Making a Comeback After a Fall
By Damodar Roe
Turn a Setback Into a Comeback
It might be drugs, alcohol, pornography, or something else, but falling back into old habits is one of the most discouraging and confusing experiences you can possibly have. I know what it feels like. You were confidently charging ahead, like an acrobat crossing a tightrope, expecting to gracefully reach the opposite side. But with a single wrong step, you fell on your face. It seems like, in just a few moments, you’ve lost all the progress you that worked so hard for. You start to question everything. Should you keep trying until your fortune changes? Should you switch your approach? Should you give up since it seems impossible? It can be overwhelming to think about. With the fear that nothing you do will ever be good enough, you wonder how you can ever reach freedom through self-control.
You’re not alone in feeling this way. There are countless people who have overcame addiction, and if you ask them, they’ll tell you that they had many moments of despair. So what turns a setback into a comeback? It’s the realization that mistakes are never final. You’ve discovered a weakness, and that’s the first step towards fixing it. Rather than doubting yourself, or feeling ashamed, embrace this moment as an opportunity to grow as a person. Then this mistake, that seemed like a complete dead end, can actually become part of your great comeback.
reasons to be Hopeful
Before we do things we’ll regret later, we often make the mistake of overestimating our capabilities. We confidently charge forward, but without recognizing the obstacles ahead, we trip and fall into a dark place. Pride comes before the fall.
Now, as you pick yourself up from this position, what you really need isn’t just a fresh start, but hope that things can be different next time. Fortunately, every setback carries a lesson that can change things for the better when you accept it.
The first lesson is this: Don’t let pride mislead you into thinking you’re invincible. Overconfidence makes you reckless, blind to risks, and sets you up for failure. Real strength comes from knowing your limits and respecting them.
Breaking free from addiction isn’t about dramatic, once-and-for-all declarations or waiting for cravings to vanish. Talk is cheap. But true commitment is proven through consistent choices that, over time, make you stronger than your cravings. This takes practice because it’s not easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. but the most obvious place to start, which is absolutely necessary before you can make any progress, is the choice to give up dishonesty and self-sabotage. If you’re not willing to let these things go, then your ideas of change are just wishful thinking, like a boy who wants to become an astronaut one day, and the president the next, but has no idea what’s required to succeed in either field. Once you truly commit and give up duplicity though, you can graduate from weakness to strength, and from wishful thinking to real progress. This will give you a clear path forward with real promise for change.
Hope is an optimistic state of mind that comes from believing you can reach an outcome you want. But to make that belief truly justified, you need four key elements::
A worthy goal: You know where you’re going and why.
A winning strategy: You know what’s required to succeed.
Informed motivation: You have good reasons to do what’s required.
Self-belief: You believe that you’re capable of doing what’s required.
If you’re missing any of these elements, then you’re not actually equipped to achieve the results you want yet. So it’s not fair to criticize yourself for falling short of expectations that are actually unrealistic. Instead, set your mind on trying smarter. I will explain how to do this in more detail, but in summary: Choose a goal that reflects your values. Build a strategy based on foresight and preparation. Clarify the reasons you want to embrace the challenges ahead. And gain experiences that prove that you’re capable of more than you realized. Then you will have reasons to feel hopeful. This will translate into effective action, which is just what you need to make a real comeback.
A Worthy Goal
Repeated failures can break your spirit, and make you hold back from sincerely trying. Giving in to this fear makes you procrastinate, give up, or settle for half-measures. For example, you might enjoy binging on junk food… but try to avoid the consequences by spitting it out after chewing. You might try to quit hard drugs… but only for a week. Half-hearted goals like these will leave you feeling spiritually adrift—not fully committed to your values, but also restricted from enjoying naturally. Your mind is left in a state of confusion and self-conflict.
In the Bhagavad-Gita (4.40 & 42), it is said:
“Ignorant people, cynical people, and people who always doubt themselves, will all inevitably be lost. Therefore, the doubts which have arisen in your heart out of ignorance should be slashed by the weapon of knowledge. Armed with yoga, O Bharata, stand and fight.”
