We all experience fear. The importance of recognizing fear is to know how it affects your decisions especially when it comes to substance abuse relapse. Fear itself has no power. It cannot affect your life unless you allow it to. Fear exists only in the mind. It occurs when we perceive something as a threat to ourselves or others. When we perceive a situation as a threat (whether it actually is or not), fear becomes tenacious and once it gets its tentacles around your mind it can render you helpless. There is only one reason why you have continued to experience substance abuse relapse up to this point. Fear! You have not been convinced you can successfully handle life without alcohol or drugs! You believe something or someone will be able to take something from you. You believe your feelings of loneliness, sadness, or whatever emotion you experience would be too much and too scary to handle without alcohol or drugs. You would be exposed. Your façade would be stripped. You would have no defenses left to buffer your heart from getting hurt by others.  Because of this fear you go back to what you know (alcohol or drugs) and experience substance abuse relapse.  

Think about it. How many times have you been through a program or obtained all the necessary knowledge you need to to avoid substance abuse relapse and quit your addiction, but then ended up using again? Why? Because you didn’t understand everything taught to you about relapse? Because you did not understand the effects of the substance on your body? Because you did not understand the consequences of your using? NO! You knew all this already. It was because of fear! You knew the information, but were not convinced you would be completely safe without your good friend! You wondered how you would handle stress or emotions that arose on your own. You wondered how you would handle a relationship and the closeness. This scares you because to show who you truly are will expose you. To be exposed will open you up for possible hurt. This is unacceptable. So your guard stays up, fear wins and you experience substance abuse relapse.

You have created an image of yourself separate from your alcohol and drug use. You have lied to yourself that "it’s not that bad" or "it is because of….that I use". You know these to be false but can’t deny them because of the justifications and excuses you tell yourself to keep on drinking and drugging and therefore continue to experience substance abuse relapse. To look at what you have become and acknowledge it was of your choosing would be too scary. To own your behavior and choices puts great fear in you. You do not want to acknowledge what you created. To do this, you believe, is to set yourself up for hurt.

You have used alcohol or drugs so long to buffer you from these stressors and emotions that you wonder if you can still face them alone. You doubt yourself and your abilities. How would you handle yourself? Would you be overwhelmed with unwanted emotions? Could I live with the reality that I created this mess? How would I resolve all this? It is safer to hide in a bottle or pipe than face the unknown sober.

This is what fear does when we allow it to. The "great debater of possibilities" confuses and sidetracks us from what we truly want in life. Fear gives us excuses and reasons to remain stuck and immobile. Fear sets us up for an alcohol relapse or drug relapse.  At least with fear we know what to expect.

But there is hope! Like I stated before, fear is nothing on its own. We have to give it power. So how do we deflate fear? How do we overcome our hesitancy to face life on our own and avoid the coninued cycle of substance abuse relapse?

Benjamin Franklin stated he overcame fear by "acting without delay". Ben knew the secret to overcoming fear was to not "sit up in his head". If he allowed his mind to start the great debate of possibilities, then he would be immobilized with fear. He had a goal, knew his destination and with action was able to bypass the doubt in his head.

There is no change without action. The longer you hang out in your head (and think about what you should or could do) the more complicated the "great debate of possibilities" becomes and the more prone you will be to alcohol relapse or drug relapse. Knowing what to do and "talking the talk" will only get you so far in avoiding substance abuse relapse. You must utilize the knowledge you know and have learned in addiction recovery.  You must start acting on this knowledge if you want to overcome fear and go after the change you desperately seek for your life.

It has been awhile now, and most likely you have attempted to avoid substance abuse relapse more than once and to control or change your current addictive behavior. You have used determination and the "white knuckle" approach. You’ve locked yourself in a room or cleaned your house of any temptation that would tempt you to use alcohol  or drugs. You have made promises to family and friends and sworn allegiance to God that if you make it through today without an alcohol relapse or drug relapse, you will never return to your addiction. You have given your will over to others and even admitted you have a problem. You have tried it all and have known for some time now that drugs, alcohol or whatever the addiction is no fun. It has lost its appeal and hasn’t lived up to the expectations you once had for it. You’ve tried everything, but in the end, your addiction wins, you relapse, and you are back to square one, with a whole bunch of guilt and a mess to clean up. What happened? Were your intentions off? Did you really not mean what was promised? Is it as hopeless as you have heard? Was the counselor right when he/she told you denial is strong and the disease powerful?

The struggle most go through when they realize their addiction is getting the best of them and they experience alcohol relapse or drug relapse is very common. This is called ambivalence. Ambivalence is like standing in the middle of the road with cars rushing past you. You are scared for you do not want to get hit, but are unsure which side of the road to go to. You know you do not like the middle of the road, but you have been there for so long that crossing to one side is scary. How will you do it? Will you like the side of road you pick? You question whether you can change and whether your choice of change (to not use alcohol or drugs) will benefit your life. So you stand in the middle, undecided, ambivalent. Although you do not like it there, at least you know how to stand.

Everything we do (at least at one time) we do because it served a purpose for us. Whether to escape or avoid, enjoy or cope, we use things for a purpose. Over time, what happens is we come to depend on a certain behavior pattern (addiction - alcohol or drugs) to serve this purpose for us. Instead of developing appropriate skills to deal with what life throws at us, we become stuck. We start to distrust our own abilities to cope.

Alcohol and drugs serve the purpose of buffering an emotional conflict or life stressor by numbing us. They can manipulate our thoughts surrounding an external event to make us believe that what is before us is not that important. Alcohol and drugs can also shield us from ourselves. When unwanted emotions arise, alcohol or drugs can deceive us into believing the emotion is not that extreme thereby rendering us helpless to resolve it.

The choice to use alcohol or drugs in essence allows us to take back what we feel we cannot control. When the job is stressful, the spouse is yelling and things just feel like they are slipping out of reach, you can grab a hold of your substance and deceive yourself into believing you have regained some normalcy or control.

You may begin to realize you are avoiding what needs to be addressed, but are unsure if you want to venture too far away from your safety net (alcohol or drugs). Your uncertainty that giving up alcohol or drugs will positively impact your life creates your ambivalence.  When you are ambivalent you set yourself up for substance abuse relapse.

This is ambivalence.  This is substance abuse relapse.  It is the uncertainty that changing will positively impact your life. You remain stuck, immobile and indecisive. You are conflicted about the perceived benefits that alcohol or drugs give you and the fear that changing may not positively impact your life.