96. How to Prevent a Relapse: Understanding the 3 Stages of Relapse in Addiction Recovery

In this episode of Unhooked: The Breaking Porn Addiction Podcast, host Jeremy Lipkowitz discusses the three stages of relapse—emotional, mental, and physical—and provides practical tips to prevent them. This special episode, inspired by a listener's request, emphasizes the importance of early detection and intervention to maintain recovery. Learn how to recognize warning signs and develop coping strategies to stay on track. 

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

00:28 Supporting the Show

01:26 Understanding Relapse in Recovery

04:19 Listener's Request and Importance of Relapse Stages

08:02 Emotional Stage of Relapse

10:58 Mental Stage of Relapse

15:35 Physical Stage of Relapse

17:36 Tips for Preventing Relapse

22:29 Conclusion and Listener Engagement


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ABOUT JEREMY LIPKOWITZ

Jeremy overcame addiction, shame, self-judgement, and depression in his early twenties with the help of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness not only helped him let go of destructive behaviors, it also allowed him to connect with deeper meaning and purpose in his life.

For the past 10 years Jeremy has been teaching mindfulness and emotional intelligence practices at universities, recovery centers, and companies throughout Asia and the US. He holds a Bachelors and Master’s degree in Genetics and Genomics, and spent several years at Duke University working towards a PhD in Genetics & Systems Biology before he turned full-time to teaching mindfulness.

Jeremy is also an ICF certified Executive Coach. As a former scientist and academic, Jeremy has a great passion for bringing his EI based coaching skills into the corporate and professional world. He realizes how powerful & transformative these practices can be for skeptics and senior-level managers. He is known for his calm and grounded demeanor, his expertise in habits and high-performance, and his compassionate approach to transformation.

Transcript

 

Welcome back to the podcast on today's episode. And the three stages of relapse and how to stop the relapse before it becomes unmanageable. So stay tuned. 



 Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to unhooked the breaking point addiction podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz here today with a special episode, a request from a listener to talk about the three stages of relapse.  



before I dive into the content for today, just a shout out for how you can support the show. 

If you want to, the first thing you could do would be to leave a review. If you want to support this show and the work that we do here at unhooked. One of the best ways to do that is to leave a review wherever you're listening. On iTunes or Spotify. It's really does help other people find the show and help spread the word. You can also click follow or subscribe to make sure that you are staying tuned for all the updates in content that we are releasing. 

That's another great way to support the show.  And then finally, if you are interested in getting support, If you're interested in joining the unhooked academy community or getting my one-on-one support through coaching, then go to unhooked academy.com and sign up for a free discovery call where we can see if the program is right for you. And now onto today's show.



 Welcome ladies and gentlemen, back to the show. Today, we are going to talk about relapse. If we're going to talk about recovery. Then we need to talk about the topic of relapse because in some ways, The story of recovery is the story of relapse. Whether it's because you aren't relapsing and your recovery is going well, or because you are relapsing and it is preventing you from.  Deepening your recovery. And relapse is very, very common in recovery. 

And not only is it common in some ways, relapsing is to be expected in the journey of recovery.  And actually personally, when I work with people in my program and in my coaching, in some ways, I actually prefer to see them relapsing while we're working together. Because of the fact that relaxing and then getting back on track is actually a skill on its own. That learning how to get back on track after you fallen off the wagon is something that you can strengthen over time. 

You can get better at it. So that in the future, when you do fall off the wagon, You know how to get yourself back into alignment. And I prefer this rather than, you know, if you're working in a community in a recovery program or with a coach or a therapist and you don't have any relapses. In some ways you might get overconfident and you might feel like you've got it all figured out. 

You've got it all sorted. And then down the line when you might not have that support network.  If you relapse at that stage and you don't have that support, it's much harder to get back on track. So understanding for yourself that if you are relapsing, it's not a sign of failure. It's not a sign that anything is going wrong. In some ways, it is part of the process of learning how to slip up, but get back on track. One of the metaphors that I use with a lot of my clients is just like climbing up a mountain. You know, if you're doing trail running or mountain climbing.  If you're going up the mountain, there are going to be times where you slip. 

You know, you start to slide a little bit, you hit a gravelly patch. You might slip a little bit or fall down. But it doesn't mean that you just let yourself roll all the way down the mountain. What you do when you start to slip is you pick yourself back up and start climbing again. And he don't give up on the fight just because you had a slip.  So that's the same that we can do in our recovery. You know, if you have a slip up with porn addiction or with anything else. Whether it's, you know, trying to exercise more frequently and consistently trying to meditate more. Trying to avoid video games or gambling, whatever it is that you're working on. 

