or for your family member. Kevin says the phone feels £500 when you start craving. I. I think what Kevin is saying here is, is because it's a pretty common practice in recovery to say, like, if you're craving and you want to use, like, call a group member, a sponsor, like, call one of your recovery sports. Is that what you're saying, Kevin? I'm guessing it is. What I would say to that is, you gotta call before you start craving. I know people tell you to call, like, if you're going to use. And I'm not telling you not to, like, totally do it, but most people don't just like what Kevin's saying here. It's like you're done, like down the road, you're done planning and scheming. You done made up your mind, and at that point, you don't want to be talked out of it. And that's why the phone weighs 500 pounds. So you gotta, like, you gotta get five steps ahead of it, Kevin. You gotta get in and get there before you get to that point. Not saying you can't stop it at that point, because I have certainly seen people do it, but it's much easier to stop five steps back. Here's some good news. NPR says my husband is eight months sober. So proud of him. We are so happy for your whole family. That is exciting. Let's see. Christy says, kevin, that's so great. That you're here. I feel like it's a huge step to getting help. You need. That's right. That's right. Christy. The fact that Kevin's here listening to this, this is a big step at fighting against those bad thoughts. This is saying, this is a way of getting ahead of them. Right. Because you're. What you're doing when you do this is you're putting yourself around the right influences. It is the opposite of putting yourself like we talked about, number one, like in places you shouldn't be. This is putting yourself. You're putting the right thoughts in your brain and you're. And you're putting yourself around the right supports and people to get your thinking straight. So this is. Being on here is like the opposite of a relapse running sign. So you should definitely give yourself mad points for that. Let's see. Oh, look. Sue says. Wait. Oh, that's. I clicked the wrong one. Sue says that she is. It keeps moving on me. There it is. Hey, Andre, Love your show. I'm two months sober. Hey, thanks for being here. Sue, tell us your secret. How did you get those two months? What's the most important either thing you do or thing you had to change? What's the most important thing you would tell someone else who is less than two months over and. And they're trying to get there? Sally says we can do it. A family member is resisting to get help. I know personally for myself, enough is enough. I've learned to ask for help. It's sad to see when my son struggles. I know the struggle. I think Sally's relating. Thank you, Sally, for those words of encouragement. Carolina says Amber's video is so helpful. I'm going through this with my partner and it's just terrible. The anxiety that comes with the release. A family member definitely feels it creepy onto. Oh, yeah, I'm glad you said that, Carolina. Because the family member is picking up on it before the person is conscious about it. Because a lot of times you're having these thoughts. The reason I wanted to do this video about these thoughts is because they're, they're kind of below the consciousness. It. At this point, most of the time you're not really thinking you're going to use. You're not planning. You're not there yet, but you're a step or two away. And you're right. Like a lot of times the families, they, they do see. But, but when you see it, Carolina, even though it's screaming at you, there are like red sirens and alarms going off and you Want to, like, force that person to see it. You got to be very careful because you're dealing with a person that's already kind of, like, fragile, and then they're already a couple steps away. And if you start harping on them, that's going to give them the excuse they need. Not that it's your fault, but in their mind, it's going to be like, well, you always think I'm using anyway. I might as well go use. Like, they're going to use it as an excuse to make a bad decision. So your job as the family member is to keep your cool and keep your recovery and keep doing all the good things in place. That's the best thing you can do to help your loved one. You might even be tempted to send someone this video who's like, actively having one of these thoughts and be like, see? Amber says, just to relapse one time. Don't do that because that's going to be offensive. Right? Y' all know I love to share my videos. Like, share them away. But don't. Don't send my videos as a. A poke and a way of saying, see, I told you so, right? Don't do that. That's not a good. That's not a good relapse prevention. If you're going to send a video of mine to someone and say like that, send one that they're going to like and then work them into maybe hearing the harder ones. Okay, let's see here. Sue says I have to keep busy during the important hours when I used to drink. Great skill. I joined a gym and have a video game that makes me use my brain. Takes my mind off everything. A great tool adults can use games to keep brain recovery. I love it, sue, if you. It's easier to decide what you are going to do and put something in your life than it is to focus on what you're not going to do. And that's what Sue's. That's Sue's advice to us here. She's saying, get a plan. Don't leave yourself a lot of, like, leeway and options. Don't make it. Don't give it an opportunity. Keep yourself busy. Have plan on how you're going to do that. And as you're doing that, when you do that long enough, you retrain the pathways in your brain and you have new automatic habits and it gets easier and easier. So please take Sue's advice. It is good advice. Sherry says, not going to use it as a poke. Not going to use the videos as well. Don't do that there. Says, I see my daughter pull away every time she relapses. I make sure we are reaching out and letting her know I'm available when she wants help. I know what you're talking about, Deborah. Like, even with clients, I can feel that happen when they're either thinking about relapsing or they've relapsed. So they haven't told me. Like, you can feel it as someone that you know really well. Like, I probably wouldn't feel it if it was like a brand new client because I don't know them well enough. But like Deborah's saying, like, when you know someone really well, you just know their patterns, their energy, the way they breathe, and you can tell when it's off. All right, everybody, thank you so much for joining me. I do want to tell you that next week I have a special premiere video for you that's coming out. We actually have, and this is from one of our viewers, one of our viewers that said that they were willing to be on video and help another person out. We actually have a viewer and her husband who agreed to do a video on how they got sober together using medication assisted treatment. So next Thursday at 1. It's like a special premiere. So don't miss it. It's a pretty miraculous story. We'll see you then. Oh, up next, more on prevention. Forgot to say that.