What is the current success rate of Teen Challenge graduates? Are more people relapsing today than 10, 20 or 30 years ago? What should we do to help someone who has relapsed?
Questions about relapse are one of the most challenging issues I hear as I visit Teen Challenge centers and participate in staff training. If you have been working in TC for any length of time, you probably know of TC graduates who have relapsed. So what is the most effective way to help someone who has relapsed?
Not all relapse is the same, so one solution does not fit all people. We often think of relapse when a person has gone back to using drugs or gotten drunk. But in reality, their returning to drug use is not the first step to relapse—it is the last of many steps to relapse. In the staff training course, Understanding the Steps to Relapse (available at www.iTeenChallenge.org), I include a list of 37 symptoms or steps to relapse. This list of symptoms is taken from the book, Counseling for Relapse Prevention, by Terence T. Gorski & Merlene Miller. They developed this list through their work with alcoholics who have relapsed.
When a person goes down the path of relapse, they blow through 36 stop signs to arrive at the last symptom—which is “Loss of control” as they return to their substance of choice. This list of 37 symptoms of relapse provides 37 specific issues which can be targeted for growth and recovery. You can see them as 37 holes in a dam, each “leaking water.”
One of the common strategies TC has used is to have the person who has relapsed go through the entire TC residential program again. “Maybe it will stick the second time”. Perhaps a better solution would be to suggest a different approach to helping those who have relapsed—a more targeted approach to the issues that contributed to their relapse.
When dealing with a person who had relapsed, I gave them the “Relapse Assessment Tool” (available at www.iTeenChallenge.org), which is a single sheet with the 37 symptoms of relapse and asked the person to check off any of the symptoms they see in their life today or in the months leading up to their relapse. They often would check 15 or more of the symptoms. These gave us 15 starting points in dealing with their relapse.
You can help the person develop specific recovery strategies related to each relapse symptom. You can identify specific scriptures that relate to each symptom and to the recovery strategies related to that symptom. It’s not just what they need to stop doing, but also what they need to build into their life as a positive response to the growth needed to enable them to respond properly in the future when that same relapse symptom presents itself as a temptation. Several samples of this are given in the course Understanding the Steps to Relapse. These recovery strategies can become the foundation for returning to a place of stability in their walk with the Lord, functioning as a Christian in society.
