Relapse After Long-Term Sobriety
Anthony was standing on the streets of downtown Toronto, dragging a laundry bag behind him. Not a suitcase. A laundry bag. His clothes, his shoes, his entire life was inside it. A hotel had just kicked him out, his credit cards were maxed, and seven and a half years of sobriety were gone.
Then a thought cut through: "Dude, that's enough. That's enough. You're done."
Relapse after long-term sobriety is a return to drinking or drug use after years of stable recovery. It rarely starts with the drug of choice. For Anthony, it started with a conversation about steroids, a prescription he talked himself into, and a small secret he decided to keep. In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, he walks through exactly how it happened and what he does differently today.
A Good Childhood Riddled With Fear
Anthony grew up in a subdivision north of Toronto in what he calls a very loving household. He's quick to say it didn't look like the stories he heard in rehab.
The longer I stay sober and the longer I practice the principles of recovery, the better my childhood gets.
What he did carry was fear. His mom kept a strict house, partly shaped by the Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka headlines of the '90s. He had to be home before the streetlights came on. Consequences were never physical, but he got grounded a lot, and he learned early that telling the truth could cost him.
That fear taught him to lie. The recovery literature he follows describes the alcoholic presenting "a stage character to the world," and Anthony says that line sums up his whole story. He wanted to fit in so badly that getting in trouble felt like "the price of admission to be cool."
Takeaway: If you think your childhood wasn't "bad enough" to explain your drinking or using, you still belong in recovery. Anthony's story shows that fear and the need to belong can drive addiction just as hard as trauma.
How Cocaine Became "The Thing I'd Been Missing"
Anthony's first drink came in grade 10 at a friend's older brother's keg party. He and two friends split a two-six of Smirnoff with no tolerance and blacked out. The next morning, his dad picked him up and asked about his night. Anthony decided right there that he'd never tell him.
Alcohol didn't hook him right away. Cocaine did, around age 20.
I remember feeling connected. I remember feeling better than everybody else.
Within about two years, weekend use became daily use. He couldn't picture a Monday night pint with friends unless drugs were involved. He smoked weed every day, started at three community colleges and a university, and finished none of them.
Eventually the cocaine stopped working. He describes it simply: drugs and alcohol "do for you, and then they eventually do to you." He went quiet at parties, hid in cheap motels, and called the front desk convinced people were outside his door. They weren't.
Hazelden at 23: Trading Instant Gratification for Delayed Gratification
Anthony's good friend Chris (who later became the best man at his wedding) started telling Anthony's mom how bad things really were. His parents tried doctors, psychiatrists, and life coaches, then found a counselor named Dave, a recovering addict himself, who slowly introduced the idea of rehab.
Then came the ultimatum: go to treatment, or you can't come home.
Anthony lived in his car for two weeks in the middle of a Canadian winter. He brushed his teeth at the office and told no one. After one more bender, he called his parents and said he was ready. In 2015, at 23, he flew to Hazelden in Minnesota.
In a one-on-one, psychologist Dr. Joseph Lee explained addiction using two hands: the iPhone you want right now in one, and the house you need down the road in the other. Recovery means bringing those two things in line.
Recovery is trading instant gratification for delayed gratification.
Anthony stayed an extra 30 days on his counselor's recommendation. His roommate Sam, a heroin user he never expected to befriend, became one of the big reasons he stayed. Back in Toronto, he moved into a sober house, avoided his old friends for four months, and built a recovery community from scratch.
Takeaway: Treatment is a starting point. Anthony credits his early success to doing what he was told after rehab: a sober house, new routines, and putting roots down in a local recovery community.
Why Relapse After Long-Term Sobriety Happens When Life Gets Good
For seven and a half years, Anthony thrived. He bought a condo, got promoted, ran three marathons, and stayed sober through COVID because he was connected.
Then life got really good. And that, he says, was the danger.
When life gets really good in recovery, I think one of the mistakes a lot of us make, I did for sure, is I did all of this, right? This was all me.
He never physically left his program. He showed up to meetings on time and left on time. But he stopped talking to anyone. It's a pattern we've explored before in Why Do People Go Back to Drinking When Sobriety Is Going Well?
When Anthony came back after relapsing, his mentor asked him if he knew why it happened. Anthony gave him a laundry list. His mentor gave him one answer: he wasn't practicing open-mindedness. In the literature Anthony follows, HOW stands for honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. He had let one slip.
My biggest problem is I'm right. Full stop.
The Backdoor: How Steroids and Adderall Led Back to Cocaine
The relapse began with a buddy talking about steroids and working out. Anthony had struggled with body image since elementary school, when the popular kid had abs and he didn't. He now calls it body dysmorphia, and he says something in that conversation found "a backdoor" in his recovery.
Within about a week, he was planning how to do it without calling it a relapse. It would be through a doctor. It wasn't mood or mind-altering. He had it under control.
Then he saw Adderall on the same website.
I remember thinking to myself so clearly, 'I'm never gonna use Adderall because that would be a relapse.'
He filed that thought away. Later, he convinced himself he had ADHD, started doctor shopping, and searched online forums for ways to maximize the high. He taught himself to buy drugs online and had them shipped from Montreal to Toronto. The constant fear of getting caught made him want relief, and cocaine, opiates, and benzos followed. His drug of choice was back.