These verses assume that failure isn’t a permanent curse, but the result of two things: ignorance and weakness. This is great news because ignorance can be overcome with knowledge, and weakness can be overcome with strength. Instead of assuming that you’re incapable of reaching a worthy goal, therefore, assume that you simply don’t know how to get there yet, or that you still need practice to follow through. Select an ultimate goal that reflects your values and principles and figure out how to grow into it, assuming that it’s possible for you.
Ask yourself:
If I fully trusted my ability to follow through, what goals or standards would I set?
What makes these goals or standards meaningful for me personally?
Reflect on these questions and put your answers into writing. Start with a rough draft and gradually develop your ideas into something coherent and compelling. Once you have a worthy goal, hold on to the reasons that make it worthy for you personally, and take lessons from both success and failure. Never assume that any setback is proof that your ultimate success is impossible. In the words of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, “If you cannot do something, but you simply think, ‘How can I do it? How can I do it? How can I do it?’ then you will also become liberated.”
Mistakes are Part of the Journey
“Cheating and weakness are two separate things.” — Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati
Self-control isn’t like a light switch that you simply turn on. It’s more like a muscle that you develop with practice. Even with the best of intentions, it still takes time and personal growth to overcome any addiction. And just because you make some mistakes along the way doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re hopeless or insincere.
At the same time, you don’t want to postpone meaningful change to a future that will never come. So how can you tell whether you’re making progress despite a few stumbles, or hopelessly repeating the same tired mistakes? To answer this question, you need to understand the difference between slipping accidently because of weakness, and crumbling because of dishonesty.
Slipping is a mistake that happens because of weakness. It’s not the result of any voluntary choices on your part. You’re sincerely trying, but you haven’t developed the strategy, strength, or support that you need yet. Just like it’s not possible for a baby to learn to how walk without sometimes falling, mistakes are inevitably part of your journey, too. As long as you’re giving your best effort and learning from your mistakes, these setbacks are only temporary. So don’t be discouraged. Get back up and keep trying. You’re meant to stand and walk.
Crumbling is when you make choices that contribute to the problem. You might be going through the motions and saying all the right things. But you’re not sincerely trying to reach the actual outcome of sobriety. Instead, you find excuses that soothe your ego while allowing you to make poor choices. The danger is that as soon as you allow yourself to accept just one excuse, it creates a cascade effect where your mind is in a condition to accept even more of them. Every new excuse creates a loophole you can exploit at any time. The exception becomes the rule.
On a behavioral level, slipping and crumbling look very similar. Both involve falling back into old habits. But no one “slips” on purpose. The difference depends on your intentions, choices, and mindset before the act. In Western Law, this is how you tell the difference between first, second, and third-degree offenses; Was it entirely accidental, a predictable outcome of reckless behavior, or something you planned in advance? The focus should be on the choices that led to the mistake, and not on the mistake itself. More important than flawless execution is making sure that you’re not complicit in your mistakes. At all costs, you need to avoid having a ‘criminal mindset’.
As you continue down the path of recovery, you will think about making a commitment. But if you’ve broken commitments before, you might hesitate. Innocent mistakes happen because of weakness and cannot always be avoided. So it’s not very wise to commit to flawlessness. But cheating comes from choices that you could have avoided. Therefore, at any stage in your recovery you can maintain the commitment to refrain from cheating. Likewise, you don’t have to be perfect to give your best effort; and therefore, you can always keep the commitment to do your best, learn from your mistakes, and keep getting better. So don’t be discouraged when your journey is gradual and imperfect. By the power of sincerity and perseverance, you can prevail as long as you keep going.
A Winning Strategy: The Opposite of Cheating
Temptations, fantasies, and excuses automatically come to your mind, and they’re incredibly powerful. Until you find the power inside yourself to remain unmoved by them, the situation seems truly hopeless. That’s why, as you sincerely look for the path out of addiction, you’ll want to find a place inside yourself that can stand strong against the onslaught of unworthy cravings.
