Relapse Is Always an Option

Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king. 1 Samuel 12:24-25

Someone suggested recently that perhaps I dwelt too much in the shame of my past. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think what this person saw in me was a healthy memory of the misery of my addiction. That was awful and I don’t ever want to go back. Here’s the problem though. For the one who’s struggled with drugs, relapse is always an option. When we’re stressed, we’re all tempted to return to old comforts. Some of us eat in response to stress, but when we overeat, we generally don’t lose our jobs or get divorced. For those of us who’ve been addicted to drugs though, returning to the old comforts would mean losing our jobs and getting divorced. Failure is always an option and for some of us, the price of relapse appears to be far worse than for others. So, I choose to remember the pain of my past, in order to remain motivated to daily work on my recovery.

This was Samuel’s message in today’s passage. In the story, the Israelites repented of their disobedience and Samuel implored them to serve God, remembering what he’d done for them. Samuel reminded them that failure was always an option. If you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away. Samuel wasn’t suggesting that they wallow in shame over their past. God had forgiven them. If, however, they wanted to avoid going back to that misery, they had to recognize that going back was always an option. Daily, they had to do whatever it took to abandon the old life for the new one.

My wife won’t love today’s blog. She would much prefer to believe that after 10 years of sobriety, going back isn’t possible. Paradoxically though, it is only in recognizing that relapse is possible that I don’t go back. I don’t wallow in shame, but I do recognize that relapse is always an option and so, I daily make a genuine effort to abandon my way for God’s.

The danger for me now, and the danger for those who’ve not been addicted to drugs is to treat our little failures too lightly. Like I said, it appears that the price of a drug relapse is far higher than for someone who relapses on some smaller sin. The error though, would be to consider any movement away from God to be insignificant. It’s just pornography. It’s not like I’m using drugs. For all of us, no matter what our failure looks like, the warning of Samuel stands. if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away.