Relapse Quotes

In Workaholics Anonymous, one the exercises involves a simple reminder. We must, they say, "catch ourselves before we relapse into ego and self-will." That is: Rest before you get tired. Check your impulses before they take over. Avoid the idiot lights - stop before there is a problem. ~ Ryan Holiday

A relapse doesn't mean you'll never walk down the path you prefer. But I think relapses are almost an inevitable part of any course of self-development. ~ Philippa Perry

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest. ~ Ann Radcliffe

correction of the individual is not sufficient to prevent relapse if we do not also, to the best of our ability, reform the social environment. ~ Enrico Ferri

What remains in diseases after the crisis is apt to produce relapses. ~ Hippocrates

If our sides were unequal our angles might be unequal. Instead of its being sufficient to feel, or estimate by sight, a single angle in order to determine the form of an individual, it would be necessary to ascertain each angle by the experiment of Feeling. But life would be too short for such a tedious groping. The whole science and art of Sight Recognition would at once perish; Feeling, so far as it is an art, would not long survive; intercourse would become perilous or impossible; there would be an end to all confidence, all forethought; no one would be safe in making the most simple social arrangements; in a word, civilization would relapse into barbarism. ~ Edwin A. Abbott

Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible. ~ Jimmy Connors

People with personal experience of bipolar disorder will often state the importance of routine and structure as a way of preventing relapse. Routine, in this context, does not mean boring and repetitive so much as relatively predictable and stable. This appears to have many beneficial physical effects, one of which is sleep. ~ Jerry Kennard

Even from the abyss of horror in which we try to feel our way today, half-blind, our hearts distraught and shattered, I look up again and again to the ancient constellations that shone on my childhood, comforting myself with the inherited confidence that, some day, this relapse will appear only an interval in the eternal rhythm of progress onward and upward. ~ Stefan Zweig

The idea of the Eternal Return can be fully grasped only by a man endowed with several chronic, hence recurrent infirmities, and who thus has the advantage of proceeding from relapse to relapse, with all that this implies as philosophic reflexion. ~ Emil Cioran

I protest that we fans are being emotionally starved and frustrated by long periods of perfect performance of these batteries. More over, when there are nothing but strikes and balls going on, you relapse into your worries over the Bank of England, or something else. ~ Herbert Hoover

To live a better life, you really just have to get stuck into the failure, and the mess, and the confusion, and the hell of what's happening right now. You have to get more familiar with failure. You have to take failure to a show. You have to buy it a steak and kiss it on the mouth. That's how you heal. That's how you make better decisions in the future. So you have to apply for a boat load of jobs. And you have to get turned down for a boat load of jobs. You have to relapse in your recovery and you have to fall all the way back down again. We all do it and we all suffer and hate ourselves and declare ourselves fuck ups, and losers, and space wasters, and nonsense cobblers, and mistake squids, and we lie down on the floor and give up for awhile. And then sometime later, when the shame and the sadness have worn off a bit and we start to feel a bit peckish, we get up, dust off, and we go get 40 chicken nuggets and start the process all over again. And this time we know more. We know where the traps are and we know more of what we're up against. And we're tougher this time around. ~ Beth McColl

If a plague carried off the members of a society all at once, it is obvious that the group would be permanently done for. Yet the death of each of its constituent members is as certain as if an epidemic took them all at once. But the graded difference in age, the fact that some are born as some die, makes possible through transmission of ideas and practices the constant reweaving of the social fabric. Yet this renewal is not automatic. Unless pains are taken to see that genuine and thorough transmission takes place, the most civilized group will relapse into barbarism and then into savagery. ~ John Dewey

Yet there is dynamism in our house. Day to day, week to week, Cady blossoms: a first grasp, a first smile, a first laugh. Her pediatrician regularly records her growth on charts, tick marks indicating her progress over time. A brightening newness surrounds her. As she sits in my lap smiling, enthralled by my tuneless singing, an incandescence lights the room. Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence - and, eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to "live life to its fullest," to travel, to dine, to achieve a host of neglected ambitions. Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day. It is a tired hare who now races. And even if I had the energy, I prefer a more tortoiselike approach. I plod, I ponder. Some days, I simply persist. If time dilates when one moves at high speeds, does it contract when one moves barely at all? It must: the days have shortened considerably. With little to distinguish one day from the next, time has begun to feel static. In English, we use the word time in different ways: "The time is two forty-five" versus "I'm going through a tough time." These days, time feels less like the ticking clock and more ~ Paul Kalanithi

