The choice to take the first drink or hit is yours alone.
Nobody made you do it. Although you might not yet know exactly why you did it, you can recount the events as they unfolded, from the moment the idea popped into your head to the split second before you put into your body the substance that you knew would disrupt your life as the craving for more took over. You can then make a commitment to avoid the people, places, and things that triggered the thought that you could use again without negative consequences. This isn't about blame or finding fault. It is, however, about accountability. This is your chance to own your addiction and to take the necessary steps to get back on the path to recovery.

There was probably plenty of opportunity to prevent your relapse right up until the moment you did it.
If only you had honestly shared your thoughts and feelings with somebody in a position to help you—a family member, a recovery coach or sponsor, your counselor, a friend or "fellow traveler" in your circle of recovery, anyone—before the dealer or bartender handed you your drug of choice. Stealth and secrets are a driving force of addiction and, therefore, of relapse. We addicts are notorious for keeping quiet and looking good on the outside even as our brains scream for a hit or a drink and we are falling apart inside. Nobody I know has ever relapsed if he first told the right person what he was about to do. There is nothing wrong with wanting to get high again. Keeping it to yourself, however, can be a deadly problem.

Addiction is an inconvenient illness.
It's easy to resent having to take time out to recover from it. This is especially true after the acute crisis has passed, when you feel better, but you've only just started to put back together what was fractured. It's also easy for the efforts required to stay substance-free to slip further and further down your "to do" list, with kids to raise, a demanding job, school, marriage counseling, summer vacation, a sick parent to care for, the holidays, mowing the lawn, and everything else that life demands and also give us as rewards. You may have altogether stopped making any special efforts in working a recovery program. Look at your calendar in the days and weeks before you tripped up. Take an inventory of what you did the past couple of months. Where were your recovery-related activities? Did you do those things that you'd been told would keep your sobriety firm—for example, practicing daily meditation, attending recovery meetings, reading recovery literature, pitching in to help others?

When we're not actively taking responsibility for our recovery, we're coasting.
"We coast in only one direction, downward," George Weller, an addiction counselor, told me more than once. Even before we get to the point that we take the drink or drug again, we've already lapsed into the same pattern of behaviors that are all about our addictive personality, which is characterized by dishonesty, selfishness, and resentment. When we start acting like the addict of old, we're bound to start using like one. We lose pace in keeping ahead of our illness. It snaps at our heels. Suddenly it catches and then overtakes us. We're high again.

A lot of people relapse because they don't pay attention to what else is happening in their bodies.
Emotional pain and mental illness can blindside even the most committed alcoholic and addict in recovery. If you don't get the professional help you need and then follow the counselor's treatment plan, including taking appropriate nonaddictive medications, it won't be long before you're askew. Once out of balance, you'll lose perspective and know those feelings again that you were medicating with alcohol and other drugs in the first place. This is also true if you suffer from physical ailments, such as high blood pressure, an overactive thyroid, or premenstrual syndrome (PMS), that require medications. When we feel lousy mentally or physically, we're vulnerable. Take care of yourself—body, mind, and spirit.

A drug is a drug is a drug—that's all that matters to you.
If your drug of choice isn't prescription painkillers and your doctor wants to prescribe them for pain, you will be very tempted to not tell him or her that you're an addict. Maybe you don't think you have to, because it's only medicine, and medicine prescribed by a doctor is good for you, right? Why suffer? Suddenly you're enraptured with a new lover, and, if you're not abusing the new drugs, you'll be in danger of being reminded of the "good old days" and will be right back where you started, or worse, with your drug of choice, or worse. It's also common for addicts to take up gambling, pornography, and other compulsive behaviors that trigger the same brain chemicals that some drugs do. Then they find themselves in the throes of addiction again, the only difference being the name of the drug. The key is to remember that abstinence doesn't just apply to your drug of choice but to all mood-altering chemicals and compulsive behaviors.