The Bhagavad-Gita reveals how we can find this place. It’s nothing mystical or hard to understand, but an asset you use every day. It’s your intelligence. This part of your mind empowers you to choose your words and actions, even when your impulses push in another direction. Think of it as your inner authority. When your mind suggests that you should do something, or it gives you an impression about what is true, your inner authority’s role is to think twice before accepting it. By putting your intelligence to good use, you can make wise decisions, reject excuses, and give your best effort towards continual growth. Even when you’re conflicted and struggling with thoughts and feelings that pull you in a million different directions, your inner authority can help you to determine which direction is truly worth pursuing.
It’s not enough to merely stop cheating. Instead, you need to use your intelligence to do the opposite of cheating. Instead of avoiding challenges, you need to embrace them. Instead of playing with fire, you need to respect your limits. Instead of making excuses, you need to think twice and evaluate ideas on their own merit. Instead of giving up, you need to give your best effort and gradually develop greater strength. In fact, these principles are so necessary that they are actually laws for recovery. Once you find yourself neglecting any of these laws, crumbling isn’t far away. Therefore, rather than measuring your progress by how much you think about change, or even how much you avoid negative tendencies, measure it by how well you align your choices with positive principles.
Let’s explore these laws in more detail, which lie at the heart of a successful comeback.
Law 1: Embrace Challenges
Imagine you’re stuck in a dark, cold well. Luckily, there’s a sturdy ladder that’s just tall enough to reach the surface. But before you start the hard work of climbing, you figure you have some time. The cold is really biting, and you want to get nice and warm before you start the long climb to the top. You break the ladder into pieces to make a fire. It feels really cozy for a few hours, but then you realize your mistake. You’re stuck and have no way to get out.
The moral of the story is: If you only think about your immediate comfort, you can make mistakes that you’ll regret later. Addiction is based on the desire to avoid unpleasant feelings like shame, resentment, or loneliness. Trying to numb these feelings with bad habits is like trying to get warm by burning your ladder to freedom. It makes you feel better for a few moments, but comes at the cost of losing your self-control. Intelligence is recognizing when your best interest is actually found on the more difficult path. By accepting reality and embracing your challenges, you can put yourself in a better position in life. Often, the only way out of your problems is by going through them.
Embracing challenges is not about punishing yourself or suffering for its own sake. It’s about aligning your actions with your values and purpose, and making choices that are better for you in the long-term. Therefore, embrace challenges that will deepen your integrity and well-being. Encourage yourself through each step of the journey. When you see these choices as serving your best interest, you’ll have a positive attitude that empowers you to keep going. That way, even when you make a mistake, getting back on track will be a return to something you love.
Ask yourself:
What am I trying to avoid through this habit?
What challenges do I need to do to face to improve my situation?
What kind of attitude will help me?
Law 2: Respect YOur Limits
Self-sabotage is when you make choices that incrementally lead to relapse. There are many ways to do this, but let’s look at the most common ones.
The slippery slope / playing with fire
Sometimes, self-sabotage begins on a sensual level. You experience something that sparks an intoxicating feeling, and you want to explore the possibilities of where it might lead you. You lower your guard to risky situations or behaviors, telling yourself that what you’re doing is an “exception” that it “doesn’t technically count.” You want to forget about future consequences and rules. Deep down, the hope is to be swept away—to cross the line without fully admitting you surrendered to the momentum that got you here. For example, you might scroll through sexually suggestive content on social media, reassuring yourself that it isn’t technically pornography, all while knowing that repeated exposure will awaken desires that gradually overpower your mind’s resistance. This kind of self-deception is seductive because it creates the illusion that you were a victim of circumstance, and therefore you can’t be held accountable for choosing to give in.