The second I spotted him in the crows I knew this wasn't going to be some sort of warm and fuzzy reunion. No, it was a fucking relapse. ~ T.M. Frazier

Niels Lyhne was tired. These repeated runnings to a leap that was never leaped had wearied him. Everything seemed to him hollow and worthless, distorted and confused, and, oh, so petty! He preferred to stop his ears and stop his mouth and to immerse himself in studies that had nothing to do with the busy everyday world, but were like an ocean apart, where he could wander peacefully in silent forests of seaweed among curious animals.

He was tired, and the root of his weariness sprang from his baffled hope of love; thence it had spread, quickly and surely, through his whole being, to all his faculties and all his thoughts. Now he was cold and passionless enough, but in the beginning, after the blow had fallen, his love had grown, day by day, with the irresistible power of a malignant fever. There had been moments when his soul was almost bursting with insane passion; it swelled like a wave in its infinite longing and frothing desire; it rose and went on rising and rising, till every fiber in his brain and every cord in his heart were strung tense to the breaking point. Then weariness had come, soothing and healing, making his nerves dull against pain, his blood too cold for enthusiasm, and his pulse too weak for action. And more than that, it had protected him against a relapse by giving him all the prudence and egoism of the convalescent. When his thoughts went back to those days in Fjordby, he had a sense of immunity akin to the feeling of a man who has just passed ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

Environmental cues associated with drug use - paraphernalia, people, places, and situations - are all powerful triggers for repeated use and for relapse, because they themselves trigger dopamine release. People trying to quit smoking, for example, are advised to avoid poker if they are used to having a cigarette while playing cards. Unless they move to a different area of town or to a recovery home, my Downtown Eastside patients find it virtually impossible to stop drug use, even when they form a strong intention to do so. Not only are drugs readily available, but everything and everyone in the environment reminds them of their habit. ~ Gabor Mate

Fear, hydra-headed fear, which is rampant in all of us, is a hang-over from lower forms of life. We are straddling two worlds, the one from which we have emerged and the one towards which we are heading. This is the deepest meaning of the word human, that we are a link, a bridge, a promise. It is in us that the life process is being carried to fulfillment. We have a tremendous responsibility, and it is the gravity of that which awakens our fears. We know that if we do not move forward, if we do not realize our potential being, we shall relapse, sputter out, and drag the world down with us. We carry Heaven and Hell within us; we are the cosmogonic builders. We have choice - and all creation is our range.

For some it a terrifying prospect. It would be better, think they, if Heaven were above and Hell below - anywhere outside, but not within. But that comfort has been knocked from under us. There are no places to go to, either for reward or punishment. The place is always here and now, in your own person and according to your own fancy. The world is exactly what you picture it to be, always, every instant. It is impossible to shift the scenery about and pretend that you will enjoy another, a different act. The setting is permanent, changing with the mind and heart, not according to the dictates of an invisible stage director. You are the author, director and actor all in one: the drama is always going to be your own life, not some one else's. A beautiful, terrible, in ~ Henry Miller

But in 1960, oncology was not yet ready for this proposal. Not until several years later did it strike the board that had fired Li so hastily that the patients he had treated with the prolonged maintenance strategy would never relapse. This strategy--which cost Min Chiu Li his job--resulted in the first chemotherapeutic cure of cancer in adults. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

One study proved just how powerful exercise can be: Three groups of depressed patients were assigned to different coping strategies - one group took antidepressant medication, one group exercised for 45 minutes three times a week, and one group did a combination of both.33 After four months, all three groups experienced similar improvements in happiness. The very fact that exercise proved just as helpful as anti-depressants is remarkable, but the story doesn't end here. The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent! In short, physical activity is not just an incredibly powerful mood lifter, but a long-lasting one. ~ Shawn Achor

The other thing is that if you rely solely on medication to manage depression or anxiety, for example, you have done nothing to train the mind, so that when you come off the medication, you are just as vulnerable to a relapse as though you had never taken the medication. ~ Daniel Goleman

