Amber Hollingsworth, an addiction counselor, explains whether and how people in recovery should disclose relapses. She advises that people should disclose relapses to at least some trusted accountability supports (sponsor, counselor, recovery coach), carefully consider telling family based on need for accountability, and be fully honest about the lapse because secrecy increases risk of a larger relapse. The video frames recovery as requiring honesty and external accountability to prevent gradual escalation.
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Should you or should you not tell on yourself if you have a relapse? Well, actually, the question is a little bit more complicated than that. The question should be, should you tell? If you should, who should you tell, and how much? Which is exactly what we're going to cover in today's video. For those of you don't know me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, addiction counselor, and I'm here to make sure that you have the tools, strategies, and supports necessary to recover yourself or your loved one from the disease of addiction. Because you have a lot to give to the world, and you just can't give it when you're addicted. Okay, so let's first start by answering the question. Should you tell if you've had a relapse? Yes, you should definitely tell, at least some people. And the reason is, is because you cannot recover in secret. I know you're thinking to yourself, it was just one little slip. Like, I'm gonna stop. I don't need to upset everybody. It's just gonna caus. It's just gonna embarrass me. And there's no need to. Don't listen to that. That is your addiction talking to you. Do not listen to that. That is some baloney. The reason it's telling you don't tell is because if just, you know, there's no accountability. And without the accountability, the chances that it is going to sneak back in there and you're gonna have another little slip, relapse, whatever you want to call it, is way, way more. So you definitely need to tell somebody. Which leads us to who should you tell? If you have a sponsor, you definitely need to tell them. Whoever are your accountability people, your counselor, your recovery coach, you definitely need to tell those people. And you're going to have to dig real deep inside and be super honest with yourself about whether or not you need to tell your family. This is going to take some honesty on your part. If you don't tell them, how likely are you to continue to do that? Let's say you have just a little lapse. It lasted one day, you totally regret it, you're gonna get back together, and now it's three weeks later. The problem is that little relapse is still gonna be working on you. It's gonna be talking in your brain about, hey, you just used that one night. Things didn't get out of hand, your life wasn't unmanageable. Maybe you got this now. You see, when you keep it a secret, it leaves room for even days or weeks later for that little sneaky addiction to get in there and start telling you a bunch of lies again. So, yes, to tell it, you need to tell those people who are helpful in your accountability and who, if you didn't tell, would increase the chances that you're going to go out and do it again. How much should you tell? All of it? If you're going to tell it, you need to tell it all. Recovery is a program of honesty, and you need to be able to just put it out there and deal with whatever comes. Because I promise you, whatever consequence you have of dealing with that lapse, if you tell it right when it happens, going to be a lot less than the consequences of if you don't tell it, that lapse is probably going to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and those consequences are going to get huge.
