Episode 11 - Relapse isn't Failure
Welcome back to Reconnection Moments, a space where we get real about intimacy disorders and healing from sexual compulsivity. Not through willpower or shame, but by gently rewiring the brain and body back into connection. I'm Dr. Michael Barta, creator of The Reconnection Model. In each episode, I'll be answering questions I hear most from clients and therapists, and I will also be sharing fresh insights from my ongoing work.
Host:Welcome back to the Reconnection Podcast. I'm your host. And today, we're continuing an important conversation with Dr. Michael Barta, creator of the Reconnection Model. In the last episode, we talked about why white knuckling fails, and today, we're addressing one of the most loaded words in recovery, relapse. Doctor Barta, many people hear relapse and immediately think failure.
Host:Why is that such a damaging misunderstanding?
Dr. Barta:Well, here's the story. Right? Relapse isn't a moral event. It's a nervous system event. And when we label it as failure, we miss the information that our nervous system is trying to give us.
Dr. Barta:Right? And so because the focus is on behavior and capacity, most systems assume that if someone relapses, they're not committed. Right? That's what we all think. You know, that guy's just not trying hard enough.
Dr. Barta:They're not honest enough, or they're not disciplined enough. But relapse usually has nothing to do with the desire or behavior. Like, we've spoken in earlier podcasts of the men I treat. These guys are some of the most disciplined men I know. Right?
Dr. Barta:And if it was as simple as discipline, you know, I would be broke because they they would never need my service. Right? And that would be nice, but that's not what it's about. Right? Relapse usually has nothing to do with the desire or the behavior.
Dr. Barta:It happens when the nervous system loses its access to safety, and that can be safety with ourselves or safety with other people. So like, when stress, emotional exposure, conflict, shame, overwhelm, when these things exceed our internal capacity, our nervous system's going to automatically reach out for what it knows works. You know, I call this our internal noise. It kills our internal noise, right? And that's not a failure, that's just conditioning.
Host:So relapse is less about wanting the behavior and more about not having enough support in that moment.
Dr. Barta:A 100%. It's exactly that. It's when our nervous system runs out of resources. And that's very different than saying someone's given up.
Host:Let's talk about what's actually happening in the brain and nervous system during relapse.
Dr. Barta:Relapse is gonna occur when the nervous system ships out of our social engagement system. And if you've listened to earlier ones, that's the part of our, you know, this part of our body that governs whether we're safe or not. Okay? And it needs a lot of things to be able to experience life as safety. And one of them is to get rid of the old traumas that knock the social engagement system offline.
Dr. Barta:So when we lose that ability to live in that social engagement system, then we're living in a survival state. And the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that's responsible for choice and reflection goes offline, and this survival behavior takes over. And in that system, it never asks, "Hey, is this going to be a good idea if it does this?" That never crosses our mind. Right?
Dr. Barta:It's asking, "How do I make this stop? And how do I make it stop right now?" And so what the relapse is revealing is an emotional need that we have, that we've been starved for, isn't being met. And what's strange is like, "Well, how do I get my needs met?" Well, we always can meet our own needs in healthy ways, and that's where we have to start first.
Dr. Barta:Right? We have to validate ourselves first. We have to have empathy for ourselves first. Right? We're constantly looking out outside to get it and pull it in.
Dr. Barta:It's not going to, there is no getting it outside and pulling it in, it's inside. Right? So we have to learn that. Relapse, you know, often tells us, "This moment is overwhelming and I don't have the resources to deal with it. I don't know how to ask for help.
Dr. Barta:I don't know how to let people in." Right? "I'm all alone and I need to control this on my own." It also happens when there's a breakdown in our connection. Right?
Dr. Barta:When something triggers a past response to the danger of connection, we're going to immediately seek relief, right? Or we can be triggered by a belief that it's not safe to be authentic. Right? And we get in this state where, "Oh my God, if I'm authentic, I'm gonna be judged and I'm gonna be rejected." So we shut down.
Dr. Barta:We don't let ourselves be seen. That creates, you know, this internal pressure that's going to make the system seek immediate relief. These are all intimacy disorder signals, by the way. They're not character flaws. But we always look at people their relapse, they're just like, "He's not trying hard enough."
Dr. Barta:No. They don't have the resources within themselves or able to ask for them for others to be able to get the support they needed so the nervous system can rewire. Right?
Host:So relapse is really data.
Dr. Barta:100%. And I have people look at the data. Right, what was missing? Where did I not feel safe? And again, you know, I teach these guys over and over because they ask this question, "Where do I not feel safe?"
Dr. Barta:And almost a 100% of the time, they're looking for safety outside of themselves. They're not going within to calm the feelings, to sit with the feelings, to understand what's going on inside themselves. They're constantly looking outside. "Well, if I have this, I'll be safe. If things were just different, then I would be safe."
