Which involves a series of CHOICES. Collect the funds, find a dealer, purchase the junk, cook it and inject it, then try to hide your "high" from others.
I do not think it is quite that simple. The recovering addict remains in a state of recovery forever; he is never cured. The factors that lead to relapse could be anything. I can envision a situation in which someone who has been “clean” for decades has some bad life experiences which weaken his resolve to control the addiction, and he goes right back into use. It also is not a matter of him making an active effort to go procure drugs. Drug users often offer drugs to others, unsolicited.
Drug addiction is a brain disorder. The only real choice is at the beginning, when one makes that decision to try it. After that, the addiction sets in and one can only fight against it. The fight never ends.
One scientist told me that his motivation for going into research was that when he was a little boy, he knew an addict who had been clean for twenty years. The addict had dedicated his life to helping others learn to control their addictions. Then one day the “former” addict disappeared—he had died of an overdose. This left a strong impression on my colleague.
Scientists are actively studying addiction and trying to better understand the addictive process. Until we can do that and come up with a way to truly treat the addiction, keeping addicts from relapsing is always going to be a challenge, one we fail much too often.