Dr. Keith Humphreys

I always point this out to residents.

that if you watch how doctors sometimes ask people about their substance use, it's absolutely clear the correct answer.

If I say, you don't drink, do you?

Or you don't use drugs, do you?

And when you're addicted, you get very good at reading people, like what is this person going to say if I tell them that I use methamphetamine?

And sometimes they lie, not because they want to, but because they know they will get a negative reaction from the person asking them.

Yeah, I mean, people relapse in both ways.

I mean, a friend of mine in college, I remember his dad, after years and years of drinking,

got sober and just miraculously got an extremely high-paying, respected job despite an incredibly erratic work history and immediately relapsed, went out and drove the wrong way on a highway and killed himself.

And just think like how could, you know, everything was going right, but you see that a lot.

It's sort of like, you know, I got money in my pocket and I'm happy.

I know I'm okay now.

The problem is behind me.

And so I'm going to do what I always did and then be shocked that I got the same result I always did.

You see that.

Broadly speaking though, relapse is most likely in times of stress, whether that's transitory stress like spat with the spouse or with the boss or I'm just really exhausted, didn't sleep well a couple nights in a row, that kind of thing.

Or something bigger like...

you know, maybe my kids addicted also and I'm dealing with that and that makes me more likely to relapse.

I can hear them rolling their eyes even from Southern California because they said like, oh, another talk about addiction, you know.

So I talk to them a lot about fentanyl because I've known so many families where kids like them, you know,