Lapse vs. Relapse
 

This question is nagging at me. My son has been seeing a MAT provider (Medication Assisted Treatment) and as anyone following my posts knows he is early in his sobriety and has drank several times. When he drinks it is the same volume as before but it will be for a day and then he starts again. I recognize that he is white-knuckling his way to a new personal best for how long he abstains. His MAT provider said to him that he doesn't consider these relapses but more like a lapse (his words) as a relapse would be "Where's (my son's name)"? I understand the encouragement. I understand that they are likely used to seeing relapse lasting for extended periods. However, I feel like it's saying that this is ok and that really bothers me. I'm watching him try so hard but I'm also watching him struggle so hard. This week he sees his MAT provider, his therapist, and his PCP (labs again) so he'll stay sober for that---and I will not be at all surprised if he drinks after. This provider has helped in many ways but I feel like this "it's ok to fall" thing is telling him it's ok to take a break from the hard and drink and I don't think it is. Am I not seeing something here?

While I tend to align with your way of thinking, in the end it probably isn't making a difference in whether he drinks or not. Until your son can learn healthier ways of coping with difficult situations, drinking will be his go-to solution. If what his MAT provider is telling him encourages him to keep trying, great, but I doubt it's having an effect one way or the other against the addiction.

I see what you mean, lapse, relapse, I suppose technically he's right. Now whether that's helping your Son or not is negligible. If you just apply this kind of treatment to anything else, you can imagine how well it's working.

Say you wanted to lose 20 lbs and had this group for support and you ate cake all day between visits or sessions, but only ate salad on the week or days of sessions. It's kind of a hamster wheel, are you making any progress, are you seeing a new way? Or is this just a way to keep everyone off your back or give you the illusion that you are making progress?

Seems doubtful, but hey, maybe this provider is great at what he does. How long has your Son been at this? I understand your concern, if this carries on long enough he might give up the will to continue since he appears to be making little to no progress (whether that's true or not, I don't know).

Maybe this type of support isn't helping, but that's his decision. Maybe you could ask him if he feels he is getting the support he needs.

I agree it might be helpful to ask if he's getting the support he needs.

Treatment philosophies may differ, and some things work better for some than others (for example, 12 step based programs are fairly useful and universal, though there are a few steps with which I personally struggle as I am not Christian and don't understand some of the Christian - based thought).

However, as far as the science behind addiction, in my understanding, it is all or nothing. Yes, it's expected that people in recovery will slip. But to normalise this by assigning word semantics, I think this does a disservice to the clients, to allow them to think they can have 1 drink here or there and that it won't affect their overall recovery.

We all know this is not true.

Urgh, writing with my alkie hat on, in some recovery circles you hear all sorts of b/s about slips/relapses/whatever fancy word they want to use.

Is all b/s. An alkie has to stop drinking 100%. Simple as that.

I have heard deluded alkies convincing themselves that if they have say 10 days quit, then drink, they just deduct the one day and carry on as if it is 11 days or some old nonsense.

All part of the alkie mind games.

Recovery looks like - no drinking and working hard at your recovery program. Changing attitudes and outlook on life, not juggling about with daft word games.

:c015:

The big problem with continuing to drink at all is the addiction retains it's hold on us. Meaning it is our means of coping with emotions and other life events. As long as we are doing that we are not emotionally healthy - we are in our addiction. And we also can't effectively work on other disorders like anxiety, OCD, codependency if the primary coping method is a substance. Not gonna work and I had decades of experience.

Thank you all so much. That was a great point to ask him if he feels like he's getting what he needs. Yesterday was his appointment and it was the perfect storm of everything going wrong (nothing life shattering) and I did ask him--he said yes. I am not so sure that he knows what he needs. Someone asked how long he's been at this---not that long, just 2 months. I am personally of the mindset that the verbiage game is not healthy or productive, but this isn't my journey and I have to stay in my lane. It seems when I ask questions he pulls back. I read in another thread yesterday that no matter how caring you are, you will be the enemy because you are standing between the alcoholic and their alcohol and I think there is truth in this. He's truly such a sweet young man sober and he doesn't do or say anything angry or resentful to me, but I am his mom and I can read him from a mile away. It is difficult to stand back but I know I have to let him find his road to recovery (I can't set him on it). I appreciate your thoughts on this.

One hundred percent agree with peaceful on this.

once we dip our toes into sobriety, we have only two modes: relapse or recovery. Any additional “terminology” such as “slip,” “lapse,” etc. are synonyms for relapse.

another old chestnut folks like to toss around us, “relapse is a part of recovery.” I hate that one, it’s actually detrimental to folks genuinely looking for a way out of addiction. I fell for it myself. Relapse is not a part of recovery. It’s a setback that sucks, not something to be shrugged at as inevitable.

hugs and prayers for you and your son, that he finds his sober path.

yeah, I'm with all the other recovered alcoholics posting on this thread.

"Lapse/Relapse" - it's all just drinking.

I'd say stay out of it, though. It's his sinking ship that he's gonna have to bail out, bucketful by bucketful.

Let the MAT team do their thing. They are trained in dealing with individual issues.

I'm going to also say that parents can make things far far worse by trying to discuss it...upbringing is oftentimes part of the whole package deal with substance abuse. You're too close to this and emotions can run very strong.

Anger and shame are huge for alcoholics, and no one can unwittingly say the wrong thing like a parent. My mother could bring out the very worst in me.

I’m not a former addict myself (just an LO) but I have noticed that in several programs, the language/attitudes at the start of getting clean/sober do change over time as the recovering addict gets able to handle more.

For my brother and husband, at the start of their recovery there was a lot more talk of being “powerless” to the addiction and “one day at a time.” I think the goal is to make sure a setback doesn’t become a COMPLETE derailment. Kind of like with the diet metaphor, making sure you don’t vilify “breaking” your diet so much that one mistake triggers a whole binge or even giving up on the diet. A lot of my loved ones who battled addiction had tendencies to catastrophize, so if they did one bad thing it meant they were a “dirtbag, terrible person” and it became an excuse to do ALL the bad things such a dirtbag person would do.

For instance, there’s a reason making amends ISN’T the first step of the 12 steps. There can be so much self-hatred early on that it can be overwhelming without a lot of grace/forgiveness. I don’t love watching/being part of this stage of healing because I saw a lot of “not taking responsibility” for themselves from the outside. In hindsight, I realized if they had to really face taking responsibility for their actions during active addiction and even now, they might crumble. Programs often try to build up a person’s coping skills/emotional stability first before throwing them in the deep end of honestly facing their past.

Whoops, meant to start a new thread and posted here instead. Changing that!

This makes so much sense and it was not a perspective I considered---thank you so much!