Cocaine Addiction and Relapse
Cocaine relapse can happen at different points in the recovery process for individuals. Cocaine is a highly addictive drug that perpetuates a strong physical craving for more. I lived in fear of relapse. Being able to recognize the variety of trigger points and avoiding them helps me steer clear of using again. Without continuing in cocaine rehab treatment, relapse is likely. Alcohol is the most common reason for cocaine relapse.
Getting cocaine addiction advice and learning about the issues that fuel a cocaine craving helped me understand what I was going through. My relapses came in stages:
Emotional responses, management of feelings and behaviors
Triggers like stressful situations
Cravings
In rehab, I learned that certain thoughts and behaviors can lower your resistance to a craving. These “set-up behaviors” can put you in a place where you are vulnerable to a relapse. They are a combination of physical, psychological, and social triggers. Physical set-ups for me were:
Poor diet
Excessive use of caffeine or nicotine
Lack of exercise
Psychological set-ups:
Remembering only the good aspects of cocaine and not all the problems it caused.
Denying the strength my addiction
Believing that using now and then won’t hurt.
Social set-ups:
Lack of communication with friends and family
Socializing with other drug-using friends
Social conflict
Triggers activate immediate craving in me. They deal more with the mental, emotional and even spiritual aspects of certain situations. Intense cravings make me very susceptible to a relapse. I don’t have many friends, but when I experience a craving, I can call a counselor who can encourage me. I know I have turned to Wikipedia and Cocaine Addiction websites to know my enemy better.
What you describe is exactlu what I’m going through, and thanks for being so clear and technical about the various dangers of relapse. I also thought I could have it “once in a while”. Then I found a way to get it very easily, anytime I wanted it. No more need to look for someone. Just a call, a 5 min walk, a short exchange of words and currency-supply and off I went to blow what I always imagined would be the only I’d take that night, just to keep me going on late work tasks. But It never was one only. I always went through the whole thing. Raving mad through the house, listening to techno music instead of working, manically chain-smoking, one sip of wine, one line, one cigarette… The endless spiral… After 12 hours, my nose bleeding,my face half paralized, I would still blow one if I hadn’t finished it all already. Then, the painkillers, the handful of benzo to drift asleep, the 12 hours coma…. The 2 weeks to recover, my nose constantly blocked, people always wondering why I had a cold… 2 weeks to forget what it felt like to feel terrible after, to forget the guilt and feel the need again to make that call… Ohhh, I have a late night project to finish, this will keep me going…. Then same madness all over again. 3 weeks ago, I cut my veins during a come-down. It was a way for me to shout HELP. I went to hospital, emergency, psychiatry…. I am now resting thousands of miles away from temptation… Everyody knows about it. My friends, my family, I have counsellors seeing me twice a week, a psychiatrist every week. I am treated for a bipolarity disorder. The addiction gave me mood swings and severe bursts of anger… I was out of control. Now, the scar on my arm is here to remind me how far it can go, each time I’ll have a craving that will encompass the memory of the down. I’ll look at it and think: no, never ever. When the scar will heal I’ll put a tattoo over it: What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger. Or so I hope.