We lost the skyline
We stepped right off the map
Drifted into black space
And let the clocks relapse. ~ Steven Wilson

Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism. ~ Edward Gibbon

But if it be true, as every prospect assures us, that the human race shall not again relapse into its ancient barbarity; if every thing ought to assure us against that pusillanimous and corrupt system which condemns man to eternal oscillations between truth and falsehood, liberty and servitude, we must, at the same time, perceive that the light of information is spread over a small part only of our globe; and the number of those who possess real instruction, seems to vanish in the comparison with the mass of men consigned over to ignorance and prejudice. We behold vast countries groaning under slavery, and presenting nations in one place, degraded by the vices of civilization, so corrupt as to impede the progress of man; and in others, still vegetating in the infancy of its early age. We perceive that the exertions of these last ages have done much for the progress of the human mind, but little for the perfection of the human species; much for the glory of man, somewhat for his liberty, but scarcely any thing yet for his happiness. In a few directions, our eyes are struck with a dazzling light; but thick darkness still covers an immense horison. ~ Nicolas De Condorcet

Possibly the apparent relapse they had suffered was not a fall and a cause for suffering, but a leap forward and a positive act. ~ Hermann Hesse

78 percent never have a single relapse. Less than 15 percent have one relapse but not a second. And those with more than one relapse? A whopping 7 percent. ~ Debra Jay

I had seen other comic friends of mine go to indie labels. Like David Cross and Pat Oswald went to Subpop, and Subpop didn't make total sense for me, but the metal version of that did. So I made a small list with Metal Blade, Prosthetic and couple of other labels, and Relapse was one of them. ~ Brian Posehn

Between 10 and 20 percent of people with anorexia die from heart attacks, other complications and suicide; the disease has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Or Kitty could have lost her life in a different way, lost it to the roller coaster of relapse and recovery, inpatient and outpatient, that eats up, on average, five to seven years. Or a lifetime: only half of all anorexics recovery in the end. The other half endure lives of dysfunction and despair. Friends and families give up on them. Doctors dread treating them. They're left to stand in the bakery with the voice ringing in their ears, alone in every way that matters. ~ Harriet Brown

Unless your sober life is more meaningful than your drunk life, you're going to relapse. YOU create the life that matters. ~ Toni Sorenson

Tristan's decline was steady and sure after that.
Every tragedy, every harship, seemed to suck him just a little bit deaper into the grip of his own personal hell.
It felt like every slip up, every relapse, was pulling us down, until the weight of all our failures was dragging us under.
At first we were drowning together, but my will to survive was too strong to let that continue forever.
My hold on him became weaker and weaker, and eventually, every finger broken, my hands opened, and I let him go.
No one could say I didn't fight for him. No one could say I didn't lose. ~ R.K. Lilley

Elisabetta Gonzaga de Montefeltro, Duchess of Urbino, was one of the most celebrat women of her age. . . She was much praised for her saintliness in enduring a sexless marriage to Guidobaldo who was both impotent and for much of his life crippled by what was described as 'gout' but was probably rheumatoid arthritis, which deformed his body from a young age. According to the archivist Luzio, despite his impotence Guidobaldo was extremely erotically inclined, so that Elisabetta was in a state of suspense every day in case he might fall upon her and have a relapse. ~ Sarah Bradford

If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse. ~ Chris Prentiss

Is it bad to like the way the scars look on my skin? Oh, the way they feel under my hands. My body's protecting itself, saying, "No, this barrier of scar tissue is to keep you out. ~ Taylor Rhodes

It was endlessly tricky being in the know. It was a state Carmen had a achieved with a certain bravado, but she found it difficult to maintain. Without Jones, she could easily slip out of the know, relapse into her natural eagerness, and probably never get hired for another part in her life. ~ Ann Brashares

Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence - and, eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. ~ Paul Kalanithi

You don't need a reason to be upset. I think you've had a breakdown, Liam." Breakdown, relapse, binge, craving. A big fucking mess. Fucking walking disaster. But Ali lets me cry myself dry while ruining his shirt. When I finally stop, he asks, "Will you go to a detox? Sasha can ask his counsellor for an emergency placement. Perhaps we can persuade them you're a danger to yourself?" Hearing those words, I chuckle through my tears. "I know I'm a danger to myself." Ali smiles. "Yeah. And to me." "What do you mean?" I have to clean some of my snot with the bottom of my T-shirt. It doesn't matter anyway since the clothes I'm wearing are dirty and probably need to be fumigated. His grin broadens. "Well, I'm dangerously close to caring too much about you." I shake my head. Ali's a big softie but I can't think about romance right now ~ A. Zukowski

The counselor says that we are "at the beginning of a long, uphill journey." She says, "Relapse is a part of recovery."