If you're curious about what the research says on ADHD and drinking specifically, we covered it in ADHD and Alcohol: What the Research Actually Says About the Link.
Takeaway: A relapse can start with something that seems unrelated to your drug of choice. Anthony's rule today is that he cannot safely use any mood or mind-altering substance, including steroids, peptides, and ADHD medication.
Secrets in Recovery: The 90/10 Double Life
Ask Anthony what kills recovery, and he doesn't hesitate: secrets.
I'm going to my recovery community, I'm telling you about 90% of the truth, and I'm keeping 10% of the truth back here.
That 10% was the stage character again. He was the sober guy with seven and a half years. How could he tell anyone? He describes himself as a duck, calm on the surface and paddling like crazy underneath. Resentments piled up alongside the secrets, and he calls resentment "the most dangerous, worst poison alcoholics can carry."
He met the love of his life while he was sober, before the relapse, so she knew both versions of him. After a rehab stay in Utah, he came home focused on the wedding instead of his recovery. He relapsed again.
If you put anything above your recovery, you will eventually lose that thing.
The secret-keeping pattern shows up in so many of our guests' stories. Andy's episode, Hiding Your Drinking? Andy Did It for Years, is a good companion read.
Rock Bottom in a Hotel Lobby
On Christmas Day 2024, after a night at a casino with no sleep, Anthony showed up at his in-laws' house and walked into an intervention. He accepted it, but he wasn't ready. He spent four more months bouncing between hotels and Airbnbs.
His family kept reaching out. His mom started texting him every day: "Hey, are you alive?" He never answered anyone during that time, but he answered that. His wife sent him photos from sober vacations with long messages about how much she missed that version of him. Both pierced through.
In January 2025, out of money and options, he was asked to leave a downtown Toronto hotel. Sitting in the lobby waiting for security, he watched people check in, head to work, and live their lives. It was the same feeling he had on the plane to Minnesota years earlier: completely separate from society.
Then came the laundry bag, the thought that he was done, and a call to his wife. He detoxed at home for four days and went to his third rehab.
I'm grateful for every rock bottom I've ever had because without any of those rock bottoms, I wouldn't be here today.
How to Prevent Relapse in Recovery: What Anthony Does Now
Anthony has about a year and a half today, and he works at a rehab. At his third treatment centre, a counselor named Dave told him: "You need to become a PhD in your disease." Here's what that looks like for him now.
Tell on yourself. No secrets. If a thought about using shows up, he says it out loud to someone.
Practice open-mindedness. He doesn't need to be right. "I'd rather be free."
No mood or mind-altering substances. He says he has "lost my right to chemical peace of mind."
Keep recovery first. Not the marriage, not the job, not the wedding. Recovery is what protects all of it.
Do the unsexy daily work. He doesn't post it on Instagram, but it's what keeps him sober.
Let resentments go. He tries not to solve them with his brain. He prays for the person and lets it go.
Recovery is not for people who need it. It's not even for people who want it. It is simply for people that do it.
For Families: Why the Ultimatum Worked for Anthony
Anthony is careful here. In his job, he talks to parents all the time, and he never tells anyone to kick out a loved one. He can't imagine how hard that is.
But he's clear about his own story. Every time his parents or his wife gave him an ultimatum, it saved his life, because he needed to be completely out of options. His mom now does a lot of work in the Al-Anon community helping other families.
Any family member listening that has been through addiction, like, thank you, straight up.
For another story about an ultimatum that turned things around, read Married to a Functioning Alcoholic: The Ultimatum That Saved Mike and Kristen's Family.
The Lesson: What You Know for Sure
Anthony's story is proof that relapse after long-term sobriety doesn't care how much time you have, how much you know, or how good your life looks. He could give a talk at a meeting and sound like he had it all together while dying inside. Knowing about recovery was never the problem. Doing it, every day, when nobody's watching, is the whole thing.
He closed the conversation with a line that sums it up:
It's not what I don't know that's the problem, it's what I know for sure that just isn't so.
If you're carrying a secret right now, tell one person today. And if you need a place to start, the Sober Motivation app connects you with a community that gets it. Listen to Anthony's full episode on the Sober Motivation Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do people relapse after years of sobriety?
In Anthony's experience, it happened when life got good and he started believing he'd done it all on his own. He stopped practicing open-mindedness, kept secrets from his recovery community, and let resentments build. He never left his meetings. He just stopped being honest in them.
Can a prescription medication lead to relapse?
For Anthony, yes. He convinced himself Adderall was fine because a doctor prescribed it, then started doctor shopping and chasing the high. Anyone in recovery considering a medication with misuse potential should be fully honest with their doctor and support network about their history. (General information, not medical advice.)
What does "stage character" mean in recovery?
It's a phrase from the recovery literature Anthony follows describing how an alcoholic presents a performed version of themselves to the world. For Anthony, it meant showing people the version he thought they'd accept while hiding the truth out of fear of judgment.
How do secrets affect addiction recovery?
Anthony calls secrets the number one thing that kills his recovery. Holding back even 10% of the truth let his addiction grow unchecked for months. His rule today is to "tell on yourself" and bring any thought about using into the open right away.
Does hitting rock bottom help you get sober?
For Anthony, each rock bottom pushed him closer to recovery, and he says he's grateful for all of them. He describes his rock bottom as reaching hopelessness, not just desperation, with no options left. Every story is different, and nobody needs to wait for a bottom to ask for help.
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