If you have a momentary lapse or relapse, if you slip up. It doesn't mean that you've lost the war. It just means it's an opportunity to get started again.



 So In this episode today, what I want to talk about in particular is the topic or the concept of the different stages of relapse.  So I'm going to talk about the three different stages. And then at the end of the episode, I'm going to share my simple tips, simple things you can do to prevent relapses. 

If you notice yourself starting to slip.  And the idea for today's episode comes from a listener. Who sent in this request? They said, hi, Jeremy. I'd love to hear an episode on the stages of relapse for me, a relapse. Isn't a moment of madness that comes out of nowhere. It's a gradual process that I can normally feel coming on for days or even weeks. The desire to watch porn becomes stronger whilst at the same time. All of those reasons I've worked through as to why she'd give it up, begin losing their influence.  Gradually the momentum increases the balance tips. 

And at this point, a relapse feels inevitable. It's then almost a case of letting the relapse happen in dealing with it. As this feels easier than trying to stop the gradual slide. Which by now has a huge amount of momentum behind it. 

I would love to hear your take on it in a podcast and any advice you have for stopping this slide into relapse before it becomes unmanageable.  So why is it important to understand the different stages of relapse? It's important because contrary to popular belief. Uh, relapse doesn't usually happen suddenly. Or out of the blue. You know, it's not this. Everything's going fine. 

And you're doing totally well then. One thing snaps, and then you just find yourself in a hole. Usually there are many warning signs. There are signals, there are red flags along the way. There is this gradual slippage that builds up steam that builds up momentum.  And it may feel sudden when you relapse, but often this is because of a lack of awareness of some of the signs of slipping. Until you're already sliding down the mountain.  And the key thing here is to understand that if you want to prevent a relapse, each it's much easier. 

If you can pick up on the signs earlier on, you know, when you're starting to slide before it becomes too late. Once you find yourself in the, you know, the grip of that relapse. Once you find yourself. Logged on to a porn site. It is much harder to get yourself off of that slide until you've already acted out.  Now the overall framework for today's podcast comes from Dr. 

Steven Malema. Who's an MD-PhD.  He's a researcher in the field of addiction, also an author of some books and he describes the three stages of relapse. And for him, it's the emotional stage, the mental stage. And then the physical stage.  And I'm going to go through his framework. I'm going to go, you know, using this three stage framework, but then I'll be adding some of my own thoughts and porn specific comments. On each stage. And I just want to start with one thing that he says, he says the goal of treatment. Is to help individuals recognize that early warning signs of relapse and to develop coping skills, to prevent relapse early in the process. When the chances of success are greatest.  

So again, if you want to prevent relapse, It's so much easier early on.  When you're just starting to slide, you know, before you are fully sliding down the mountain, that is when your chance of success is greatest. To prevent a relapse.  So going through the stages, the very first stage of revamps is the emotional stage.  In this stage, Dr. 

Malema says people aren't thinking about using or acting out. But their emotional state is setting them up for relapse down the road.  So understanding something that I've talked about many times on this podcast, that addiction is a response strategy to an unfulfilling life, to stress and anxiety. To unmet needs to trauma. 

So we need to be looking at this emotional side of our life. You know, what's going on. In the depths of our heart and in our mind, in our life, are we feeling.  Unfulfilled are we feeling empty? Are there, you know, big amounts of stress or anxiety in our life that are causing us to want to escape or to reach out to some numbing strategy?  So doctor Malema. Describe some of the signs of this emotional stage of relapse.  And these are some of the signs you can notice. One is bottling up emotions.  Two is isolating. Three is not going to meetings or being in community. Four would be going to meetings or being in community, but not sharing or not participating.  Number five is focusing on others or focusing on other people's problems or focusing on how other people affect them. And then number six is poor eating and sleeping habits.  So the common denominator here, what ties this all together is poor self care. When you're not taking care of yourself, when you starting to let your emotions get the better of you.  Dr. 

Malema says when individuals exhibit poor self care and live in emotional relapse long enough. Eventually, they start to feel uncomfortable in their own skin. They begin to feel restless. Irritable and discontent.  As their attention builds, they start to think about using just to escape.  So this is the inflection point that leads from this transition, from the emotional relapse to the mental relapse. And then when we start. Living this life that is so out of alignment.  It's so out of whack that we are looking for an escape, we start to feel so uncomfortable in our own skin. Right. 

