We have some of the best excuses ever heard listed right here—not so you can use them, but so you can sit back, take a look at yourself, and, hopefully, laugh a little bit. Staff at the drug treatment programs in Texas helped in putting together this list of Relapse Reasons—because it’s always a reason, it’s never an excuse. Am I right?
What the Staff at Drug Treatment Programs in Texas Think
We’re not making fun of the people who are struggling with addiction. Well, we may not be laughing, but we’re smiling a little, and that’s okay because some of us are in recovery and have been there before.
It truly helps to step back and take a look at yourself, at the person you were before you started attending one of the drug treatment programs in Texas. If you still have occasional moments when your symptoms break through—say you take your Suboxone in the morning and you’re experiencing nausea and cramping by 7:00 p.m.—the doctor will be aware that your dose should be adjusted, or split dosing may be necessary. But it takes a good deal of dedication to your recovery on your part.
So, even though the doctors and nurses who work at drug treatment programs in Texas may understand if you’re not yet at the right dosage level, you can certainly expect them to call you on your bluff if you come at them with some flimsy, cockamamie reason for relapsing. Are you really working your recovery? There’s a saying in the recovery rooms about being clean and living dirty—you’re not actually using, but you can’t break the old habits. You are staying up late. You are socializing with the wrong people. Being clean, living dirty – old habits die hard.
Being Clean But Living Dirty
One guy posted a thread complaining that he couldn’t find work, and so even though he was sticking with his recovery he was going back to dealing. A bunch of people responded, calling him on his dirty behavior—after all, one man posted, what does a monkey do if he can’t sell all his bananas? That’s just what the guy would be doing with the stuff that didn’t sell. And he would be lying to himself about whether or not he really could sell it.
If this dude would just share his woes with his counselor at one of the drug treatment programs in Texas, the counselor could suggest ways to earn money—listing his services as a handyman on Craigslist, for example. Counselors also have access to lists of employers who will give someone who’s been using, but trying to change, a chance, even if they’ve spent some time doing time. Or he might qualify for a social service program.
Self-pity is another surefire road to relapse, another example of wallowing in dirty living while you think you can stay clean. Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink—it’s a famous saying in AA. The people at drug treatment programs in Texas know all too well how self-pity can be just the excuse someone needs for relapse.
And if you’re going to go this route, don’t forget to blame others on the way. Of course it wasn’t you who wanted that hit; it was all the fault of the buddy you ran into after the baseball game who kept talking about old times. What is it they say about people, places, and things?
The Best Lamest Reasons for Relapse
Yup, we know that lame ain’t good, better, or best. But again, chuckle just a little at yourself as you read through some of these excuses, reported to us from the good old folks who work at drug treatment programs in Texas.
- From a man who screened positive for heroin and Suboxone: Someone stole my truck with my Suboxone in it. I was getting sick without my medicine, so I did some heroin. Then I got my truck back, but all my Suboxone was gone. So why did I test positive for Suboxone? Uh—there was one film left.
- From a woman screening positive for benzos: My ex and I both went to our kid’s birthday party, and my ex hates me, so he broke open a Xanax capsule and mixed it up in my mashed potatoes, and I didn’t even know I was eating it.
- My boyfriend and I keep his Xanax and my water pills in the same bottle because it’s easier to carry, and I took one of his Xanax by mistake.
- My dog has a prescription for Xanax from the vet. I gave him a capsule, but he didn’t really swallow it, and he let it drop out of his mouth into my coffee, so I drank it by accident.
- I need another Suboxone script because my mom washed my pants, with the prescription in the pocket.
Eric Clapton’s Excuse for Staying Clean
Do you know who Eric Clapton is? A few decades back he was considered possibly the best guitarist in the world, and your parents or grandparents would still pay good money to see him in concert. He lived rough and he traveled with people who used.
He had bought a guitar to give Jimi Hendrix for his upcoming birthday in 1970—and the day after he bought it, Hendrix died of an overdose. He later jammed with Duane Allman, who played on songs like “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” And then in 1971, Allman died in a motorcycle crash. Clapton retreated into a heroin fog, but came out of it long enough for the famous Concert for Bangladesh—one of the first times that a large group of musicians united for a social cause—and he passed out on stage. After he was revived, he kept playing his music.
He was clean from heroin but still drinking heavily by the time he covered J.J. Cale’s famous “Cocaine,” a song that he viewed as an anti-drug message. By 1984, he was clean and sober—dedicated to recovery—when his four-year-old son, Conor, fell to his death from the 53rd floor of a New York City apartment building. Asked years later in an interview if Conor’s death tempted him to relapse, he said that it strengthened his commitment to recovery, because it would dishonor Conor to use his death as an excuse to relapse. Instead, he wrote “Tears in Heaven.”
Strengthen Your Recovery
If you haven’t started your recovery, you need to get into treatment right away. If you’re addicted to opiates, you should phone one of the methadone drug treatment programs in Texas and find out how methadone or Suboxone can be your gateway to a better life. Don’t dishonor the people you love by blaming them for your relapse. If your mom gets sick, stand by her. If your friends want to use, tell them you plan to stay clean—and they should get clean, too. Talk to the people in the groups at your rehab center or in the rooms for recovery, because in all of Texas the best drug treatment advice comes from other people who have walked your walk and worn your shoes. Live clean, and stay strong.
