What make someone in recovery return to old habits and how can relapse be avoided?
Addiction is a complex disease, and the riddle of relapse is equally difficult to unravel. Why does someone who seems to be successfully working a recovery program and has all the necessary head knowledge about how to avoid falling into old habits end up using again?
Obviously, if it was just a matter of looking at the facts and weighing the dangers, no one would ever use in the first place. But substance abuse is much more complex than that. Relapse doesn’t start once the substance is first used again. It starts long before that and is marked by a series of behaviors. Addiction specialists Terrence Gorski and Merlene Miller collaborated on the development of eleven phases of relapse: (more…)
DJ AM had been working on an MTV reality show that helped others struggling with addiction when he was found dead of a suspected overdose. 
For medical professionals battling substance abuse, going back to work can make them the proverbial kid in the candy store. It’s the equivalent to sending a recovering alcohol back to their job as a bartender. This factor is believed to play a role in the increased relapse rates among healthcare professionals. After all, they’re surrounded by the very substances that were the problem in the first place.