I think, You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I say, "Do I look like someone who's ready for a long, uphill journey?" Lucy snickers for a second, and I love her. I lover her much more than I want to.

But I am worn down and out. The thought of another trip crushes me. I tell Lucy, You are my family. But I'm not coming with you. ~ Ariel Levy

There have been summits of civilization at which heretics like Socrates , who was killed because he was wiser than his neighbors, have not been tortured, but ordered to kill themselves in the most painless manner known to their judges. But from that summit there was a speedy relapse into our present savagery. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Those who governed these primitive monasteries soon realised the fact that without books their inmates would relapse into barbarism, and libraries were got together. ~ John Willis Clark

Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most terrible wars, consequently occasional relapses into barbarism, lest, by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very existence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Every philosophy which believes that the problem of existence is touched on, not to say solved, by a political event is a joke- and pseudo-philosophy. Many states have been founded since the world began; that is an old story. How should a political innovation suffice to turn men once and for all into contented inhabitants of the earth? [...]

Here, however, we are experiencing the consequences of the doctrine, lately preached from all the rooftops, that the state is the highest goal of mankind and that a man has no higher duty than to serve the state: in which doctrine I recognize a relapse not into paganism but into stupidity. It may be that a man who sees his highest duty in serving the state really knows no higher duties; but there are men and duties existing beyond this - and one of the duties that seems, at least to me, to be higher than serving the state demands that one destroy stupidity in every form, and therefore in this form too. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

How to repulse a demon (an old problem)? The demons, especially if they are demons of language (and what else could they be?) are fought by language. Hence I can hope to exorcise the demonic word which is breathed into my ears (by myself) if I substitute for it (if I have the gifts of language for doing so) another, calmer word (I yield to euphemism). Thus: I imagined I had escaped from the crisis at last, when behold
favored by a long car trip
a flood of language sweeps me away, I keep tormenting myself with the thought, desire, regret, and rage of the other; and I add to these wounds the discouragement of having to acknowledge that I am falling back, relapsing; but the French vocabulary is a veritable pharmacopoeia (poison on one side, antidote on the other): no, this is not a relapse, only a last soubresaut, a final convulsion of the previous demon. ~ Roland Barthes

There's no such thing as quitting. Just sometimes there's a longer pause between relapses, right? ~ Alan Moore

We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom. When her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows. When, however, the freedom ceases the change back or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of warning silence. ~ Bram Stoker

Like alcoholism and drug addiction, nihilism is a disease of the soul. It can never be completely cured, and there is always the possibility of relapse. But there is always a chance for conversion -- a chance for people to believe that there is hope for the future and a meaning to struggle... Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. ~ Cornel West

Research shows that people who think they have the most willpower are actually the most likely to lose control when tempted.1 For example, smokers who are the most optimistic about their ability to resist temptation are the most likely to relapse four months later, and overoptimistic dieters are the least likely to lose weight. Why? They fail to predict when, where, and why they will give in. They expose themselves to more temptation, ~ Kelly McGonigal

As a rule, from what I've observed, the American captain of industry doesn't do anything out of business hours. When he has put the cat out and locked up the office for the night, he just relapses into a state of coma from which he emerges only to start being a captain of industry again. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

There is one class of persons to which one speaks with difficulty, and another to which one speaks in vain. The second, more numerous and obstinate than may at first appear, because it represents a state of mind into which we are all prone through natural sloth to relapse, consists of those people who cannot believe that things will ever be very different from what they are at the moment. From time to time, under the influence perhaps of some persuasive write or speaker, they may have an instant of disquiet or hope; but an invincible sluggishness of imagination makes them go on behaving as if nothing would ever change. Those to whom one speaks with difficulty, but not perhaps in vain, are the persons who believe that great changes must come, but are not sure either of what is inevitable, or of what is probable, or of what is desirable. ~ T.S. Eliot