We feel irritable. Discontented annoyed, frustrated, pressed. So we start looking for an escape.  And you might notice that in yourself, you know, this. Feeling of compulsively reaching for your phone for social media, for dating apps for junk food. Anything, but being in your own experience. This is the emotional relapse that we start to experience. 

And again, if we live in that emotional relapse long enough, we start to look for an escape. And that then leads to the mental relapse. This is the second stage of relapse.  Dr. Melendez describes the second stage like this. He says in mental relapse, there's a war going on inside people's minds. Part of them wants to use, but part of them doesn't. As individuals go deeper into mental relapse, their cognitive resistance to relapse diminishes. And their need for escape increases.  So again, notice there's this tipping point, and this is what also the user who requested this episode, talked about. This tipping point where our resistance to the behavior starts to diminish. And our need for the escape starts to increase. You know, maybe that aversion that we have towards porn or towards that behavior starts to fade away. And our desire to escape our desire to numb out. To get away from our feelings starts to increase.  In the framework of the three phases of habit change that I've talked about. In the past, this is where we start to leave the honeymoon stage of recovery. And we enter the fight through stage. So that honeymoon stage is where we're super motivated. 

Things feel really easy. You know, we're just so committed to our recovery, that it doesn't actually feel like a challenge.  But inevitably.  There comes a time where we start to have these doubts. You know, we start to diminish the problem and say, it's not that bad. It's okay. What's the problem. If I do it once in a while, and that's where we enter the fight through stage, and this is what Dr. 

Malema is. It describes as the mental relapse. So some signs of the mental relapse. Number one is craving for drugs or alcohol or in our case porn, or, you know, whatever the behavior it is craving for that behavior.  Two is thinking about people, places or things associated with past use.  Number three is minimizing the consequences of past use or glamorizing past use. 

You know, these are the thoughts. Like it wasn't that bad. You know, who actually even kind of like it, what's the problem with it.  Number four is bargaining. This is where we think of scenarios, where it would be acceptable to use. Right. Uh, you know, maybe if I'm on holiday, then I can use it. Or if my wife's out of town or, you know, all the ways that we bargain with ourselves.  And we're five is lying. Number six is thinking of schemes to better control are using. 

So all. Okay. If I do this secret technique and I only watch porn for 10 minutes instead of an hour, then it's okay.  Um, that's the thinking of schemes to control the using.  Number seven is looking for relapse opportunities where we started scanning our environment. Or our calendar for times where we can act out. And then eight finally is planning a relapse. So again, this stage of mental relapses, all still prior to the physical act of relapse or acting out.  This is where we start laying the groundwork for that relapse. And we start laying the groundwork in the mind, we start, um, Making arguments justifying ourselves. 

So we start bargaining. And.  This is where it's helpful to understand one thing to caveat this, which is to understand that. Having brief thoughts of acting out, having, you know, temporary urges or desires to act out. Is totally normal. Particularly early on in recovery and it's not.  The same as a mental relapse, it doesn't mean that something's going wrong or that you're in mental relapse. 

If you have these temporary urges, that's normal and that's totally part of the process. When you're in the mental relapse, it's more when you have a persistent, relentless thought pattern around using. You know, there's uncontrolled, almost semi constant. Thoughts of acting out or questioning doubting. That's when we start to live in that mental relapse. And again, if we live in the mental relapse stage long enough,  Eventually the walls will crack.  And we shift into the physical relapsed stage. 

This is the actual acting out part. So in the same way of like a dam bursting, if you have a dam holding back a lot of water, Slowly, there might be some cracks forming, but once, once the cracks break open, you know, that damn just floods through.  So this leads to the physical stage, the third stage of relapse. 

And this is when you start using again, you start acting out. From with whatever it is, you're trying to recover from whether it's porn or video games or gambling, whatever.  

Now Dr. Malema. Emma's when talking about this stage, uh, he said something really interesting. He said most physical relapses are relapses of opportunity.  They happen when you feel like you can get away with it. When you feel like you won't get caught, it's like these moments where you suddenly see an opportunity to act out and feel like you're going to get away with it. You might bargain with yourself and say, oh, I'll just do it this once. 

