In my many years in program, I’ve witnessed thousands of people dealing with relapse.  And there was a while where list also included myself.  At times, I was in the middle of a devastating relapse.

In the ensuing years, I have studied and written on the topic of relapse, and shared at length about this at Retreats and Workshops in many places.  Perhaps today would be a good day to take some time to write on it some more.

When I was in the middle of my relapse, my disease had a firm grip on my thinking.  That was not only my thinking about the booze, but also all of my program thinking based on knowledge I had acquired since I had entered program – and not enough of time to truly "get it."

One of the main weapons my disease uses against me are my own character defects.  This is why continuing to work the Steps is crucial to gaining any long term recovery.  In particular for me were two glaring defects:  immaturity and narcissism (called self-centeredness in the Big Book).

How does immaturity play into our disease’s plan?  Simple – we want what we want when we want it.  Before program that meant we wanted to drink whatever we wanted, as much as we wanted, but not have it affect our lives.  Once in program we want recovery without having to do the work and we don’t want to deal with uncomfortable emotions without using substances as a medication.

Alcoholics have to give up drinking.  Period.  That's the price of admission.  We have to give the friend that got us through good times and bad.  Often the only friend we could count on to not abandon us.  Booze was the buddy at my side in the foxhole in the war that was life. The trouble is that friend had joined the other side.

My disease wants as much “Mommy Love” as it can get.  “Mommy Love” is different from “Daddy Love,” and has nothing to do with the gender of the person involving in giving it.  “Mommy Love” is that unconditional reinforcement that despite all of the negative, self-harming things you do to yourself says, “it’s okay – dust yourself off and start again.”  I see this a LOT in program and it was said to me many times during my relapse.  The problem was that my disease thrived on that and as a result it grew bigger.  “Hear what they said?” it would whisper in my ear.  “Nobody’s perfect, relapse is part of recovery!  And since everyone is saying that your drinking yesterday was okay, let’s do it again today!”  And my disease would use that as a reason for me to go out again tomorrow – or the next day – or next week.  And it did so many times.

What I really needed was “Daddy Love.”  In both instances, by the way, the operative word is still “love.”  “Daddy Love” says “Yup… you messed up.  And no, it’s not all right that you did, but let’s take a serious look at why this happened.  Obviously, despite everyone’s constant positive reinforcements of your bad behavior, you are still continuing with self-destructive actions.”

In many ways, the hardest thing for program people to do with fellow members that are slipping is to be honest with them.  A constant stream of “It’s okay… don’t beat yourself up” messages might feel good to the person saying them, but are they truly helping the recipient?  Of course, there is truth in what those people are saying – beating yourself up after drinking or using doesn't accomplish much, other than reinforcing already well-entrenched self-loathing.  At the same time, however, we need to remember we’re talking to people with an active disease that will take all of our well-intentioned words and use them against the exact person we are trying to help.

What might sometimes be more helpful is to say “Stop beating yourself up – by continuing to use.”  The drinking today – more than the self-recriminations tomorrow – is the real “beating yourself up” that needs to stop.