Basic Trope: An alcoholic (or other drug addict), who has become sober for some time, relapses into addictive use.
- Straight:
- Bob, who has not drank alcohol for ten years after being The Alcoholic, begins to drink to the point of drunkenness every day again.
- Alice, a former heroin addict, begins taking her prescription opiate pain medicine to get high well after her surgery pain is over.
- Exaggerated:
- If the story Aesop is Drugs Are Bad and it's a Very Special Episode.
- Within the space of a single week, Bob goes from ten years sober, successful, responsible, and generally with no traces of having been an alcoholic at all (and having been a Functional Addict when he was an alcoholic) - to being a homeless mentally unstable gutter drunk with a full Beard of Sorrow and a bottle of cheap aftershave.
- Alice overdoses and dies in her first day of using opiates again, even if there is no logical pharmacological reason for her to do so. (e.g. she only took one extra pill, she was doing managed use treatment so her tolerance was still high)
- Downplayed:
- Bob has one glass of beer or wine and stops there, and has no more, yet still feels guilty about relapsing after 10 years alcohol-free.
- Alice takes a double dose of her pain meds, but on her doctor's advice because of a sudden serious pain flare as opposed to wanting to get high/because her tolerance to opiates is still high, though people around her are still concerned that it's a relapse.
- Justified: In most treatments of serious addiction (as opposed to mere substance abuse) because most true addicts will have serious relapses (and even if they don't have a dramatic relapse, most abstinence-based addiction treatment such as AA or NA considers any consumption a relapse, so even if the relapse isn't a lost weekend type bender but an amount that would be responsible/moderate for someone with no addiction history, it's still a relapse and to be seen as seriously as a total slide back to the beginning)
- Inverted:
- An Addled Addict/The Alcoholic instantly goes sober with no help, treatment, or therapy and succeeds at staying such. When asked why and how, he or she gives a reason akin to those of sober people falling off the wagon (e.g. boredom, tragedy, being at an event with other addicts).
- The "wagon" is itself bad as it's a Scam Religion or an abusive relationship. Addiction is preferable and/or leaving it is the vital first step to actual healing and recovery.
- Subverted:
- Bob is forced to drink alcohol as a way to make his death look accidental.
- Alice is The Teetotaler who insists that Bob agrees with her ultra-strict views on drinking, and when he decides to stop following them she claims that he had gone back to his addiction even though he never was addicted.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob had already started to drink, which his killer was aware of.
- At least that what Bob says. Alice is actually quite moderate, and Bob really does have a problem.
- Parodied:
- One sip of alcohol makes Bob instantly, in the space of minutes, transform from a successfully ten years sober ex-Functional Addict into the aforementioned gutter drunk stereotype under Exaggerated, and a second sip makes him die of alcohol poisoning.
- Alice is a lesbian put into a Cure Your Gays program ran by a Heteronormative Crusader, that is hilariously over the top BS - and uses it as a dating service to find other women.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Bob does not have a drinking problem, and can continue to drink responsibly in moderation.
- Enforced: In a Drugs Are Bad story or a Very Special Episode in general, where the point is to Scare 'Em Straight
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Off the Wagon
