Relapse Is Step #6. Here's How to Prevent It Earlier

Relapses don’t fall from the sky unannounced.
We make steps towards the point where the urges become louder than the desire to stay clean, pure and holy.

Fortunately, there’s a way to catch yourself making steps towards relapse way before the urge hits.

That’s where the FASTER Scale comes in.

This tool, introduced by Michael Dye in The Genesis Process, is designed to help recognize emotional and behavioral patterns before relapse. It gives language to our descent and points the way back up.

Here’s how it works and what it reveals.

The Goal Is Restoration

Restoration is a healthy state of mind.
The furthest you can be from a relapse.

Restoration isn’t just about staying clean.
It’s about living from a place of peace. It’s being “surrendered to God” in His terms, where you’re:

• trusting Him as your strength,

• living in honesty with Him and others,

• experiencing connection with God and people.

In the ideal world, we would stay in the state of restoration from the moment we receive Jesus to the moment we let out our last breath.

But the reality is different - we live in the world. We get affected, moved and distracted from focusing on Jesus.

Then we enter into the FASTER scale.

The FASTER Scale

FASTER is an acronym where each letter marks a stage that often leads to relapse. You never skip steps. The spiral looks like this:

• F – Forgetting Priorities

• A – Anxiety

• S – Speeding Up

• T – Ticked Off

• E – Exhausted

• R – Relapse

Let’s unpack them.

Forgetting Priorities

This is the quiet beginning.
You stop living on God’s terms and subtly start taking life into your own hands.
From full trust in Him and reliance on His power, you start to believe you’re in control.
You may not say it out loud, but your heart whispers:

“I’m in control now.
I know what I need.
I know how to get it.”

Taking ownership of your life, decisions, actions and choices is a good approach. Yet, Forgetting Priorities is when you start living without Him. Like a child who lets go of the Father’s hand.

You begin doing something you know you shouldn’t. You skip your time with God, Bible reading, devotion or any good habit you promised yourself to do. Your responsibilities are put aside. You procrastinate what you should be doing right there and then.

Because of the unhealthy ownership, pressure kicks in and you start to feel anxiety.

Anxiety

Once your foundation shifts, fear creeps in.

You focus on doing more things.
Worry grows where trust and faith used to live.
You try to figure it all out: how to fix it, solve it, do it alone.

And when that doesn’t work? You feel like you have to speed up.

Speeding Up

You go faster.

You work harder to catch up. Leaving all the emotional signs to pull over you unconsciously ignore and numb out pain, anxiety or even depression.
You ignore your emotional needs.
You start putting on a show, trying to look okay even when you’re not. You hide the cracks in performance and productivity. You’re able to convince yourself that more work will solve all the problems.
You’re unable to relax on demand. Coffee and sugar become a necessity to keep on pushing forward.

But the soul knows when it’s being ignored. The pressure builds.

Ticked Off

Eventually, the speed burns you. You feel irritated.

You’re doing more than ever, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. The problems are still there. The mountain of work hasn’t decreased.
People don’t notice your efforts. You feel invisible. The environment feels like going against your efforts to win in life.
You push people away.
You believe that you first need to sort out your bad attitude before going to meet people.

So the frustration builds toward others, toward yourself, even toward God.

Exhaustion

Then you crash.

Not just physically, but emotionally.
Tiredness, hopelessness and feelings of depression are signs of deep exhaustion.
You have no more energy to do the right thing.
Your motivation is gone. The will to fight fades.

And in that place of depletion and need for a quick fix, addiction starts to seem like a good solution.

Relapse

Relapse isn’t about choosing wrong over right.
It’s about giving up.

It’s not a moral failure, it’s a hope failure.

Your survival brain doesn’t care about right and wrong. It’s looking for relief.
And unless you're self-aware and anchored in God’s truth, you'll reach for whatever offers it quickest.

So What Do You Do?

You climb back before the fall.

Not by willpower.
But by awareness.
By inviting God into the places where you struggle to trust.
By checking in daily before you drift too far.

For some of us, procrastination is the first signal.
It’s a subtle sign that we’re stepping away from our deeper purpose.

You don’t move up the FASTER scale.
You step off completely.

Take time to recognize the specific steps you take to move down the FASTER scale.

Journal to get to know your emotional patterns.

Find someone you trust to keep you accountable, not to avoid relapsing but to avoid procrastinating and putting off responsibilities.

One Last Word

Restoration is not a destination.
It’s a journey.

Every day, we’re called back to truth. Back to surrender. Back to the healthy relationship with God, where we rely on Him.

Self-awareness isn’t just self-help; it’s a grace-filled practice of returning to surrender to the One who restores.

Keep walking. You're not alone.