You can overestimate your willpower once. But after that, making the same mistake requires some self-deception and short-sightedness—you have to pretend to not know where you’re going. Instead, be brutally honest with yourself and respect your limitations. Some situations should be avoided entirely because they almost guarantee relapse, while others require caution and clear boundaries. For example, if you know that scrolling late at night makes you more vulnerable to temptation, then set a rule to put your phone away an hour before bed. If certain places, people, or routines make slipping up more likely, be proactive about minimizing your exposure. Create distance, set barriers, and add friction between yourself and the habit you’re trying to break.
A mild attitude of cynicism or indifference can fortify you against such temptations. Corporations are constantly using psychology to capture your attention, make you feel incomplete, and spark desires for their products. Without an awareness of how you’re being manipulated, and a mild spirit of rebellion, you might think you’re acting on your own desires, when they were actually planted by others. By reframing fantasies and desires as weaknesses to manipulation and compromise, they lose their power over you. Then, just like you remain cautious and guarded in a dangerous place, but you relax at home, be cautious around people and situations that spark desires that go against your integrity and well-being. And more importantly, actively seek out positive influences where you can relax and feel at home.
Ask yourself:
I have been chasing fantasies. But what is the actual reality of the situation?
How can I create distance, barriers, or friction to protect myself from impulsive moves?
Disturbing your own mind
Sometimes, self-sabotage begins on a mental or emotional level—where you disturb yourself on purpose, knowing it will trigger desires for escape. You might dwell on resentful thoughts, escalate personal conflicts, or obsess over the “evilness” of addiction in a way that keeps it on the top of your mind. For example, you might think, “I feel so lonely. I will never meet someone. In fact, everyone has rejected me because they’re all selfish. That’s why I deserve to make myself feel better. It sure would be nice to smoke weed again.” It doesn’t really matter whether you condemn such thoughts, because their presence in your mind keeps your focus locked on the very thing you're trying to avoid.
When you notice you’re getting lost in self-sabotaging thoughts, take a deep breath and gently engage your senses with the physical environment around you. Notice 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. As you do this, ask yourself:
Is this concern happening right now, or is it just replaying in my mind? If it’s just in the mind, I need to remind myself that thoughts aren’t realities—and I can choose where to focus my attention.
If the situation is real, how much control do I have over this? I need to accept what I can’t control and take action to change what I can.
You don’t need to eliminate disturbing thoughts entirely—that’s not a realistic goal. Instead, focus on what you do with them. You don’t need to believe every impression you have, or act on every impulse you feel. Instead, be conscious and intentional with your beliefs and actions, rather than allowing the struggle with disturbing thoughts to undermine your self-control.
Law 3: Don’t Accept Excuses
No one likes to feel ashamed of themselves. Even when we make serious mistakes, we often try to justify them to make ourselves look better. We blame circumstances or other people, convince ourselves we had no choice, or focus on others peoples’ flaws. There are endless diversions you can come up with. But no matter how clever the reasoning, the real purpose any excuse is to soften the guilt over something that, deep down, you know was a poor choice.
Making excuses is a form of self-deception that undermines your intelligence. Instead of thinking about what’s right and then guiding yourself accordingly, you hide your behind a mask of stories that justify your hidden intentions. In other words, you start with a desire and then bend logic to support it. This turns your mind into a tool for self-sabotage instead of self-mastery. It’s like a judge taking bribes from a defendant. This corruption comes at the cost of undermining your own determination, accepting lies as truth, and making poor decisions that have real consequences.
What makes something an excuse? An excuse is strong enough to justify pulling the trigger, but not strong enough to hold up to real scrutiny. It’s a kind of reasoning designed for the effect of weakening your resistance to something you crave, rather than to uncovering the truth. When you’re in doubt, imagine seeking feedback from someone you trust and respect. Would you be confident in your reasoning? There’s nothing wrong taking breaks or enjoying treats in moderation, for example. But there are also ideas that are obviously indefensible, like stealing prescription drugs. The more you expose your thinking about a habit under question, the more you open up the opportunity to find healthy alternatives. This is how you break free from self-deception and start making choices that align with your values.