Too many people believe they can control their drug of choice. But the drug is almost always in control. If an addict truly wants help, it is available, but it is a rocky path. The monster always calls. Never give an addict money. Clothe them. Feed them. But enabling them is the quickest path to watching them fade away completely. This may seem harsh. But I've watched my own child relapse, after six years sober. I love her. Always. But I can't help her die. ~ Ellen Hopkins

Nihilism is a disease of the soul. It can never be completely cured, and there is always the possibility of relapse. There is always a chance for conversion
a chance for people to believe that there is hope for the future and a meaning to struggle ... Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one's soul. This turning is done through one's own affirmation of one's worth
an affirmation fueled by the concern of others. A love ethic must be at the center of a politics of conversion.
A love ethic has nothing to do with sentimental feelings or tribal connections. Rather it is a last attempt at generating a sense of agency among a downtrodden people. ~ Cornel West

How to check these unconstitutional invasions of rights by the Federal judiciary? Not by impeachment in the first instance, but by a strong protestation of both houses of Congress that such and such doctrines advanced by the Supreme Court are contrary to the Constitution; and if afterwards they relapse into the same heresies, impeach and set the whole adrift. For what was the government divided into three branches, but that each should watch over the others and oppose their usurpations? ~ Thomas Jefferson

We start with people who are motivated to get paid and be on TV, and we end up with people who have been transformed by the experience and go on to embrace sobriety. If they relapse, like most of my patients do, we continue to support and treat them. I'm thrilled that five out the eight [Celebrity Rehab cast members] showed up for after-care, and two more committed to coming back. ~ Drew Pinsky

Donna learned quickly that there's no point in beating yourself up when you screw up or fail to follow through. Guilt trips and self-criticism don't motivate you to make meaningful changes; they just keep you stuck, dwelling on the past. So after each relapse, Donna came back to the basic ACT formula: A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present. C = Connect with your values. T = Take effective action. ~ Russ Harris

Every war involves a greater or less relapse into barbarism. War, indeed, in its details, is the essence of inhumanity. It dehumanizes. It may save the state, but it destroys the citizen. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

It is the return of a dog to his vomit. ~ Paul Verlaine

Careful how you judge others. At some point you have been, or will be all of them."
― Frank Ruhl Peterson ~ Frank Ruhl Peterson

Paralytic

It happens. Will it go on? ----
My mind a rock,
No fingers to grip, no tongue,
My god the iron lung

That loves me, pumps
My two
Dust bags in and out,
Will not

Let me relapse
While the day outside glides by like ticker tape.
The night brings violets,
Tapestries of eyes,

Lights,
The soft anonymous
Talkers: 'You all right?'
The starched, inaccessible breast.

Dead egg, I lie
Whole
On a whole world I cannot touch,
At the white, tight

Drum of my sleeping couch
Photographs visit me ----
My wife, dead and flat, in 1920 furs,
Mouth full of pearls,

Two girls
As flat as she, who whisper 'We're your daughters.'
The still waters
Wrap my lips,

Eyes, nose and ears,
A clear
Cellophane I cannot crack.
On my bare back

I smile, a buddha, all
Wants, desire
Falling from me like rings
Hugging their lights.

The claw
Of the magnolia,
Drunk on its own scents,
Asks nothing of life. ~ Sylvia Plath

It has always been more about a relapse than it is about quitting. I have met hundreds of people who quit cigarettes every day. But do they succeed at it?

No, they just quit every day. ~ Neeraj Agnihotri

We are all the same people as we were at three, six, ten or twenty years old. More noticeably so, perhaps, at six or seven, because we were not pretending so much then, whereas at twenty we put on a show of being someone else, of being in the mode of the moment. If there is an intellectual fashion, you become an intellectual; if girls are fluffy and frivolous, you are fluffy and frivolous. As life goes on, however, it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself every day. This is sometimes disconcerting for those around you, but a great relief to the person concerned. I ~ Agatha Christie