Dr. Barta:None of that's true. Right? What's true is that when I'm safe, the world is safe for myself. Right? So that's the way I really start looking at it.
Host:So what turns relapse, though, into collapse?
Dr. Barta:It's the shame. Relapse becomes destructive when it's followed by secrecy, isolation, and we start attacking ourselves. So shame pushes the nervous system into needing a deeper sense of protection. So what we're going to do, we're going to stop reaching out, we're going to hide the truth, and we're going to then reinforce our own belief that connection is not safe. This is where many people spiral, right?
Dr. Barta:It's not because relapse itself, it's because of how they interpret their relapse.
Host:So the danger isn't really relapse, it's what happens after.
Dr. Barta:A 100%. So if we can start looking at relapse and the person can start looking at it with curiosity, honesty, and support, that becomes a doorway. When it's met with punishment and fear, it becomes a trap. So if someone really loves you and you're hurting, right, do they call you a piece of crap? No.
Dr. Barta:They come in and try to support you. But when we're really hurting, the first thing we do is tell ourselves we're a piece of crap. Instead of having an internal empathy for ourselves, right, and until we can have that empathy for ourselves, we're not gonna be able to have empathy for the people we've hurt in this addiction, like our wives or partners.
Host:So what does it look like to use relapse as a turning point instead of collapse?
Dr. Barta:I think it all starts with asking a question, a different question, not "Why did I fail?" but, "What did my nervous system need that it didn't get? What does my nervous system need right now that it's not getting?" And I do this exercise with myself a lot, you know, not not around relapse, but more around, you know, an anxious moment or a disturbance that brings out anger. Right? I'll stop and I'll ask myself, you know, "Mike, what do you really need right now to feel safe?"
Dr. Barta:Right? And it what's amazing is the answer is always there, and it never comes up with the answer. "Oh, "I'll go act out." Because what I'm doing is I'm employing that social engagement system. I'm employing the frontal lobe, not you know, it's taking my way away from the survival of "I need to get this met right now," to "What do I really need right now?"
Dr. Barta:And how many of us have really asked ourselves that question? What do I really need right now? Right? We have this internal dialogue or something, and we feel a moment of anxiousness. And next thing we know, we're on Amazon.
Dr. Barta:Right? Or the next thing we know, we're picking up a drink or we're texting, you know, an affair partner or whatever. We don't ask ourselves, "What do I need to feel safe right now?" So when we say, "What didn't we get?" Right?
Dr. Barta:And this is where the four pillars come in. Right? We can be authentic with ourselves and name what's actually happening right now. Right? I don't feel safe right now.
Dr. Barta:Instead of going the survival mechanism just going, "You're not safe right now. You need to escape at all costs no matter what it burns down." Right? We can be vulnerable with ourselves. We can say, "What support do I need right now?
Dr. Barta:And who are the people in my life that I trust that I can ask for support?" Right? It gives us the ability to be transparent because by slowing down, we're removing our secrecy. Right? And the secrecy is where the shame hides.
Dr. Barta:And the presence is where we're actually staying engaged in this process instead of just disappearing and running away. So when relapse leads to a deeper, honest connection with ourselves, then the nervous system learns something new. I can be seen and then still be safe because you know what? I'm seeing myself. I'm honoring myself.
Dr. Barta:I'm not looking outside to be seen anymore. I'm seeing me. And for all of us who want to be seen, start seeing yourself. Right? But we don't want to see that because what trauma has given us in the past is this sense of shame that we're broken.
Dr. Barta:So we think if we look at ourselves, we're going to feel that pain. But with compassion, with empathy for ourselves, we see that we're just human. We're fallible. We're frail. Right?
Dr. Barta:And that's okay. Right? We don't have to constantly be protecting ourselves so that we don't get hurt. So when relapse leads to this internal honesty, it is saying, "I'm safe." And that's how relapse becomes part of healing instead of a proof of failure.
Host:That completely reframes relapse from something to fear into something to understand.
Dr. Barta:Yeah. Because relapse doesn't mean healing isn't happening. It often means healing is asking for more support, not more control. It's asking for something. Right?
Dr. Barta:It's not about failing. It's telling you, "Hey, you need something right now." And then we can start believing I deserve to have whatever I need met. And from there, you know, we start trusting ourselves.
Dr. Barta:We start trusting others. We start trusting life again.
Host:Thank you, Dr. Barta. In our next episode, we'll talk about how to build real capacity in the nervous system. So stress, intimacy, and emotion no longer pushes back into survival mode. Until then, thank you for listening to the reconnection podcast.
Dr. Barta:Thanks for joining me today. If you wanna learn more about how this healing happens, visit drmichaelbarta.com. And if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. Until next time, keep reconnecting.