This was meant to be a comment that turned into an essay.
I’ve walked a fine line between being kind to myself, realizing that I have mental illness, but at the same time not being tolerant (or rather, too tolerant) of relapsing.
Hangovers and the way I’ve dealt with them (isolation, rest) have lent well to having the space to think, to critique the reasoning leading to the relapse and assess whether the galavanting was worth the ensuing pain. The answer is always unequivocally no.
But is it because “the fun is over?” Because you are paying debt owed on something you’re not enjoying anymore? The question must be viewed in a more abstract, “higher order” way: is the fun worthwhile enough to do this in future and take with it the future suffering.
It’s curious how the answer to the question posed that way changes as one distances themselves temporally from the suffering. A week later, the formulation might yield “yes.” What’s changed?
Interestingly, the drinking hangover cycle marches on (in theory) because of the distance in time between the events. The brain’s reward mechanism scarcely connects the two. That, or the reward is so great, the more primitive part of us sees fit to ignore the physical calamity or doesn’t adequately value the social damage endured.
Paradoxically, as we continue forward in time, both the reward and suffering should be conflated, should meld together, and the pain should enjoy taking priority in our all too human recency biases.
So then why. Just as Einstein characterized repeating the same thing seeking difficult results as insanity, any thorough analysis of a relapse would arrive at it being insane (in a folksy sense).
Carrying it out seems a contradiction unless one of our model assumptions are incorrect. Perhaps we don’t always seek to minimize pain. Perhaps relapse is unconsciously (I hope) self-destructive.
I think this notion of pain and pleasure being measurable is flawed. If the particular indulgence is perceived to be your only chance at happiness, even temporary, we may embrace and tolerate significant pain and loss to experience brief nirvana.
It may be that your drug of choice is the only pathway to securing some level of hedonistic pleasure. Recovery, as I’ve come to understand it, is divorcing yourself from being manipulated from within by a reward mechanism that doesn’t understand what it is to be human. That doesn’t value your potential and social capital. That doesn’t play the long game.
A depressed person is susceptible because this cancerous mode of thought, this blindness toward or disregard for the self, has taken root consciously as well as subconsciously. You have to love and value life to not give it away so cheaply. That is why the ultimate expression of depression is suicide.
So to the person that asked about relapse, assuming it’s not insanity, it’s because you aren’t convinced of a reason to live. That is, to “live” in the sense that you believe you can find fulfilment and actualization as a person. As a thinking, feeling, loving human. Being unconvinced of it fosters addiction.