One theory claims that addiction recovery is best understood as a grief process, and it is through this lens that we can understand why relapse is so common.
Think about it: Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and - finally - acceptance. Those are the 5 stages of grief. Here's an interesting article that highlights how those stages relate to addiction recovery:
https://medium.com/addiction-and-rec...s-a2e0745097c2