There are two times when it’s most important to avoid making excuses:
During moments of cravings: It’s important to recognize that intense cravings come with crazy thoughts. Recognize this experience for what it is: a temporary state of insanity. Any thoughts that seem to justify bad choices cannot be taken seriously. Invalidate them all. As long as you don’t endorse any of these cravings as good ideas, there’s no need to wish the storm would go away. Just be patient and it will pass on its own.
After you make a mistake: Don’t let all-or-nothing thinking drive you from one extreme to another—expecting complete success overnight and then using the slightest mistake as a license to jump off the cliff headfirst into a binge. Progress isn’t about perfection. It’s about getting back on track without letting one mistake determine your whole journey. Even when you lose control, minimize the damage as much as you can, and get yourself back on track as quickly as possible. Allowing your mistakes to spiral completely out of control is a sign of making excuses.
Think of yourself as a truth seeker. Rejecting excuses is about sharpening your mind and deepening your understanding of reality and who you are. Every time you expose an excuse, you strip away illusions and gain a clearer view of your own strength, weaknesses, and purpose. This makes you more intelligent, more self-aware, and ultimately, more in control of your own life. Instead of being a prisoner to hidden biases and rationalizations, you become a person who sees things as they are and acts with real power. The more honest you are with yourself, the sharper your thinking becomes, the stronger you grow, and the more capable you are of achieving what truly matters to you.
Law 4: Don’t Give Up
The final step in all relapses is giving up. At some point, you realize that you’re reaching the point of no return. You could stop right there and turn around, but instead you say, “screw it” and impulsively keep going. Reaching this final step is the culmination of a slow drift that began with several moments of laziness and poor choices. You’ve given up way too much ground and put yourself into a weak position. You’re selling yourself short when you could do much better.
A warrior doesn’t abandon the fight just because it’s tough. Rather, his motto is to die trying and go down swinging. Give your best effort and you will discover what you’re truly capable of. Keep trying, and you will gradually reach levels of self-mastery that you never imagined possible before. The real test is to not give up even during the most difficult moments, and not just when it’s easy or makes you look good. Keep proving to yourself that you can rise above temptations, and in time, you’ll become someone who never even considers surrender an option.
Don’t Do It Alone
These principles are necessary laws to follow to reach full recovery. But you don’t have to do it alone. It can be very challenging to hold yourself accountable when it’s so easy to get complacent and let mistakes go unexamined.
A mentor is someone who helps you find a worthy goal, and calls you on an epic journey. As you work through each milestone along the way, let your mentor guide through the new territory. They’ve been through this journey themselves, so they’ll give you clear directions that save you the trouble of learning from trial-and-error.
Many of the enemies that hold you back are inside your own mind—laziness, dishonesty, fear, and so on. Until you call out their presence, they are free to act upon you. The problem is that while you think you’re “getting away with it”, they’re the ones who are in actual control. The solution is to be transparent with a mentor, and give up all dishonesty or hiding. This choice will dispel all illusions and reveal exactly what you need to work on. And once you have someone to hold you accountable, you will be saved from the temptation to cheat.
The greatest test is persistence. When you face setbacks, your mind will look for reasons to quit—convincing you that change is impossible or that your struggles mean you’re doomed to fail. Doubts and excuses thrive when you keep your thoughts to yourself and never question them. Therefore, when you feel tempted to justify bad choices, run your reasoning by your mentor. Write down any excuses you’ve used in the past, and scrutinize them together. Once you see through your excuses, you will feel motivated to straighten out your character to align with your values, rather than using excusing to justify remaining crooked. This path is the lifeline that will lift you out of the dark pit of shame and forge you into a new person.
Until you’re able to control yourself without support, find a person or program who will help you. They might not align perfectly with your beliefs or preferences. But this doesn’t have to stop you. Use this discomfort as a motivation to graduate the program. Your goal should be to outgrow the need for external accountability, and not to escape it prematurely. Otherwise, simply knowing you can get away with cutting corners is a major trigger that you might not be ready for yet.