Or this person's out of town or I can just sneak in and do something real quick. When you feel like you won't get caught?  So that is what leads us to then the physical relapse. And that is, of course, what most people understand about relapse is that physical acting out.  In terms of preventing relapse now, standard prevention, standard recovery. Uh, focuses on this, like just say no approach. Which is right at the point before the physical relapse, it focuses on putting all the pressure on yourself, right at that moment where you have the opportunity to act out and where you're just about to do it. And to just say no, at that point.  The problem is, is that once you're at that stage, just before the physical relapse, it's very hard to walk yourself back from it. You definitely can. 

And, you know, part of developing things like your mindfulness practice and learning things like equanimity, these will help with that. That willpower in those moments where you are attempted.  But it's so much easier to walk yourself back. If you can catch yourself earlier on in your relapse stage, in the emotional stage or the mental stage.  So much more robust recovery focuses on identifying and preventing relapse during those earlier stages where it's much easier to take the exit.  So I want to talk about a few of the tips I have for preventing relapse.  The first tip I have, and this is very important is to simply bring more mindful awareness to your life.  When you practice mindfulness, what you're doing is cultivating awareness of not just how you're breathing and breathing in and breathing out, but particularly your emotional state. 

So emotional awareness noticing when you are. Upset when you're anxious, when you're frustrated, when you're sad, when you're feeling depressed, this is a really important thing to start being aware of because you can start to notice. When you actually need to make some adjustment.  Uh, really helpful acronym. Is the acronym halt. Which stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. And so often just checking in for yourself, like. When you are feeling low. Is it one of these things, is it because you haven't eaten enough? 

Is it because you're angry about something? Are you lonely feeling the need for connection? Or maybe tired. Maybe we just need to sleep.  So that leads me to my second tip for preventing relapse, which is focusing on self care. So things like sleeping and getting enough quality sleep in your life. Getting regular exercise eating well.  Being in community, being around supportive people, all the ways that you can support, not only your physical wellness and self care, but also your emotional wellness and self care, your spiritual wellness. So making sure you're being in community, being supported by good people, connecting with friends, those are all things that you can help.



Tip number three. 

And this is particularly when it comes to the mental relapse stage. Is, if you notice that you are starting to bargain, if you are starting to doubt your reasons for. quitting porn or whatever it is. To reflect again on why you started. Oftentimes we lose sight of the initial reasons. Because some of these reasons might be long-term or downstream, they might be. You know how we want to be as a partner in the future, how we want to show up for our kids.  The overall toll, it takes on our time and energy. So again, taking time to remember why you wanted to quit in the first place and then making that commitment. To not bargaining, to not minimizing the use and saying, oh, it's not actually that bad. And to not lying about it. So really just being on the lookout for any of those mental relapse steps. 



Finally the last tip I have for preventing relapse. 

And this is one. That was inspired to bring in today. Because of a recent conversation with a client.  And this you know, relates to that last part about most physical relapses, being the relapses of opportunity, these moments where you feel like you can get away with it. When nobody's going to know.  And the truth is. There are no free lunches. 

You cannot get away with anything.  Not only from other people. I mean, the sad thing is, is that you think you can hide your behavior from other people and you can't.  One of my clients was talking about hiding a relapse from his partner and I pointed out that his partner very likely knew what was going on. 

They can read between the lines, they can read your body language. They know. When you are hiding things from them. And so just to recognize that even if you think you're being sneaky about it, You're probably not. And people are probably knowing, but even if you could hide it from other people, you can't hide this from yourself.  That is the most important thing to remember is that.  

 

that's the law of karma. 

You can't get away with anything

what you do. Has consequences, the thoughts that you think and where you place your attention. It has affects it has consequences. That's what karma is. It's that law of cause and effect.  And we know this now with neuro-plasticity. I mean, there's so many quotes that I love. Neurons that fire together, wire together. The more frequently you use these neural pathways of lust or acting out the stronger those pathways become.  This is related to another quote that I love that. What you frequently think about and ponder upon becomes the inclination of the mind. 

So again, you're just throwing fuel on the fire. When you act out in this way. You can't hide it from anyone.  So I wanted to dive in and just explore these three stages of relapse because I know that it is helpful. To understand, because if you can catch yourself in the earlier stages, when you're starting to slip. It is so much easier to walk yourself back. And to get back on the path of recovery.  So that's it for today. I hope you have enjoyed this episode on the three stages of relapse.  If you would like to request an episode as this listener did today. Feel free to send me a message. 

You can go to my website, Jeremy lipkowitz.com. And find the contact button there. Or send me a message on Instagram or anywhere else and request an episode. I would love to hear from you.  So that's it for today, a signing off from Bangkok. I'm heading off to go play paddle in the heat. I'll catch you guys on the next episode.