Relapse Claims a Great Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Usually, on this blog, I post informative pieces about the latest studies and trends in addiction recovery. I write about new therapies and treatments for addicts, especially those who are early in recovery. But today, I am sad about the unexpected passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman – because his death illustrates something that few addicts with a lot of clean time like to talk about – relapse.
While it does not have to be, relapse can be part of the addiction recovery process. Certainly, early in recovery it is expected, especially among those who do not receive the highest quality of treatment and all the support services of a 90 day or more, evidence-based residential treatment program. In therapists’ offices and the rooms of 12 step programs, discussion of relapse in the first few years of recovery is a daily occurrence. This is to be expected. In the addictive process, the brain becomes hard-wired to want its drug of choice no matter what the obstacles. Addicts experience this as “craving.” It is terribly hard to resist.
What we hear less about are those who have fifteen, twenty, or thirty years of recovery and then relapse. It happens, but it’s not something anyone wants to discuss…most often, because it means that we will likely soon attend a funeral. Those who relapse after a lot of clean time frequently die before they make it back to recovery.
Why? Wouldn’t someone who has spent decades in recovery have a commitment to recovery that a newcomer could not imagine? Wouldn’t that desire to be sober help a person with long-term recovery overcome a slip?
Sadly, the answer is no. Sober time decreases tolerance to a substance and age changes the body so that it is perhaps less hardy and able to tolerate the abuse it could when it was younger. At the same time, the addict’s brain will always be wired to want the addict to use at the same level they did when they stopped using previously. In my case, I was a two-liter-of-hard-liquor-a-day drinker when I first tried to get sober at the age of 22. Now, at over forty, if I was to pick up again, my brain would tell me that I’m still a two-liter-a-day drinker, but my body could never handle that kind of liquor intake. It wouldn’t be long, probably a few weeks, before I died. With heroin, the process tends to be a little faster. Addicts with a lot of clean time who relapse on heroin often die in no time at all.
What’s the solution? When someone with a lot of time in recovery relapses, they must immediately swallow their pride and seek out quality treatment – not a few days of detox – but a long-term support program that is multifaceted, allowing the addict not only to regain a foothold on recovery, but to help repair whatever issue caused the relapse in the first place. Sadly, too few addicts will go to these lengths, and we have witnessed once more the terrible result.
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