The most important kind of accountability is accountability for your choices. Everyone makes mistakes. But as long as you’re not engaging in dishonesty or self-sabotage, then it’s only a matter of weakness, and not cheating.
Informed Motivation: Escaping the Maze of Addiction
“An enlightened person is not shaken by the movements of the mind. Rather, he is situated as if above it all.” — Bhagavad-Gita 14.23 a-b
Breaking free from addiction is like finding your way out of a maze. If you keep making impulsive and short-sighted choices, then you will remain trapped, going around in circles over and over again. But by climbing the ladder to look at the maze from above, you can see which choices will free you, and which ones will keep you stuck. Now you know exactly when you need to go straight, left, or right, to reach the exit to complete freedom.
Now that you know the four types of cheating to avoid, as well as the effective strategies to counteract them, it shouldn’t be a mystery anymore which choices are keeping you stuck. It’s simply a matter of cause, effect, and choices. The cause of addiction is your desire to avoid feelings you don’t like, the effect is cravings for instant gratification, and the poor choices you make are the force that turn these urges into actions.
When you can clearly see the path out of the maze of addiction, this moment is truly telling. It reveals the most fundamental question—are you willing to quit when given the chance? And if not, what would it take?
Some people think of quitting a habit as a loss. Others, however, see it as an opportunity. The difference between these two people lies in what they value. The person who refuses to quit when given the change is short-sighted. He only considers how addiction feels good, while self-control feel bad at first. The intelligent person realizes there are more important things in life than comfort, which when given too much importance, can actually interfere with your self-respect and well-being in the long-term. Therefore, he’s happy to embrace some challenges for the sake of his own self-interest.
So how do we shift from being guided by our impulses to prioritizing our values? Do we have to hit rock bottom before we gain enough motivation to try? The truth is that there is no such thing as “rock bottom”. As long as you’re still living, you can keep sinking to lower and lower levels of degradation. No external cause or mechanical process can make you choose the higher path. It has to come from your own heart, when you commit yourself to the journey, after understanding what’s required to be successful.
Everyone has reasons they want to change. You might want to be a more reliable person for the people you care about. You might want to have a healthy, happy life. You might want to achieve something amazing. Whatever it might be, when you deeply understand why the goals and standards you strive for are worthy and meaningful, it provides a sense of purpose that can’t be taken away by any temporary setbacks. This knowledge of your own values will give you clarity, so that you can then develop the inner strength for complete success.
Self-Belief: Experiences of Success
Even after you commit to change, there will probably be some setbacks. But once you start this path you will never crumble. And eventually, once you’ve developed the strength and determination you need, you will stand, walk, run, jump, and fly — without ever slipping — just like you’re meant to. Self-belief comes from reaching new levels and realizing that you’re capable of more than you thought. Wherever you are on this path—even if you’ve failed repeatedly—this present moment is where the rest of the fight begins. Embrace your challenges, know your limits, don’t accept excuses, and don’t give up. Each time you say, “no” to urges and temptations, you gain a reason to belief that you’re capable of lasting change.
Thanks for Reading!
Understanding this knowledge is step one. But you need to go a step further to see how it applies to you. Click the link below to fill out the Relapse Evaluation Form. It will help you to identify key mistakes you’re making that once eliminated, will place you safely on the path to complete freedom.
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I’ve actually done coaching with Damodar for over five years now, and we’ve written down my whole life story together. I began to realize that my addiction makes perfect sense given my rough circumstances and sensitive nature. I also began to see my way out of it.
I’ve become more assertive and self-satisfied in my dealings with others. I’ve learned how to accept my feelings and take greater responsibility. The experience of having Damodar get to know me so personally, and still be warm and accepting, has been the opposite of shame. Now I’ve reached an entire year of sobriety. And I’m so grateful to him.”
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